statistical difficulties

[miriam_e]

In a couple of places recently I've read the uncritical statement that caffeine and nicotine have some apparent protective effect against alzheimers. I find this difficult to believe. I have seen spurious statistical effects before and have to wonder if this is another. Did study control for the number of people killed by cigarettes and coffee? If people die earlier from cigarettes then a younger, intrinsically more resilient group will remain, who may well be less likely to get alzheimers, but not because nicotine protects; it would be simply that the cigarettes had already killed the most susceptible.

I know people are fond of saying that caffeine is safe, but I frankly don't believe it (to my shame I do drink caffeine). When I was a kid I embarked on an experiment with a friend at school to mutate fruit flies by feeding caffeine to them. Doesn't sound like a safe substance to me. Doesn't it strike anybody else as odd that caffeine producing plants are rendered fairly safe from pests. Why would that be do you suppose? Perhaps the insects are, in a sense, smarter than we are. I am almost willing to bet that some day in the future we will find that caffeine has been afflicting society with massive health problems that we have been studiously ignoring, just as we did for so long with cigarettes, and still do to some degree with alcohol.

Comments

[xxclovergrrlxx.livejournal.com]

"I'm convinced it makes me more tired overall, and the withdrawal headaches if I forget to refill regularly are annoying and painful."

i agree with this. but i really do like the taste of coffee, i also drink decaf all the time. and tea. and expensive micro brews. i seem to have this real fixation with liquids, dunno why. even those without caffeine, my favorite teas give me the same "ahhhhhh...this is nice..." feeling. my favorite tea at the moment is one made from blueberries. for me, it is about flavor, aroma, the moment. i can say this about all three liquids. at my old job, i was known as a beer connoisseur. girls would always pull me over to their table to help a customer choose an appropriate beer for their likings. i have been on private tours of 5 breweries, as well as visiting many more. i can't resist a new discovery and truly enjoy analyzing the flavors. with coffee, i am much the same. i know what brands i like, what roasts, what regions. i mostly buy a standard "okay" brand, but occasionally splurge, saving the beans only for certain special times. but i will not pretend i am not completely addicted to caffeine. it's difficult to wake up without it, i'm bitchy, my head hurts, etc... i'll drink a shitty cup of coffee if i must, but i won't enjoy it. you can't say it's COMPLETELY drug addiction, unless it's addiction to food/taste sensations. i won't argue that.

interesting what you said though. i also agree with your theory on pot. i know too many pot smokers that make up the most stupid ideas/excuses. one of my friends actually told me that he studies better on marijuana. i told him he's full of shit because i can barely have a conversation with him when he's high, he's too absent minded. and he failed several classes, heh. my problem with marijuana stems more from the frequency in which most smokers use. if they drank that much, anyone would call them an alcoholic, but they don't see it that way. it shifts the way that you perceive the world around you, just like alcohol, and that is what i detest about both. i don't think caffeine has quite the same effect, although i can understand the "happiness caused by getting your fix." idea. but caffeine doesn't make me perceive my reality any differently. that's what's important to me. who knows, maybe someday i'll give it up... but at the moment, i have no real reason/desire to. i feel more guilty about smoking and know that the time is coming that i will quit. i've been smoking long enough to start to notice ill effects and as these add up, my guilt is rising.

i understand the relief of letting go of bad habits/addictions. that's precisely how i feel about becoming a vegetarian again. the internal changes you feel in your body are wonderful and your choice is constantly reinforced just by your bodily functions! lol. this is something that the typical meat eater will never understand though. and this is why i just laugh when people try to argue with me about vegetarianism. i don't know if you're a vegetarian or not, but this is just my experience on something along the same vein.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Sorry I took so long to reply. I've been busy lately and yesterday was knocked out of action by... what seems to have been a caffeine withdrawal headache all day. :D lol Talk about well timed!

I was relieved that your reply was so thoughtful and pleasant. I had become a little worried that maybe I'd sounded a little preachy. I don't mean to. I certainly don't think there is any moral side to drug use or abstinence. And you shouldn't feel guilty for smoking. I have a theory that the guilt actually makes it more difficult to stop. It stirs up tension which increases the craving for a cigarette. It should simply be a matter of practicality. You want to run without getting breathless? That's a good reason to stop smoking. Morality doesn't even come into it. You want to lower the likelihood of a painful death from one of the many cancers related to cigarettes? Makes good sense. Not a morality issue.

Regarding your descriptions of enjoying coffee, I'm not convinced. :) I know how seductive is the smell of coffee when I'm wanting one. I'm also conscious of how the drug plays funny tricks with my sense of smell and emotions. I don't really like the smell of coffee, it just feels like I do. (I know how dumb this sounds though.) Also I try to remind myself of how disgusting coffee was when I first tried it. "How could anybody drink this revolting stuff?" I thought. Tea less so, but my first impression of it was not of a pleasant drink. I drank it to get the effect. Same with alcohol. Your first beer drink (remember that?) tasted vile. That's how it still tastes, underneath the alcohol's subtle mind-game. For me beer still tastes like that because I stopped at that point.

