The Day I Realized Coffee Stopped Being Coffee | by Ravnirk | Aug, 2025

There was a time when I drank so much coffee that my bloodstream probably smelled like gas station coffee. Ten cups a day wasn’t unusual. Coffee was so normal that it stopped even feeling like coffee. It was just flavored water with side effects.

My daily coffee intake went something like this:

• Wake up at 6 or 7 > coffee
• Wonder why the first one didn’t hit > another coffee.
• Arrive at work > coffee with coworkers because it’s illegal to start work without one.
• Mid-morning > another.
• Lunch break > another.
• Afternoon > yep, another, you guessed it.
• Get home, boot up a game > coffee.
• Midnight? Yep. Another one. Coffee at midnight was my version of a lullaby.

Coffee Became My Background Noise

The thing about drinking that much coffee is that it stops working. You don’t get the caffeine “kick” anymore. My body treated it as part of the background noise. Like taxes. Sure, sometimes I felt the jitter but for the most part I was running on auto-pilot. It filled the space between the thoughts.

Coworkers noticed too. I’d get little remarks like, “You drink a lot of coffee, huh?” which is the polite way of saying, “Are you okay?”

Maybe I was drinking way too much.

The Regret of Cold Turkey.

I had the brightest idea of going cold turkey on it. From eight to ten cups to three. Spoiler alert. It did not go well.

My head hurt so bad I felt like I belonged in a commercial about headaches where they have a magical cure. So, I gave in. I had more coffee, and immediately realizing that quitting cold turkey was the equivalent of trying to fight a polar bear by throwing chunks of ice at it.

So, I adjusted. Instead of 8–10 cups, I cut to 6. Then 4. Slowly and painfully, I learned to function like someone who didn’t think an IV drip is coffee into your bloodstream.

The New Rhythm.

Now I’m down to 2–4 cups a day. Sometimes five. Sometimes six. But it is more often 2–4. One in the morning, one at work with breakfast, and maybe another if I feel like it. I even try and avoid coffee at midnight. And that is crazy to me considering the past years.

And I do think I feel better. More clear mentally, less jittery, and more like I’m drinking coffee because I want to, and not because my body will riot if I don’t.

Sure. There’s a part of me that looks back fondly at the days when I was a human-disguised-as-a-goblin fueled by coffee, running on sugar and poor life decisions. But I don’t miss the dependency, or the fact that coffee had stopped being coffee.

Takeaway.

Coffee is amazing. I still love it. But, I do believe that too much of it turns it into background noise. And you lose the very thing you drink it for. Cutting down on it hasn’t made me a saint, or some expert green-tea YouTuber. I’m still me. Slightly less caffeinated.

And most importantly, my heartbeat no longer sounds like a drum solo on a metal band in a concert.

From the shadows, with ink, Ravnirk.