Very cool, if true

Caffeine addicts get no real perk from drinking coffee - it just returns them to the same level as the rest of us.

Isn't this something everyone knows to be true about almost all addictive drugs?

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Not everyone. You should have seen some of the discssion online about this one...

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Really? Where?

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channelpenguin.livejournal.com

what she said.

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ashfae.livejournal.com

Something everyone should know, but it's amazing how many people don't.

And yet my mom still keeps trying to get me hooked on caffiene. Her words, not mine. *sigh*

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This makes no sense to me. It's self-evident - every remotely self-aware smoker knows that cigarettes have long-since stopped having any effect on them and turned into a way to normalise an otherwise unbearable existence, and the same is true of caffiene - one of my favourite things to do, every few months, is a caffiene-detox - I just cut it out of my diet completely or at least mostly for a few weeks. It has a few notable effects:

1. For a few days I find it much harder to function normally in the mornings and after lunch.
2. Once I'm detoxed properly and past that, mornings get much, much easier - I'm awake when I wake up, I find it easy to get going, I don't feel lethargic or worn-out before the day begins.
3. When I decide I'm done detoxing, I go back on caffiene slowly at first, and boy, is it fun! Bouncing off the walls, huge energy boosts, the world is brighter, my head is a buzzier place.

In other words, I use caffiene as one would a recreational drug: with respect, and with frequent breaks, and that's really how it should be treated to my mind. And I don't even drink coffee - this is just soft drinks and tea.

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"Remotely self-aware" applying to, maybe, 10% of the population.

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mair_in_grenderich

apparently not a photoshop

Indeed! http://www.deansproperty.com.au/Home/Profiles

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There must be an antonym to "customer facing".

Customer defacing perhaps?

As to coffee, I have one cup of real coffee per day, normally within half an hour of getting to work. I've done this for the last couple of months. Apart from that I generally drink decaf tea/water all day. From today's cup I still feel slightly wired, my fingers are tingly and I feel a warm glow I don't feel normally.

However I'm certainly not an addict to the regular coffee drinkers level, so I don't doubt that many people are bought back to baseline by regular coffee drinking.

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If you're still wired from coffee each morning even after a few months then presumably your consumption levels are low enough that you haven't built up a resistence yet, so from your POV any dependency would be psychological in any case?

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I certainly don't feel any dependency, I guess my point was that I drink coffee regularly and get a hit from it still (probably as I drink it in small quantities). I was just giving an anecdote against the line from the article "regular coffee drinkers may get no real pick-me-up from their morning cup".

Maybe this is just good advice for all casual drug users. Kids, don't do heroin too often, you won't enjoy it so much.

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Oh, I mean, you're quite right - different people build up dependency/tolerance at different levels anyway so there will always be anecdotal exceptions I guess.

Maybe this is just good advice for all casual drug users. Kids, don't do heroin too often, you won't enjoy it so much.
Absolutely. What's really not talked about (and probably just as well) is that it's actually not that hard - and not remotely dangerous physically - to have a casual herion habit. I remember watching a documentary about a whole bunch of perfectly normal people who, every few months, took (usualy smoked) heroin, made a nice weekend out of it as you or I might a camping trip, then went back to their ordinary, perfectly functional lives.

But as a general rule people are stupid.

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And there are people who have been addicted to it for many, many years, but are still perfectly functional, so long as they get their fix.

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*Sopranos vague spoiler with names removed*

There's a character in the Sopranos who, at one point at least, has a heroin addiction, but all that happens is once a day he becomes grumpy until he has his shot, then he passes out with a smile on his face. I'm glad they haven't gone the route of making him a jittery obvious addict.

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Yeah, largely the problems with herion addiction stem from the fact that it's expensive, frequently cut with bad stuff, and can get you put in prison.

If only there were something we could do that would get rid of these problems...

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If only! :->

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"But as a general rule people are stupid."

I heartily concur and I know one guy who has smoked heroin twice in his life and left it at that. I, however, know my addictive side and would never try it.

I think it is true to say that the danger of most things is mitigated if you know and act as if it's dangerous. It's safe to smoke heroin if you know and act as if it's a potentially life destroying substance, but as soon as you try it and think "that wasn't so bad, I don't feel addicted at all", your guard can drop and then you're doomed.

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don-fitch.livejournal.com

I've been told that this also applies to sex.

(I don't think I'll expand on this.)

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lpetrazickis.livejournal.com

Headline read as "Octomom wans off free Wi-Fi providers".

I prefer my reading.

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soon_lee

That caffeine thing is old news. There was an mid-90s study where they got coffee drinkers to give up coffee & replaced it with a non-coffee drink to which they could add caffeine, so that the participants didn't know if they were still getting caffeine or not. The study led to the same conclusion.

As a very occasional coffee drinker (one coffee a week), I get a definite hit from it; I used to consume a lot more caffeine until one nasty incident involving an assignment due, an all-nighter and No Doz.

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