Yep, I'm almost completely vegetarian. I only very rarely eat meat, and then only if my body desperately needs it. My main reason for it is less to do with health (though that is a nice side-benefit) and more to do with empathising with all those consciousnesses; all those lives that are ended just so we can stuff them into our greedy mouths. I hate that our ancestry has so much predatory history, but I'm also aware that it means it's very difficult to shake it off the need entirely. At the moment I'm down to a meal of sardines every month or two if I've exercised too heavily or been working too hard or been ill, but even that is upsetting me. I expect the time will come not long from now when I won't even be able to bring myself to do that.

I keep thinking that if I can't kill them myself then I shouldn't be eating them. Hell. I won't even kill ants that invade my kitchen. :/

You're right that the average meat eater doesn't seem to understand the health or the empathy aspects. [sigh]

[xxclovergrrlxx.livejournal.com]

meh, i don't care if you sound preachy. i understand your point and i do think you have one, i'm just not ready to throw in the towel on coffee just yet (will i ever be?) lol.

honestly though, i've always thought coffee smelled/tasted good. my family has always been very into coffee and i remember when i was a kid (younger than 6), my parents had this neat antique coffee grinder on our wall that just had a jar on top, a hand crank grinding mechanism, and a cup below to catch the grounds. my dad used to let me crank it for his morning cup and i always thought it was really fun. i distinctly remember loving the smell of it. he'd let me sneak sips of his every now and then but honestly, i have been drinking coffee nearly every day since i was in um... 5th/6th grade maybe? i've always had trouble with sleep disorders and once i had to start getting up at 6 in the morning, my mom just started letting me have a cup of coffee (mostly milk though) every morning. good, bad, whatever. it's more ingrained in my routine than just about anything else (except maybe brushing my teeth). coffee is also very social in my family as we always have discussions over one or two or three cups of coffee, heh. i wonder sometimes if this is because that side of my family is scandinavian, and i think most people know that they rank highest on the list of countries that drink the most. i'm not suggesting it's in my genetics or anything, just that it may have developed as a lingering tradition.

oh and fyi, i do remember gagging at beer when i first started drinking it, haha. but to be perfectly honest with you, i still gag a little when i drink those same beers haha. bud lt/coors lt/miller lt... all of those common domestic beers are never really enjoyable for me, just cheap. not surprisingly, my favorite beers tend to have a roasted/coffee taste/aroma. my favorite beer is from a local brewery named New Holland and called Dragon's Milk. it's about 8 dollars for one bottle sized 22 oz... but oh so worth it.

about vegetarianism, we are very alike. i'm afraid i do still eat fish, but not really that often. i keep it in my diet because i love sushi far too much. but, health is a big factor in my vegetarianism and most fish is far healthier than meat, obviously. i was a vegetarian for a year, pescatarian for two years, but i had to stop when i was waiting tables at a bar that only served nasty bar food. our shifts were a minimum of 10 hours long with about a 7min break (if you're lucky) and the vegetarian options offered left a lot of holes in my diet. i've worked over 14 hours there w/o a break several times, a vegetarian diet just wasn't enough to keep me going under those conditions.
this bar also had a lot to do with the fact that i still smoke. if you smoked, you got a smoke break every 3 hours, but if you didn't... well, you didn't get a break. i needed those breaks just for my sanity sometimes, believe me. how many times have i gone back into that little room (we called it the "smoke hole" lol) and just kicked stuff or cried a little or meditated for 10 minutes, then felt relieved enough to get back to work and do it all over again? but now my situation has changed and i want to make some moves toward some healthier decisions. i understand what you're saying about guilt, that does make a lot of sense and i will keep that in mind. my girlfriend has just started taking a pill to help her quit smoking (against my warnings) so i will probably be quitting pretty soon here. i actually quit for a while not too long ago, until i found out she didn't hold up her end and her smoking around me all the time just led me to saying, "fuck it, gimme a cig". but i think if we can do it together, it's much more likely we will be successful. i really haven't been smoking that long anyways. i just started out of spite during my last breakup, haha. but that's another story...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I wish I wasn't drinking coffee, and have stopped in the past, and will again, but am not quite ready to do so just yet. These conversations with you and dorjejaguar are bringing me closer. :)

It does sound like coffee is more than just chemical addiction with you. I don't know whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing, or neither. :)

Wow! Work conditions are the pits in USA. We have laws against that kind of thing here. The weird thing it is in the interests of employers to keep their staff happy and operating at peak efficiency. Countless studies have shown that people become irritable and make many mistakes if they don't get regular breaks. But employers have constantly fought against improving workplace conditions. Weird. I think it is because most see themselves not as employers, but as slaveowners. All that time spent trying to undo slavery and here it is still, in disguise.

