When I quit I searched this subreddit for advice and best practices, but it was all over the place so here's a what worked for me:

The most important thing no one told me: I wasn't addicted to caffeine, I was addicted to the routine. Usual kettle, warm mug (iced in the summer), and ten minutes of quiet time.

But when I tried to QUIT, I forgot the most important part.. replacing it with something, to not lose the routine. So I was left with.. just nothing, which made it even worse, I felt like I was always reaching for the kettle and mug.

So, the entire story is about replacing, not forgetting:

1. taper down, don't cut out. 25% less each week. Because the withdrawal headache is the #1 relapse trigger.

2. replace the routine with something, even hot water & lemon so your hands aren't empty.

3. add L-theanine or functional mushrooms to take the edge off

4. sort your sleep, because the afternoon slump you're blaming the lack of coffee on is often lost sleep.

Two years on and I don't miss it a single bit. I get zero 3pm crashes. Happy to answer anything if you're in it, this sub got me through it too.

I’m 33 and I’ve been working for almost 8 yrs. When I first started working, I didn’t even drink coffee. I can’t remember when this changed. I needed to drink at least one cup of coffee on workdays just became normal.

If I had coffee after 3pm, I already knew that I wasn’t falling asleep before midnight. Then I’d wake up exhausted, I had to take another cup of coffee to keep awake. Then sleep badly again. Sometimes because I slept too late, I can clearly feel my heart beating very fast when I wake up. I also had random sharp pain in my chest a couple of times. No idea if it was the coffee, the lack of sleep, stress or all three together, but it definitely got my attention and I started to quit drinking coffee.

The first two weeks were sucked. Even though I knew that I can’t drink coffee anymore, but I’d just automatically walk towards the coffee shop every morning. So instead of trying to replace caffeine, I started to replacing the habit.

I tried herbal teas, caffeine free green tea, sparkling water and so on. Eventually I started trying different kinds of ginseng tea as well. As you can see in the picture, that’s what I have in my office. Honestly, most of ginseng teas have kind of earthy and bitter taste. But if it with jasmine, chrysanthemums and goji berries will taste better.

It seems that I have been caffeine free for nearly one year. I can fall asleep around 11pm, no more acne on my face, and my energy is steadier.

I’m curious if anyone else found that replacing the ritual was actually harder than quitting caffeine itself. If you did, what becoming your new daily drink?

Far from the cold-turkey brutality of what some people are enduring on here, but right now I'm striving to switching all 2-3 cups a day to green tea, steeped for 4 minutes or less (to avoid extracting too much caffeine from the leaves).

Many people on here seem to have benefited from first grading down from coffee to tea, and I've been hitting my double espressos hard for the past couple of years. I've quit cold turkey in the past, but that always seems to drive me into months of depression, so this is my attempt to avoid that as much as possible. I'm bad at tapering (if I do that I'll just relapse), so I figure anchoring my habits and sensory attachments to an entirely different beverage is a good first step.

Lately it feels like caffeine has been destroying my whole life; even if this isn't entirely true (there are definitely other factors at play), the fact that I believe it to be true makes it true for me, I guess. So here we go.

Fairly banal post, but this is about all the creative energy I can summon right now. Wishing y'all an excellent, lower-caffeine day.

Just found this subreddit a week ago or so. Quit coffee & caffeine cold turkey. Was probably drinking the equivalent of 3-6 coffees a day.

Stress was worse than ever 1-3 after quitting. At day 7 I’m basically completely fine and stress free.

TLDR: quit caffeine; stress went away. Took a week.

Hi,

I suffer from severe anxiety (GAD) and have been struggling for years to recover.

About a year ago I gave up alcohol while still drinking 3–4 coffees (with cream and sugar) a day. After about 5–6 months I started to feel much better. My motivation, drive and overall mood gradually returned.

Unfortunately, I started drinking again about two months ago. It wasn't much at first, but it ended with me drinking every day on a recent 14-day holiday.

When I got home, I decided to quit both alcohol and coffee because I know they both seem to play a role in my anxiety, and I'd read a lot of posts here about caffeine making anxiety a lot worse for lots of people.

Today I'm 12 days off alcohol and 9 days off coffee, and it's been brutal. My anxiety has been through the roof, the depression has been severe, and I've even had some intrusive suicidal thoughts (which are unwanted and seem to come with the anxiety but not looking to act on them). Mornings are by far the worst, then things gradually improve from around 4 pm onwards until the evenings are relatively calm.

This morning I just couldn't take it anymore, so I had a double espresso with cream and a little sugar to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, within about 30 minutes my anxiety dropped dramatically and the depression eased as well. It honestly shocked me.

Now I'm wondering whether trying to quit alcohol and caffeine at the same time was too much for my system. I'm considering focusing on staying alcohol-free first for several months, then, once I'm more stable, gradually tapering off coffee instead of stopping everything at once.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Did quitting alcohol and caffeine together make things much harder, or did you find it settled after a few weeks?

