But I’d say (at least that’s my experience) it’s not a very addictive substance. Or it depends heavily on the person.
I drink 0-5 cups a day. I like the taste and I like drinking it in some social settings. I don’t need it in the morning to get my body awake. I can just stop drinking coffee any time for longer periods of time without any issues.
Once I was working in Bavaria for about 6 weeks. We drank around 1l of beer every dinner. Returning home I wanted to drink a beer after the first dinner. This made me stop drinking alcohol for two months and since I made this experience I regularly stop consuming substances that may be addictive. I never experienced this with caffeine.
Caffeine is physically addictive. You get withdrawals if you’re addicted and stop cold turkey. It does vary person to person. But most people get a splitting headache.
Maybe it’s not very addictive for you. It is for most people.
The way you are with coffee is the way I am with nicotine. I’ve smoked. I’ve quit smoking. I’ve started again. The most craving I’ve gotten for a cigarette was incredibly mild. Once I read that nicotine could trigger certain diseases that run in my family, I quit tobacco completely and I’ve never looked back. I haven’t had a cigarette in about 18 years, and quitting was trivially easy for me.
Based on this, I could say “Cigarettes aren’t very addictive. They’re easy to quit!” And of course, I’d be dead wrong.
That’s because they are. It’s just a socially acceptable drug addiction.
I currently work as a barista, but I’ve also previously been a pharmacy assistant in a methadone clinic for recovering opioid addicts.
Honestly apart from the paperwork and the stakes involved if one messes up, the jobs are pretty similar.
In my crash course to new psych techs about addiction I list off all the common legal addictions which goes something like this:
I tell them that mine is caffeine and my partner’s is nicotine, then we talk about motivational interviewing and then I move on to dementia.
Is it fair to say that no one is without some sort of addiction?
Iirc correctly in one of the John Dies at the End books the mc speculates that the puritans are getting high off their feelings of superiority.
Tweak off the weak!
It boosts our economy…
But I’d say (at least that’s my experience) it’s not a very addictive substance. Or it depends heavily on the person.
I drink 0-5 cups a day. I like the taste and I like drinking it in some social settings. I don’t need it in the morning to get my body awake. I can just stop drinking coffee any time for longer periods of time without any issues.
Once I was working in Bavaria for about 6 weeks. We drank around 1l of beer every dinner. Returning home I wanted to drink a beer after the first dinner. This made me stop drinking alcohol for two months and since I made this experience I regularly stop consuming substances that may be addictive. I never experienced this with caffeine.
Caffeine is physically addictive. You get withdrawals if you’re addicted and stop cold turkey. It does vary person to person. But most people get a splitting headache.
Maybe it’s not very addictive for you. It is for most people.
The way you are with coffee is the way I am with nicotine. I’ve smoked. I’ve quit smoking. I’ve started again. The most craving I’ve gotten for a cigarette was incredibly mild. Once I read that nicotine could trigger certain diseases that run in my family, I quit tobacco completely and I’ve never looked back. I haven’t had a cigarette in about 18 years, and quitting was trivially easy for me.
Based on this, I could say “Cigarettes aren’t very addictive. They’re easy to quit!” And of course, I’d be dead wrong.