How do I help a caffeine addict?

Question

Since he started living on his own last year, my old chum consumes a worrying large amount of caffeine. 2 x 2 litre bottles of Coke, a mug of tea, ten cups of coffee and 1 mug of hot chocolate were consumed by him when he spent one day last weekend visiting me. This is typical daily consumption for him. (Even on a working day!) I have politely suggested he reduce his intake somewhat but this was ignored. This cannot be good for him. He seems to be easily enraged now and has difficulty sleeping. I know his sister and when he visits her she sneakily gives him de-caff when she can get away with it and he does not seem to notice the difference. What can I do?

Answer 1

Caffeine addiction often goes unnoticed because its seldom thought of as a drug. People start to rely on it as an energy source and develop withdrawal symptoms should they try to quit. If you can first help him realize he has an addiction, then its best he gradually ween himself off of the caffeine so it will keep those withdrawal symptoms to a minimum and therefore make it less tempting to consume it.  

Answer 2

This is a tricky one because your friend will only be able to give up caffiene if he really wants to.

One way of helping, indirectly, is to change all your coffee and tea to decaf, but don't tell him you have done it. Even go so far as to put decaf teabags into your normal box of teabags. You could even put decaf cola into normal cola bottles, but the taste is too different so he may notice that . . .  but its a start.

Answer 3

Hide the kettle

Answer 4

Let him be...why would you try to control someone's life?

Answer 5

do what the sister does, switch the regular for decaf, regular coke for diet or zero coke, if he likes mountaind dew swithc it for sprite or sierra mist, hide everything that has caffeine in it or tell him that the coffee pot is broke

also tell him that he takes a lot of money from you drinking all that.

only buy decaf coffee.

get him an intervention or something like that.

also if he sees u drinking something with caffeine, he would probably want some, try drinking water or offer him some water, i bet u uu and ur freind would feel a lot better drinking water

Answer 6

Headaches are the worst symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. If he goes cold turkey it will take him about 3 days for the headaches to ease up.

For me, taking a pain releiver with caffeine, such as Exedrin helps with the withdrawal headaches.

Answer 7

Since caffeine is by definition is a drug he may have got addicted to it. My advice is to approach him out of the blue and tell him he may be addicted to it, he may take concern to it and try to get off of it or he might not give thought into it, caffeine is in a way like beer, people drink some in the morning to get rid of a hangover but then become alcoholics. caffeine dilates veins in the body which allow more blood flow, once the body is cut off the veins shrink causing headaches and stiffness of mussels so he may want to drink so more but make him take an aspirin or some tylenol. And give him de-caf tea and get him to try caffeine free sodas.

Answer 8

Wow.... as little as one gram of caffeine can kill you. Just tell him he might kill himself if he keeps doing this. If he still feels the necessity to take all the caffeine, raid his apartment or house every week and take everything that has a considerable amount of caffeine in his house.

Answer 9

I used drink a lot of caffeine. I weaned myself off and gradually slipped to diet caffeine free drinks. Get him to drink water to flush it out. It's an addiction all right. He'll have headaches, difficulty sleeping, and irritability. He can have one cup of hot chocolate or tea. Use decaff and make sure his stores are thrown out. Be understanding.  It's okay to drink one, but not an entire liter of cola. That's a lot of jitters and blood sugar attacks. His excessive drinking of caffeine can lead to heart problems too. If he smokes, this is worse for him.