Any advice or shared experiences appreciated. I'm just trying to understand why reintroducing it made such a dramatic difference after 9 days without it.

Thanks.

T

today i was trying to relax with my bf and realized I couldn’t calm down. it had been a long day and , despite me being tired , my heart and mind were racing. I had two iced coffees today and im very sensitive to caffeine. I almost had a meltdown and my bf suggested that I try to get some support since this has been an addiction/issue of mine for years.

caffeine is really normalized and there aren’t really “support groups” I can attend every week. But I wanted to share my progress with people here going through the same situation. Tomorrow will be my first day without caffeine in a very long time , and I’m pretty scared. We’ll see how it goes !

I started drinking coffee daily in college (34 years old now). Around 25, my friend who also had terrible trouble waking up in the morning, turned me on to caffeine pills. I would wake up at 7 am, drink water and take 100mg, and go back to sleep only to have the caffeine wake me up against my will 15 minutes later. It actually cured my sleeping in and was the best thing ever. I felt super productive. This went on for many years, and eventually I just felt tired ALL the time. I could only feel good for a few hours a day when the caffeine balance was right. I had no trouble sleeping though, and would sleep through the night 8 hours, but I was just tired all the time, drinking 3 cups a day plus a caffeine pill in the morning.

I figured if I was tired all the time anyway, I might as well quit caffeine. I read tons of stories on this sub about how long it takes to get back to normal and how worth it it is. I decided to try it, so I quit cold turkey 2 years ago. The first month was weird - I didn't get headaches actually, but it felt like I stepped outside of my life. Everything slowed down and I felt some sort of peace but also a lack of motivation. Not in a depressed way, but I was just questioning everything in my life - like do I really enjoy this job that I have? I felt like a monk or something. The mental barrier to do intense work (I'm a researcher) was huge. I was super unproductive, and would drink a single cup of coffee once a week to just be able to get over the barrier.

I did that for about a month before going real cold turkey. It was about 2 months before I felt an innate surge of energy and motivation where I felt like I could just do things. At that point I knew I didn't need coffee anymore. I would think about it a lot though, and would experiment with half a shot of espresso maybe once a month or so. By 9 months or so I finally stopped that as well.

The change to my mind has been incredible. I feel like there is no barrier to starting work or doing tasks, I can just easily slide into whatever work I want, whereas I used to NEED a hit of caffeine to start intense tasks. I basically never feel tired anymore. Everything is just steady, I can work long hours if necessary and it's smooth sailing. The constant caffeine buzz is just gone and I feel at peace.

A few times over the last couple years I drank a cup just to see what happens and I'm extremely sensitive. It's wild, if I drink a single espresso or cup of coffee even at 7am, I won't sleep that night. During the day I feel an intense buzz, and I can barely fall asleep by 4 AM and i feel terrible the next day due to sleep deprivation. I don't even think it makes me more productive since I can work the same amount without it. It's just an intense buzz I can't get rid of. I can still feel the caffeine buzz 24 hours later. And the sleep is miserable its like a fever dream. It takes me 3-4 days to recover. I now sometimes get a decaf coffee while I work at a coffee shop and depending on the type of decaf, I end up getting bad sleep. So i just stick to herbal tea.

It's crazy to think how much I was drinking every day, given what my baseline sensitivity is. It's so obvious that the caffeine was the single root cause of my constant tiredness and lack of innate motivation. I can't imagine how different the chemical regulation in my brain was to accommodate a constant high level of caffeine. If you look at the math - say 8 hours half-life. 100mg cup of caffeine at 8AM --> 50mg at 4PM --> 25mg at Midnight. And with zero sensitivity 25mg is VERY noticeable. Then 12.5mg the next morning at 8AM (still noticeable) --> 6.25mg at 4PM the next day (still barely noticeable). And then finally by the next evening i'm at ~3mg. And this is assuming 8 hours half-life - as a hypersensitive person it might be 10+ hours. Now imagine I'm drinking 300+ mg / day, my baseline was probably at 100mg at all times. insane

Today marks day 39 without caffeine, and it's made me reflect on something bigger than just my own experience. Stepping away from caffeine has made me realize how dependent so many of us have become on substances to feel "normal" or to get through the day. Whether it's caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, or something else, it seems like so much of our society relies on external things to regulate energy, mood, or stress. It has even brought me to think about how birth control affects hormones and the impact that can have on a person's wellbeing.

My body is screaming out due to my caffeine addiction, I feel like a raisin lol

Hi all,

I quit caffeine cold turkey 4 days ago from a 600mg+ daily consumption. Wanted to check in about one of the withdrawal symptoms I have which is sciatica-like pain. I never had lower back issues. No pain, no soreness, nothing. But at day 2, I felt this burning sensation in my lower back and there is literally nothing I can do in terms of massaging or changing my posture that alleviates the pain. Sometimes it shoots up my left leg, but I don't feel any different in terms of strength during working out. When I have a flare-up, the only thing that completely eliminates the pain is an ibuprofen.

