Caffeine Addiction: Tips to Determine If You Are Addicted

Hi, my name is Beth and I am a recovering addict. Not from your most common substances like Cocaine, alcohol, or Meth. I am a recovering addict of caffeine. That is hard to believe but it is entirely possible to become addicted to caffeine from various sources. Your vice may be coffee, soda, or chocolate but it all contains the same thing, caffeine. In high school, it was nothing for me to drink 6 or 7 sodas a day. Caffeine can become a problem with your health and your life. Take a look into your daily routine and see if caffeine has gotten the best of you.

1. The withdraw test

If someone is addicted to caffeine, they will have some withdraw symptoms. These symptoms include but are not limited to:

-headaches

-nausea

-confusion

-feeling tired

To test if you are addicted, stop your caffeine intake completely for 2-3 days. If you start to experience the symptoms above or other symptoms than you may be addicted to this ignored drug. I was so dependent on caffeine that I could not drink enough to get energy from it. I became irritable, constantly sleeping, and barely eating. Thankfully I recognized that caffeine was the problem and decided to stop.

2. Morning Coffee

A lot of Americans have a cup or two of coffee every morning to jump start the day. However, your body becomes so dependent on that jolt of caffeine that it literally cannot function correctly without it. Caffeine has the ability to give you instant energy when you drink it. However, after the caffeine wears off you are left with the feeling of being exhausted. It is not worth getting a jump start for what caffeine does to your body and what you feel after the drug is gone.

3. Detox

There is one of two different versions of detox that you can use wean yourself from caffeine. You can quit cold turkey and suffer some pretty bad withdraw symptoms or you can do a gradual withdraw. You do this by switching to a decaf version of your caffeine drink of choice. Gradually replace the non-caffeine version with the caffeinated one. You will still experience withdraw symptoms but they will be less severe than if you were going to do it cold turkey.