
A year without caffeine - sramsay
http://bryanalexander.org/2013/01/04/a-year-without-caffeine/
======
georgemcbay
Interesting start, but not much to talk about when this is just a setup for a
"To be continued" blog post.

"To be continued" is, IMO, a pretty terrible thing to do on blog posts... Why
not just hold off on publishing until it is, you know, continued?

~~~
jere
I think it would be fine if the HN post also said Part 1. I don't have a huge
problem with "to be continued", but in a post just called "A year without
caffeine" you expect something about a year without caffeine.

~~~
doctornemo
I was hoping to get it all done in one post, but the thing just kept growing.
The mad extent of my habit wasn't something I recalled all at once. Part 2 is
cooking up now. Maybe when it's done I'll paste 'em together.

~~~
csomar
And how do I keep up with your blog? Should I subscribe to RSS, reload the
page a few times in the next days or look if it made to HN?

You see, the problem isn't about getting the information quickly. It's not
stock information. It's about getting it complete. If I'm reading, I'm
allocating time for a precise matter; and when I don't get the result, my time
was probably lost.

~~~
doctornemo
RSS, if you're interested in what I normally think about: education,
technology, the future. Otherwise, you can use the contact form to send me
your address. I'll ping you when part 2 goes live.

------
jlarocco
I recently cut way back on caffeine.

I realized I was waking up tired and drinking coffee through the day, but then
I wouldn't go to bed till late because I had drank too much coffee. And that
would ensure I wouldn't get enough sleep and would wake up tired the next
morning to start chugging coffee all over again.

I wasn't sure the caffeine was even helping any more because I had such a
tolerance for it. And I just don't think I should need an energy boost every
day.

So I switched over to black tea, and I've been gradually switching over to
caffeine free herb teas.

I've found two benefits. First, I don't get caffeine headaches when I can't
get coffee. And when I really do need some extra energy, I can drink a coffee
and actually get an energy boost.

------
doctornemo
I started off writing the whole story as a single post, georgemcbay, but it
ended up being far longer than I expected. Part 2 is coming up soon.

------
tibbon
I had to go a few years without caffeine as well.

I had always drank a great deal of coffee. I joke that my grandfather would
put it in my spill-proof cups as a toddler. At this point, I don't know if
that's true or not, but even when I was 6 or so, I'd order coffee at
breakfast. My household was definitely one that went through multiple pots on
a daily basis.

When I started playing guitar in 5th grade, I really looked up to my teacher
and we bonded over drinking espresso drinks from a small bookstore/coffee shop
down the street which is sadly no longer there. I got my first espresso
machine for Christmas in 6th or 7th grade. Fast forward to me working in
startups, and I was at betahouse in Cambridge making dozens of shots a day
with our Silva espresso machine trying to learn to get them perfect- drinking
all the failures to force myself to learn.

I was probably drinking at least 12 caffeinated drinks per day. I had terrible
headaches without caffeine. Having it didn't help anything much, but it was a
life-long habit.

Then, when I was working at gamerDNA in Cambridge, I had just left a meeting
at Andala (where I had an espresso naturally) headed back to the office to
provide moral support for a code-deploy night (I wasn't coding at this point
much myself).

And while crossing Mass Ave my heart suddenly started beating fast- really
fast. I went to the office and kept sitting down to check my pulse. It seemed
wrong. 180bpm? I must be counting in triple. I had a few others in the office
try the same. It was weird. I didn't feel right. I went homeward, stopping at
the neighbor's place next door. After an hour of this I had them take me to
the hospital. My heart had been beating at 180-200bpm for over an hour it
seemed. My counts weren't wrong.

It appeared that I had triggered some heart arrhythmia. It stopped on its own
a few hours later, but the long term diagnosis was to avoid all caffeine and
stimulants. The doctors were utterly shocked when they found out how many
drinks I had that day (around 14 so far).

The next week was terrible, between beta-blockers they put me on and no
caffeine.

I missed caffeine. But having even a small amount would send me into panic
attacks and arrhythmias (neither was fun). Finally, about a year or so ago I
had a heart abalation which fixed my issue there completely. No medicine
needed. And no ban on caffeine.

