I used to be a caffeine junkie. Weirdly, however, after hitting a rough patch this year and deciding that I couldn't afford 4 2L bottles a day any more, I found that I was no less productive without it, and I'm far less anxious. I have an occasional caffeinated soft drink or green tea, still, but the non-stop highly-caffeinated Randall days are no more.
Congrats for kicking the habit, but to anyone that likes being addicted to caffeine and wants to save money, you can buy natural sources of caffeine such as kola, guarana, and yerba mate very cheaply online.
I second the mate. I love espresso and would drink it all day if I could, but it often leaves me feeling dehydrated.
Mate has mateine, by the way, not caffeine (mateine is a stereoisomer of caffeine). I don't know it has different properties and that's the reason or if it's the plethora of other constituents, but in my experience mate gives me a mild, persistent buzz all over my body as where caffeine goes straight to my head.
I hadn't followed it through to the source when I posted the Wikipedia link. That was a pretty cool little paper one of the mysterious admins of erowid wrote.
Yeah, but I found that even with the addiction, I wasn't interested in tasteless delivery devices. :) Diet Mountain Dew is fine, and Lipton's Diet Green Tea (which has less caffeine) is fine, but given that it doesn't really help me much, pills are too much trouble.
Also, it only took me about 3 days to feel normal, and a coupla weeks to not really want it very much, after 5 years of averaging between 3 and 4 2L Diet Mountain Dew a day. It helped that my wife was very vocal about how much less stressed I seemed; after I was off of it, she suggested I just stay off even when I can afford it, so I'm doing that for now.
