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Comment by randallsquared | Hacker News Reader

It took me a month of living with withdrawal symptoms and headaches to get over the addiction.

Let me just point out that this is totally not normal. I drink 10-15 (20-oz) cups of coffee a week, in addition to caffeinated sodas, and when I'd go off caffeine for a few weeks (as I used to do regularly), I'd have 2-3 days of feeling depressed from normal, and a very mild but persistent headache over the first 1-2 days of it. If someone has caffeine withdrawal symptoms for a month, I'd think something else is wrong.

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I take issue with his "coffee = bad" assertion as well. Maybe he was just drinking too much coffee. I know I was getting chest pains when I used to drink way too much, so I quit for a couple of years. Now I'm back to one french pressed cup everyday, although I don't need it, and I finish it well before noon. A little bit of good coffee goes a long way, and although no definitive link to good health has been found yet, medical research is looking into it because of correlations that have been found (just google "health benefits of coffee").

Actually it has been found to battle Alzheimer's disease. http://epicentre.massey.ac.nz/EJC/Stuff/PastPapers/Papers_20...

I'm not anywhere near an expert, but I wanted to point out that there is a difference (I assume substantial) between someone who drinks 10-15 cups of coffee a week for several years and then goes off permanently and someone who drinks the same amount but regularly stops drinking for a few weeks. The situation isn't exactly the same, but it makes me think of a person who's never run a mile before who can't do it any faster than 10 minutes and a person who runs a mile once every couple weeks and says "that's totally not normal; you should totally be able to run a mile in under 7 minutes" (whether you 'should' be able to as a level of physical fitness or not, it's unreasonable to expect of a person on their first attempt).

I agree. I deliberately stop drinking coffee for a month or two once in a while (just to prove myself that I can), and it never takes more than 2-3 days to completely withdraw from the physical effects.

Last time I did the "get off coffee to show myself that I can" thing, I was able to avoid the terrible headaches by pushing the "first sip" time back a bit each day, then reducing the amount. Initially about 11AM was the headache onset time, but after I moved my first sip back each day for a week, I found that I didn't get the headache onset till about 3PM. Then I reduced down the dose over the next week, which more motivated by the annoyance of mentally tracking "when can I (do I have to) have my coffee today". The two stages separated the task of having my brain produce its own wake-up/alertness state from dealing with the other withdrawal symptoms; and it turned what was a comforting morning ritual into a chore taking up time and attention.

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