Now I'm back to drinking coffee- albiet not as much as before (now 2-3
drinks/day is totally enough). I've also been able to get on adderall which is
a magic wonder-drug for me. If I had this in college and high school, I would
have been 10x more productive and a straight A student.

~~~
mtrimpe
I quit coffee 6 weeks ago. The first two working days were hilarious, as I
actually had trouble maintaining the focus to procrastinate.

The headaches lasted for a bit more than a week. I tried all household
remedies and only peppermint tea seemed to help although it might also be the
excess fluids. I tried to avoid taking painkillers (Ibuprofen worked like a
charm) but in retrospect I would probably accept a week or so of
Ibuprofen/Aspirin usage.

All in all it took about two week for my body to feel balanced again. After
that a few really interesting things happened though, namely:

* I could no longer get away with no breakfast or morning routine, whereas before I would just drink a coffee and be ready to walk out the door.

* It seemed that I used caffeine as an external motivator which kept me 'just doing stuff' and actually had to relearn how to choose goals and focus on them.

* I had to accept that my mental acuity was just a bit lower; even though it's now constant throughout the day.

* It now feels like my mental acuity is now linked to how physically healthy I am (as I've heard said many times), whereas that didn't seem to be the case all that much before.

All in all I realized that caffeine is very much like a self-inflicted Ballmer
Peak [1] and if you really try to keep your blood-caffeine percentage optimal
like me and the OP did, you'll destroy yourself in the long term.

[1] <http://xkcd.com/323/>

~~~
refurb
As a tip, I was doing some international travel and knew I had to reduce my
caffeine intake or else be forced into caffeine withdrawal.

I was drinking 10-12 cups of tea per day. If I stopped, the headaches would be
incredible.

So three months before the trip, I just reduced my caffeine intake by 1 cup
per week. The day I left for the trip, I could easily manage on 1 cup per day
and the days I never had a cup of tea were fine.

Quitting anything cold turkey is tough, it's easy to reduce the dose at a rate
that it's practically unnoticeable. Easier to stay abstinent if you don't have
withdrawal symptoms pushing you back to your old habits.

~~~
pc86
This is the only way I was able to quit smoking. At its height it was about a
pack a day (18-20). Every few days I'd reduce that daily number by one.
Eventually it got to the point where a pack would last long enough that the
last few cigarettes were stale and I'd have to throw the pack out. It doesn't
take too long at that pace to just quit altogether.

~~~
refurb
Glad to hear it worked for you as well.

I think the reason why this works is: (1) you still get to partake in your
favorite habit (2) the habit changes so slowly you don't really perceive it
changing (3) you aren't reducing the dosage so quickly that you lose any
effect [i.e. when I went from 10 cups to 9 cups, I still got a boost from the
caffeine] (4) by the time you get down to a reasonable dose [i.e. 1 or 2 cups]
it feels like something you could carry on forever (5) you can further reduce
doses by inserting holidays in between [i.e. one cup/cig every other day].

The nice part about this is that you can go as slow as you want. If you're
smoking 1 pack a day (25 cigs), you can drop 1 cig each week [hardly
noticeable] and it will take you almost a full year, but you'll get there
eventually.

------
darkarmani
It sounds like you have adult ADD and self-medicate.

~~~
mtrimpe
What exactly are you basing that on? Not snarky, I'm truly interested since I
fit the OP's description fairly well; luckily including having quit in
December 2012.

~~~
darkarmani
I'm basing it solely on the amounts of caffeine he was taking. If he feels he
needs that much caffeine to be productive it is a very large hint.

If you are concerned I suggest the book "Delivered from distraction."
[http://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Distraction-Getting-
Attentio...](http://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Distraction-Getting-Attention-
Disorder/dp/0345442318/)

~~~
jamestc
I thought you might be basing it on the fact that he couldn't even finish his
blog post.

~~~
doctornemo
Actually, I've never had a sign of ADD. I don't lose things, have decent
impulse control, can pay attention for long periods of time, don't job-hop.
Heck, I homestead and adore the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. :)

~~~
X-Istence
I don't lose things, have good impulse control, can pay attention for long
periods of time when something is interesting, and I don't job-hop ... but I
sure as hell have ADD and take Aderall for it.

It has solved so many problems for me. I can focus on menial tasks that I used
to dislike with a passion, I can work for hours on end without getting
distracted in the open plan office, I no longer have issues with not finishing
projects (although one problem I do have is working on too many at once ...)
and because of the aderall I no longer feel the obsessive need to speed while
driving (which is actually a sign of ADD).

Just because you don't have the ones that most people consider to be
associated with ADD doesn't mean you don't have ADD. I used to use caffeine as
well to be able to work and focus, when I stopped that my work suffered but I
was sick and tired of the side effects from caffeine. Aderall gave me my
sanity back, and work ethic. I am having a much easier time getting stuff done
and not procrastinating.

