alt Hacker NewsI only recently tried coffee for the first time in my 40s. I didn’t understand the appeal, but I suppose it’s an acquired taste.
What I’ve seen over the years from occasionally being around coffee drinkers in the morning didn’t look like joy. It looked like addicts, unable to function and singularly focused, until they acquired coffee in the morning. When outside of their normal environment with quick and easy coffee, this seemed like an annoying burden to deal with.
I had a caffeine addiction from soda when I was in high school, which I broke in college. It led to chronic headaches if I didn’t have enough. In high school I didn’t put 2 and 2 together to know why I was getting the headaches and my dad was trying to push to take me to a neurologist.
Nothing about my experience with was joyful, nor has it looked like joy when someone wakes up in an unfamiliar city and is frantically looking for the nearest cup of coffee before they can talk about anything else. I’ve seen this from multiple people on multiple occasions.
Replies
Those people were addicts, and not by a bit but deep into it. They should first realize their condition and then apply measures to get out of the hole. I bet they also had very poor sleep quality (regardless of length).
Like crack addicts longing for their dose, I've also seen people not able to work as functional adults until they get their precious morning coffee shot, and when on holidays their company ends up becoming a burden, not able to improvise, not able to stay in uncommon situations without a coffee brewer nearby for a couple days.
I'm a coffee drinker, and I take it around 2 to 3 times a week. To be honest, it takes effort to reach those addiction levels; I don't think it can happen without taking coffee every. single. day., which seems way too much honestly. Like "needing to drink hard alcohol every day seems odd"-levels of wrong.
Same with alcohol too.
>I didn’t understand the appeal
My personal appeals are the anticipation of the next dose, and the initial rush I get from it. I feel smart, motivated, and capable during this rush.
Aside from this, I think the smell is great and I really like it cold, with a lot of milk. I quenches my thirst like nothing else.
> What I’ve seen over the years from occasionally being around coffee drinkers in the morning didn’t look like joy. It looked like addicts, unable to function and singularly focused, until they acquired coffee in the morning. When outside of their normal environment with quick and easy coffee, this seemed like an annoying burden to deal with.
It's shocked me that this view isn't more common. Caffeine dependence often looks like addiction to me too, and I honestly don't think it should be as normalized as it is. People should know what they are getting into before they get hooked on the stuff.
I'm personally somewhat dependent on ADHD meds, but at least I've known that and made an informed decision. If I stop them suddenly, it takes me around a week to return to normal-ish levels of energy, but other than that I don't have any headaches or pain or anything. I think for me that's more than acceptable.