Well I’m 26 days in and I still haven’t been tempted by a coffee and the headaches have gone so I’m feeling pretty good right now.

Interesting reading Drew’s comments as I started drinking coffee when I was 5 years old too. I don’t know how strong my parents were making it but I definitely remember having coffee and toast for breakfast most mornings as I didn’t drink tea for many years.

I wish I was able to tell you exactly what it was that helped me to make my decision with such strong conviction that stopping has been easy Drew, but I’m not sure I can. Reading Sam’s posts here on his blog were the final trigger that made it happen, and I think it was the discussion about how we can make a decision in an instant with such clarity, commitment and belief that we can stick to that decision easily that did it.

I’d been reading other material at the same time about our mental ’states’ and how you can change these in an instant too which I saw strong parallels with, so I think everything just came together at the right time and Sam’s posts were the tipping point.

Are you making your decision to move towards something or away from something? I think it helps if you are looking forward with an image of yourself and your life without the caffeine dependency rather than trying to escape from a situation that is currently ‘normal’ but not how would like it to be.

At the end of the day we all have to sort out our own demons but it sure helps to have a helping hand along the way, and maybe even a push at the end. I think Sam’s posts do that.

Good luck.

Steve

http://www.caffeineweb.com/?p=15

I have looked around for detox clinics that specialize in or at least offer a caffeine detox program – could find none. There are a 100,000 pills out there for every kind of ailment, none will help you get off caffeine. Whole Foods used to sell a caffeine detox supplement – they have discontinued it. I recently went for several months to a Phd psychotherapist/hypnotherapist – he has 4 decades of experience – I stated in our initial session how I’d like to break a life-long addiction to caffeine – he retorted that he would try to help me but explained all the amazing benefits of caffeine – in fact he almost always had a cup of coffee in his hand while therapy sessions were going on…!

A great book on this topic is ‘Caffeine Blues’. Some excellent points are made and lot of scientific data is there to back it all up. One biggie for me was the author’s point that all the researchers, doctors, clinicians, therapists – anywhere, everywhere – have an ever present coffee machine in the office break room. They will never isolate caffeine and look at it in any kind of objective way – they are all caffeinated themselves!

The site below is loaded with info from top-level institutions on caffeinism – these are studies from Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, etc:

http://caffeineweb.com/

Love the book and the blog.

I am addicted to caffeine in the truest sense of the word (as indicated by severe withdrawal symptoms) and have many reasons for quitting altogether. I have been drinking coffee every day since I was 5 years old (I am 36 now)…Hell, I was probably ingesting caffeine in the womb. I used to get severe migraines as a child and teenager – looking back I’m sure it was caffeine withdrawals — I just didn’t know it. Also I had and still have facial ticks and such….Its safe (and shocking) to say, I don’t know how I really am – off caffeine.

I started to get off again this week, made it to three days and fell apart this afternoon. Simply could not function in a work or interpersonal sense. Popped two excedrin around 7pm and now…back to ‘normal’. Of course I have zero support from anyone and in fact I am almost made to feel like I am Un-american or something by people I know. They cannot comprehend why anyone would want to get off this stuff. I collect old magazines from the 1940’s and also vintage commercials on DVD … they used to sing the praises of cocaine and cigarettes among other things too.

The only time I got off successfully was for seven days in 2006. I was living in Santa Fe at the time and was in a position where I could ‘fall apart’ (no obligations). What I did was chop up 200 mg caffeine pills into four 50mg segments. Whenever I felt a whopper headache coming on I would pop a 50mg pill and the headache would subside. I felt super tired and dazed, but it worked. I started up ‘the habit’ again because I am a ‘always in the cafe/working on the computer kind of guy’. As I grow older though, I am just less willing to compromise optimal health and wellness so I must and will be free….

The pill method will be my ’system’ again starting tomorrow, but I will expand it over the period of a month instead of a week to lessen the blow.

Just into my third week and feeling pretty good. I struggled over the weekend as I’m still really tired and this seems to kick in at strange times.

The big thing though is how easy it’s been as I have not been tempted to have a cup of black at all. I’m going to read through your articles again to see if I can work out exactly what the trigger was, as there was obviously something about your logic and the way that you presented your arguments that really hit home. If I can define that and work out how to apply it elsewhere then that will be a powerful tool! I know that is a very simplistic way to look at it but there was something about you articles that had an impact. I’m sure I can benefit from that elsewhere.

That’s all for now.

Steve

Three days in and the headaches are running with a vengence, however, I have found it really easy to resisit so far. It is surprising how it is affecting me this time, the main thing being that I feel absolutely shattered. I’ve been struggling to stay awake after 9:00pm and even though I’ve had to carry on for a little longer than that I have been needing much more sleep.

So far so good, but the key thing is that your series of articles helped me to make the decision to stop in such a powerful way that it has been easy. I can here voices shouting “so far” and fair enough, there’s still a way to go but it’s a good start and I feel confident about being in control here, that I can choose.

I’ll post an update next week.

Steve