When I quit cold turkey I have a headache so bad I can't do anything at all for 3 days or so, and on day 2 I am bedridden with flu like symptoms(ive tried quitting multiple times).
My reaction to stopping is so severe, but I notice no issues while regularly consuming coffee other than I need it 1 or so hours max after I wake or I will have a headache all day.
I also feel low energy for weeks after stopping coffee.
It turned out that my heart rate had progressively slowed down over a couple months, dropping as low as 21 beats per minute. I was acclimated to it at rest, but my heart wouldn't beat faster regardless of activity level. I had to get a pacemaker that instantly jumped my rate up to 110 bpm. My blood pressure also shot up to something like 160/110. I had the worst "caffeine" headache I can remember from that. It was a long few days until everything balanced out.
I cherish my morning ritual pour-over or aero-press.
21 bpm was measured while I was bundled up like a burrito in a microwave for a cardiac MRI. The machine has to synchronize to your pulse to only collect data between beats. Since my rate was so low, each scan pass took about 4x longer than usual, while having to hold my breath. That was a very long hour of my life.
For a while it was a bit of a Dr. House episode, between the root cause being unknown, and the pacemaker having a reliability issue that needed debugging. I estimate about a dozen cardiologists poked and prodded me. They even had a "conference" with something like 30 people, and it being a teaching hospital, they also did a case study.
I'm doing a lot better now, thanks to smart doctors and the marvels of modern medical technology.
Speaking of Excedrin, I chatted with a doctor online once, and he said he knew of people who were addicted to Excedrin and it was dangerous (presumably because of the acetaminophen, which can kill you if overdone) and people should throw it away. I can see his point since that medicine combines an addictive drug (caffeine) with a dangerous one. Probably a fringe opinion, but thought that was interesting.
The only downside is that I have to be slightly prepared if I am not going to be able to easily consume my regular doses of caffeine. And if I want to cut/stop, it takes about a week or so to do so comfortably.
As for the glorification, I think it's really a glorification of workaholics, and 'needing coffee to get through yet another pile of TPS Reports' is more a badge of honor than anything else.
An addiction can work well in some environment but completely destroy you if your environment changes.
Also, I'm not convinced that caffeine addiction is completely overcome in the week or so it takes for the physical withdrawal. Even for myself when I decide to go through long periods of decaffeination, I find that my energy and motivation is significantly deteriorated from when I regularly caffeinate. Sometimes I wonder if my regular use as a college student permanently altered my brain chemistry. On the flip side, maybe this use set me up for the early career success that I might not otherwise have achieved.
Again, the problem is availability, and we've decided in this country (and most countries) that caffeine should be widely available. So it's not a significant problem, and is easy if slightly time-consuming if you need to update your context.
It's probably worth tying this discussion into applications to e.g. the war on drugs, but the language there tends to be so hyped up that it's too hard to have a good discussion about it.
Which makes you wonder how much drug use would be merely 'dependence' if we had free and easy access. I suspect it is a drug-by-drug case, depending on length of trip, relative incapacitation, physical dependencies (/withdrawal), rate of tolerance increase, etc.
Caffeine is a highly socially acceptable drug. Doesn't mean it's all that different from them.
Coffee is just too delicious, especially a well-made cappuccino. I think coffee as a guilty pleasure is not that bad to be honest. There are worse things to be addicted to.
The best way to enjoy a good cup of coffee, for me, is staying at a nice sea view condo.
And then early in the morning sit outside on the balcony, slowly sipping, enjoying the taste of coffee in my mouth, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, feeling the sun on my skin all while looking at the sea.
For me, there's no better way to start a day.
One day (I was about 20 at the time) I wondered "am I addicted"? So as an experiment I quite cold turkey. I didn't drink any coffee or tea for a week. I didn't get any headaches, and I didn't feel any kind of withdrawal syndrome. Yes on the first day I really felt like some coffee in the morning, but after not drinking it my body just accepted it. And I went on with my day.
After about a week of literally no changes, I concluded that I cannot be addicted. I went back to drinking coffee at the same rate and never stopped. It doesn't provide me much benefit (like concentration or energy) due to my very high tolerance. But I just really like coffee so I'm going to carry on drinking it.
I wonder if I am a weird exception, or if there are many others like me. We really like coffee but we are not actually addicted to it.
I suppose the same could be said about alcohol. Some people react very differently towards it and get easily addicted, while others don't even though they drink a lot and just do it for enjoyments sake.
Plenty of younger people (well I guess it's with juuls now) tell themselves they can quit whenever they want, and take break during a week of family vacation. No problem, so they keep on smoking.
5 years later when they try to quit they realize that maybe they weren't as bulletproof as they thought. I know for sure it happened to me.
Of course caffeine could be totally different addiction wise, and thankfully not nearly as deadly, but just some food for thought.
But I was actually thinking of trying it again for a longer period of time (~ 6 months) and seeing what happens.
I drink like 50 fluid ounces of strong black coffee a day and don't really have a problem on days I drink a lot less. One thing I do is avoid consuming significant amounts of caffeine after noon. That way it's a normal thing for my body to have cleared most of the caffeine.
Do you drink the 3 cups throughout the day?