Just wanted to check in because this type of pain is not really listed as a classic withdrawal symptom as far as I know. In terms of other withdrawal symptoms I was quite lucky. My headache only lasted a day or so and my mood is quite good, no real difference there. My mornings are only a bit flat but I'll get used to that.

Anyone else experienced this type of pain? Did it subside? Tips?

Thanks!

Edit: I did a caffeine free period back in 2018, too and had the exact same issue. Back then I didn't push through so I don't know if it subsides by itself.

Tl;dr tingling and numbness in whole body, full body muscle seizing in a way where not even my tongue would move during speech, vertigo and vomiting, extremely laborious breathing. Do any of these extend past expected symptoms?

Edit: symptom + clarification

Not sure how to start this, but "scares" should paint a picture of where I'm at. Potentially undiagnosed for the spectrum, and I consider myself a heavy "dopamine seeker" in my habits. Big on energy drinks since I was in middle school, ramped up to multiple a day up til now when I find myself roughly 30 years old. Pain in my left side (roughly kidney area) prompted me to make the change and drink more water.

I started cutting back the 1~3 daily Monster Javas around two weeks ago, letting myself have one each week in addition to pop/soda with lunch and dinner. I have been hit by a physically crippling flurry of symptoms that I wanted to inquire about (for peace of mind/solidarity). I thought this would help stave off withdrawal symptoms. I'll list what I'm experiencing and I also recognize no suggestions are "medical advice" or what not. Planning on stopping entirely, but the muscle tensing portion specifically was so bad that had I been driving, I would have lost control. Thankfully my partner was taking me somewhere to get checked out, but still very scary.

1. Tingling in hands, feet, and the muscles of my throat that wraps around the back of my head to my earlobes.

2. Entire body "seized" or tightened up. It felt like my hand was clenched in a fist, but when I looked down at it, it was open as if to "high-five," while being nearly impossible to close into said fist. Also affected my tongue and speech.

3. Extreme dizziness in any position, except perhaps laying down. Following by vomiting.

4. Chest pains and labored breathing, made especially worse in anything other than a colder environment.

5. Hot/cold flashes

Do any of these go beyond what would be expected?

I quit coffee cold turkey and now I'm on day 2 of 0 caffeine (3 days ago I had my last coffee) and honestly it is super easy. This is supposed to be the peak withdrawal where I have bad headaches and feel exhausted and all that, yet I feel perfectly fine. Perhaps a little more sleepy but I slept that off already. No headaches. Just slightly lethargic. I was having 3-4 French press coffee cups a day for weeks, like 6-8 TBSP ground coffee. Now I'm having nothing at all.

Here's the thing...if you tell yourself that quitting coffee is going to be some terribly difficult ordeal you have to overcome, then you manifest that reality, psychosomatically. The mind is extremely powerful. And if you believe you will go through intense withdrawals, or that you need months to slowly taper off and quit, then you're only making it harder on yourself.

Now it isn't that your physiological symptoms aren't real (well, technically nothing is real because life is a dream, but I'm not denying you can have an experience the mind ordinarily identifies as physical withdrawal). It's that the physical and the mental are not two separate processes, as scientific common sense would assume. Those are only conceptual categories thought has created. The mental is the physical and vice versa. The world is a dream which is one movement of energy and thought calls this "reality".

So if you believe all the scientific propaganda about chemicals in your brain having a certain cause and effect (which can't be proven by the way since the hard problem of consciousness has not been solved by scientists), you will experience those effects as really happening to you. But if you see that all of that is just a construct of thought you have inherited from your culture, a compelling narrative, and that none of it is ultimately real, then you basically hack the matrix. You can quit cold turkey and feel fine. It's analogous to the Matrix movie where Neo bleeds in the "real" world because his mind is convinced that it is actually happening.

Now a big reason why people experience a harsh withdrawal is that they hold on to the same behavioral patterns they were using coffee to sustain. They try to push through boring, hard, mechanical work (which is inherently self-destructive) when their body is signaling to sleep and rest. They do this primarily due to a perception of social pressure, since modern culture emphasizes productivity to the point of making oneself sick. So this inner conflict creates pain and discomfort because you aren't listening to the body's natural intelligence. You are trying to force yourself to stay the same as you were while consuming a large dose of a stimulant and doing tedious work. The trick is to "get with it", to go with whatever you would normally call "withdrawal". Now the mind and body are no longer in conflict and this actually heals you. You wake when you are wakeful, you sleep when you are sleepy. If you feel pain, you feel pain, but now the mind doesn't interpret the sensations as pain because you are no longer at odds with your own nature.

Moral of the story: don't make a big deal out of caffeine, and it will not be a big deal for you.