~~~
doctornemo
OK, I can check with family doc. But I'm not seeing any of the ADD or ADHD
symptoms.

------
JohnFromBuffalo
Patient to the eye doctor: "Whenever I drink coffee, I have this sharp,
excruciating pain." "Try to remember to remove the spoon from the cup before
drinking."

------
Mz
I kind of want to flippantly ask "Can someone shoot me an email when part 2
comes out?" but I suspect that would be viewed as snark and not accomplish my
real goal. So I will ask if anyone has any suggestions for how I can follow up
with this? (or on this? Not sure what the right phrasing is.)

Thanks.

~~~
gknoy
Check his blog again in a week, or tomorrow. His last post was five days ago,
so this post probably took at most five days to write. However, he obviously
is interested in telling the story, and likely knows what he wants to say in
part 2, so I'd be surprised if it took more than a day or two for him to write
that part out. I'm very interested in part two as well.

~~~
Mz
Crap. I thought of that already. I was hoping for something my brain damaged
memory didn't have to work for.

But thank you and have an upvote.

~~~
doctornemo
I'm shooting for a weekend followup, Mz. If you like, use the contact form to
send me an email address, and I'll ping you when it's done.

------
kyt
I'm actually doing the opposite. Up until a year ago I didn't drink coffee or
any other caffeinated beverages. In fact, I really didn't understand why
people liked coffee as the taste never appealed to me. Nonetheless I started
off trying mochas from Starbucks in the afternoon at work and noticed a huge
boost in productivity. I felt energized and started to cruise through
projects. Before I started drinking coffee I would get so tired that I would
have to take naps during the day (and this is on 8-9 hours of sleep). Now it's
a reason to get up in the morning.

I've switched over to normal coffee and I'm still a pretty moderate drinker
(5-6 cups a week). I don't drink soda either, so it's my only source of
caffeine generally. I think it's fine in moderation and there are definitely
some health benefits as well.

~~~
X-Istence
Have you been to a doctor and checked to see if you have ADD? I have ADD and I
used to use caffeine and it had the same sort of effects as the aderall that I
got prescribed. I stopped taking caffeine because of all the side effects I
noticed.

~~~
kyt
I haven't, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

------
alpb
The second I opened the web page, I said "nice new design Mr.Stallman!" then I
suddenly noticed it's not him.

~~~
doctornemo
I get comparisons to rabbis more often. And to the Taliban. Makes TSA
interested in me.

~~~
alpb
No man, you are like stallman for sure.

------
lazyjones
I stopped drinking coffee about 3 months ago, until then I had undergone
different phases with sometimes 2-3 cups/day (recent years) to 20-25 cups/day
(last few months at university). I stopped because I simply couldn't stand the
"routine" element anymore, I felt there was probably no real purpose, just a
habit behind my coffee drinking.

I did expect to sleep more, be more tired during the day or even become less
choleric and more approachable, but none of these actually happened. Needless
to say, I do not miss coffee at all. ;-)

------
durpleDrank
Used to drink 2 redbulls and a ton of coffee everyday. Soy Lattes were my fav.
Towards the end of my caffine run I was getting a shot of espresso put into my
coffee.

Anyway, about 5 months ago I got a huge pain in my abdomen, fast forward a few
weeks I had a mild stroke says my doctor. I can't eat anything acidic now or
else my body goes into weird fits. Seeing doctors etc. It sucks :P

I miss coffee so much, but being off it so long I realized it's not as good of
a pick me up as I used to think. Naps are superior to coffee.

------
monksy
I've cut caffeine out when I stopped drinking soft drinks. Its great. After
being used to the caffeine kick of soft drinks, you develop a tolerance for it
and it becomes necessary to perform tasks [without feeling like crap]. Now the
most caffeine I get is from very few and far between softdrinks, or through
unsweetened tea [which is a small amount, and interacts with your body
differently]. It feels a hell of a lot better to be off the stuff. [Also, I
never liked coffee]

------
doctornemo
Here's part 2: [http://bryanalexander.org/2013/01/06/a-year-without-
caffeine...](http://bryanalexander.org/2013/01/06/a-year-without-caffeine-
part-2/)

------
Dirlewanger
Cmon man, why the hell would you split something like this up???

------
X-Istence
I've been without caffeine for almost two years now. I too was a complete
addict, I would drink a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew upon waking up.

Since I have been without caffeine I have actually found it easier to stay
awake, stay up longer working on problems and I don't have the same downs
where I am craving caffeine or the shakes. I'm calmer, more collected and my
colleagues have to deal with less "abuse" from me.

So far being with caffeine has been a huge win for me personally.

