Item — HN Reader

Seems like this would have been much easier if you used plain old caffeine pills at the denominations you wanted to work thru, easier to measure (split the tablets) and also removes the other pleasurable aspects like flavor of the coffee and pleasing aromas—those kind of subjective cues that compound the preference and addiction

Isnt what you're doing now basically—what it would be called for almost any other drug—"kindling" or something?

2 comments

Tapering down using Caffeine pills (nodōz) has been really effective for me multiple times in the past.

I have found it tricky to find a good starting dose, and it gets a bit difficult to break tablets into very small amounts (1/10th pill) tapering down near the end. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46417034

I would never try cold turkey again due to nasty headaches.

I've done it linearly over some weeks, but if anyone has tried non-linear tapering I would be interested to know what worked for you.

You can get powder and a digital scale, and there are relatively low caffeine pills. Alternatively, things like dark chocolate might be easier to cut to small doses.

Good idea. I didn't know about caffeine powder suppliments (for sports). Scales and gel-caps are something else I wouldn't think of without context.

My ears perked up when you mentioned linearly. Im curious now if an exponential or s curve would work differently or better

You can dissolve a known amount of caffeine into a known amount of liquid, and then partition the liquid.

Caffeine dosage is strange, because a fraction of the regular dose can remove withdrawal symptoms.

Like Low Dose Naltrexone.

Very cool

Possible, yeah. I still wanted to drink coffee, though - decaf. I enjoy it. So, went the long route.