seriously! like how do you become addicted to coffee, I drink it regularly but I can’t say I am caffeine addict or something. how one become a caffeine addict?
seriously! like how do you become addicted to coffee, I drink it regularly but I can’t say I am caffeine addict or something. how one become a caffeine addict?
You don’t get ‘addicted’ to caffeine. If you consume it daily your body will adjust to the new baselines and discontinuing will have symptoms (headache for a day, tired, etc…), but it is not a clinical addiction.
Edit: caffeine does not have a “Substance Use Disorder”, merely a “Withdrawal Syndrome” (DSM-V pg. 482)
That’s simply not true.
Ignoring that the habit formation is the most effective mechanism towards long term dependence and why rehab/treatment from people who genuinely want to stop often “doesn’t take”, caffeine also causes physical dependence, with meaningful withdrawal symptoms.
No, it is not physical dependence. It is acclimation. A habit is not addiction.
Someone drinking coffee daily for years could stop cold turkey for a day, drink some water and take 2 doses of aspiring throughout that day and actually reduce their coffee consumption once resuming without realizing it due to increased efficacy returning to baseline. The person would go through that day normally despite the predicable headache from blood vessel dilation.
A cigarette smoker going cold turkey for a day does NOT have that experience. After the first hour or so every minute of the day would be thinking about needing a cig, and depending on the severity of their addiction could experience serious life-threatening withdrawal symptoms.
[Addicts] Anonymous meetings serve coffee and tea because it is not addictive. It never ceases to amaze me how insistent people are to defend this mistaken idea that caffeine is addictive and yet we’ll let teens drink it without restriction, and serve it to actual addicts.
Here’s an idea, if you genuinely believe caffeine is addictive start lobbying to set age limits to consumption, or protesting in front of Starbucks.
You very clearly have no knowledge of what the research on addiction says, because this is all complete and utter bullshit.
If physical dependence was the primary issue with addiction, weaning would work. Shockingly, it doesn’t.
Cravings aren’t physical withdrawal. They’re caused by your brain expecting a different balance of neurotransmitters than it receives. Your body also adapts in other ways to drugs to prevent them from killing you as you increase your dosage, but the entire reason you increase your dosage is because the prefrontal cortex is “designed” to decrease the stimulation of the same behavior as the habit is learned, and the goal of hard drugs (again, along with other thrill seeking behavior, and gambling) is to chase that high stimulation. That loop is why you constantly need more, and it’s the habit formation of that loop that defines addiction.
This is all very basic, well understood stuff. The actual low level details are hard to pin down, but the fact that addiction is habit formation caused by neurotransmitter fuckery isn’t something that’s debated by anyone relevant.
So well understood caffeine isn’t in the list of compounds forming addictions. You’re the ignorant one trying to equate a habit with addiction. I look forward to seeing you protesting in front of Starbucks and getting laughed at.
No, it’s the negative impact on lifestyle that defines addiction actually, but you can get addicted before even having formed a habit. Smoke a couple cigarettes the first day and you’ll have withdrawal the next. A couple hard drugs literally get you hooked first try.
Seriously, stop polluting this community with your ignorance.
Why would I advocate banning an addictive substance exactly?
I don’t support hard drugs being criminalized.
So you support freely dispensing addictive substances to kids? Because there’s nothing stopping kids from buying coffee from Starbucks.
I think your definition of addiction here is very narrow and most people would think that if there are withdrawal symptoms like you describe then that would qualify as an addiction.
I guess “clinical addiction” might mean an addiction which requires clinical intervention but I could imagine a hoarder who is “addicted” to collecting junk who requires a psychiatrist to break their pattern of compulsive behaviour.
No, the word ‘addicted’ is overused and simplified. People are ‘addicted’ to chocolate, and sweets. To their loved one’s kisses. That is not what it means, particularly to those that are, in fact, addicted. In everyday quaint usage it is cute. Meant to deflect accusations (internal or otherwise) of poor impulse control.
Real addiction alters body chemistry. The body doesn’t simply ‘acclimate’. It functionally depends on the addictive substance. Claiming a headache due to withdrawal = addiction is like saying shivering taking out the garbage in shorts during winter = warmth addiction. Not even close to going into shock and your heart stopping due to alcohol withdrawal.
Actual addiction alters mental thinking and results in negative lifestyle effects. When is the last time you sold your body for a shot of espresso? Does drinking coffee everyday cause you to avoid friends/coworkers or result in depression? Would you forget to feed your kids if the kitchen was out of teabags?
;tldr Addiction is clearly defined and caffeine is not one of the substances known to cause it. Hence why tea and coffee are served at most [Addicts] Anonymous meetings. “Like it a lot” is not the same as “addicted to”.
This is prefrontal cortex. It’s dysregulation of neurotransmitters, largely impacted by just how strong the dopamine hit is. Gambling, for example, uses the exact same mechanism as crack to form the neurotransmitter imbalances that lead to people willing to sell their souls for one more hit, and the physical withdrawal is pretty much irrelevant to that impact.
Caffeine is the same thing. It’s less addictive, but it very obviously is addictive by every definition.
I still disagree but can understand your perspective.