~~~
wissler
If the Mountain Dew was not diet, I'd expect the sugar to make a huge impact
on whether you could stay awake.

~~~
X-Istence
The Mountain Dew was mostly diet, with some of the throwback stuff thrown in
at random.

------
kilroy123
I'm impressed people can drink that much coffee in a day; period. If I had
that much coffee, I'd be a nervous wreck! Probably would have a flat out panic
attack.

Too much caffeine started giving me anxiety. So I cut back to only 1 large cup
of in the morning, and that's it.

Seems like a good balance. I never have coffee after 10am, and if I do, I
can't sleep. On Sundays, I take a break and don't have any coffee at all. I
sleep much better when I give my body a break.

------
w1ntermute
I'm so glad I never got into coffee. I stopped drinking soda as well in high
school. I'd hate to be dependent on a caffeine just to get through my daily
life.

------
moeffju
I stopped taking caffeine about four years ago, and it was a very good
decision. After a few days of withdrawal symptoms, I became more focused, more
alert, would sleep better, would wake better, would be more awake even when
getting 'too little' sleep, and be way more productive.

I guess I should write a blog post.

~~~
pc86
No, write half of one.

~~~
dctoedt
The _second_ half of one, right?

------
gojomo
I expect the followup description of the 'cold-turkey' period to be harrowing.
Quitting from even a much smaller daily intake can prompt a several-day
withdrawal period of strong headaches (and other symptoms).

In my experience, it's best to taper off for a week (or several) before
eliminating caffeine entirely.

------
ryandvm
Strange he thinks Mountain Dew was highly caffeinated. Most "normal" soft
drinks have half or less caffeine than a cup of coffee.

<http://www.straylight.org/dave/caffeine/beverage.html>

~~~
recoiledsnake
You have to factor in the serving sizes.

Cup of coffee = 8oz

Can of Soft Drink = 12oz

Bottle = 16oz

~~~
jere
I don't get what you're saying. The link does figure in serving sizes. Sure, a
bottle is _slightly_ more, but that's negligible.

It would take nearly 36 oz (a liter) of mountain dew to equal a single cup of
regular coffee. If you're drinking that much Dew, you have bigger problems
than caffeine. Let's start with: your diet is now about 25% sugar by calories.

------
nnq
> “Either I hospitalize you tomorrow, or you go cold turkey on caffeine.
> Immediately.”

You do realize how _wrong_ was what your doc did, right? You never just cut-
off and addict from his substance like this! Yeah, for caffeine you can do it
without risk killing the poor addict, and probably with most other weak
stimulants too, with depression and occasionally getting dizzy because of low
blood pressure, but... I imagine your work productivity dropped to a record
low and this will last for at least a week! And gradually reducing the dose
would have prevented this and other inconveniences...

~~~
mtrimpe
His doctor got the patient to quit. One week of lost productivity is a low
price to pay for successfully turning someone's life around.

~~~
nnq
Why on earth should quitting be the desired outcome here?! If he's more
productive on coffee than off it, he should just reduce the quantity to
something that doesn't kill him... Just take care of the medical problem that
gave him the "gut pain", check your cardiovascular health, and considering
these two, adjust the caffeine intake to highest maintainable dose... _Wish
you happy sipping!_

EDIT: Ok, I read about the ulcers now. Yep, listen to the doc then, at least
until they heal, and then keep antiacid pills handy :)

------
steveplace
As with many other supplements, the devil's in the dosage.

------
dholowiski
What? That post says nothing about going without caffiene, that's a pretty bad
headline.

Anyway, sounds like he was self-medicating.

------
recoiledsnake
Anyone know what the pains in the gut were about?

~~~
doctornemo
Three ulcers, for one. That's in part 2.

~~~
gknoy
That's what I suspected when I read your symptoms. Thank you for sharing your
story, by the way -- I don't consume a lot of caffeinne, but I'd always
wondered whether it would have bad effects. Your description of your doctor's
facial expressions were very entertaining, as well. :)

~~~
doctornemo
Thank you!

------
rimantas
The most amusing thing about coffee for me are the articles which pop now and
then in the media alternating between "Scientists discover that coffee is bad,
because X" and "Scientist discover that coffee is good, because Y". Althought
lately I only saw a positive news. For me coffee is just a hot drink, it does
not affect energy levels at all. Neither do energy drinks, for some reason.
This can be unfortunate, because I have no means to fight sleepnes if there is
a need for that :(

------
frozenport
Caffeine made him the Übermensch. I should try it sometime.