I completely understand smoking because your partner did. It's the same reason I started using heroin ages ago. I stopped decades ago, when we split up. Contrary to what people like to say, I'm finding caffeine much harder to quit. Ending opiates was a snap... probably because I never really enjoyed it. I loved being in the same state as my girlfriend, but that was all about loving her, not the drug.

[xxclovergrrlxx.livejournal.com]

yeah, we have laws against that here too... haha. i don't know what it is, but the restaurant industry seems to somehow be exempt from all that. waitresses get paid $2.65/hr. (vs. the normal mininmum wage of $7.40) plus tips, and i think it has something to do with it. because you make all of your money on tips, i think people don't really complain. they'd rather catch the next table instead of taking a proper break. timing is also really difficult when tables keep coming in. the only reason i was able to do that job at all was because i existed on free soup crackers, pop, and other girl's food, haha. at least we were all good at sharing.

that's crazy about heroine addiction. i have no experience with hard drugs, but for the past several years, my cousin has been battling this addiction. i grew up with her and for most of my life called her my best friend, but i have seen her do things i never would have expected. stealing from our cousin whom she worked for, stealing from her mother, she's constantly in and out of jail/rehab. it's odd for me to think that quitting caffeine could be harder than all that, heh. it sounds to me like it was a very mental thing for you though. unfortunately, even if you try to talk to her about it... it seems as though she just says what she knows you want to hear. then a few weeks or months later, i always inevitably find out that she's using again.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

That's unfortunate about your cousin. I guess she hasn't really found a compelling reason to stop. Complicating any argument against drug use is the fact that addictive drugs create their own need and thereby skew the user's value system in favor of continued use. It is a very difficult thing to disentangle it from your "normal" judgments because in a sense we don't have a normal way of thinking. We change from hour to hour and day to day. Something that I like early in the morning may irritate the hell out of me late at night. One day I'll love visiting the coast, and another day I'll wonder how anybody wanting to retain some shred of sanity could even consider spending any time there. One day I'll see a sunset that will leave me breathless with awe, and another I'll see a similar or even more stunning one that feels merely nice. Add drugs onto our shifting natures and it isn't so surprising that one day she'll see that it is ruining her life, then another she'll think, fuckit I need another hit no matter what. It is a pity.

My brother gave up cigarettes so many times that he once told me that he had given up giving up. But he did eventually kill the habit. How? He just decided to. He just never had that next cigarette. Afterwards he was pissed off that he'd spent so much time and effort trying and in the end he just did it because he had reason to.

I think I was never particularly interested in heroin in the first place, so stopping never presented a great problem. My values all lie in another direction. I've known all along that speed was the drug I'd have to be careful of, so I avoided it. I think I might have had difficulty getting off that if I'd been unwise enough to get involved. I don't know... I have a feeling that my ability to think clearly is too valuable for me to get addicted to that either.

[xxclovergrrlxx.livejournal.com]

oops. this is late, but i've been avoiding the internets as of late haha.

i really liked what you said about our shifting nature. it reminds me a lot of a buddhist concept called the 10 worlds. but since buddhism typically gives explanations/parables for what we do see in everyday life, it's not exactly interesting enough to provide an explanation... especially since you already seem to have a pretty firm grasp of the concept. i hadn't thought about applying it to drug use though.

i understand exactly what you mean about the drug thing. for example, i have heard that ecstasy is fantastic. one friend told me that the pleasure he received from ecstasy was a million times better than any sex he could ever have. i also like techno music a lot, but these two things frequently tend to go together. a friend of mine told me he enjoys techno music, but it always seems lacking whenever he's not on E so techno really just makes him want to do drugs. for this reason, he has found that he has to avoid clubs to avoid drugs. but for me, i've never opened that door so i am able to enjoy the experience just as it is and not constantly wish for something else. i have no doubt that i would probably enjoy E, i just don't ever want to go there. i'd rather just be happy with the situation as presented and not desire some completely harmful illegal chemical. i do believe that there is such a thing as having too much fun.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

heheh :) I haven't been using it much lately either. Been putting up with headaches for the last couple of days because I stopped drinking caffeine at long last. This time I won't take it up again.

The buddhist connection is interesting. Thanks for that. It stands to reason that it is one of the things they'd tend to see better than most. I have a lot of time for the thoughtfulness of buddhism.

Keeping away from something that you know you'd enjoy too much sounds weird on the surface of it, but I always remember some horrible experiments done decades ago, where some ghoulish experimenters inserted electrodes into what they thought might be the pleasure centers of rats' brains and let them press a lever to energise the electrode. (We humans can be such monsters!) The idea was that they were dosing themselves with pure pleasure. The poor damn rats ended up dying because they neglected to eat and drink, endlessly pressing the lever. That always stuck in my mind. But even more horrifying is that the experimenters were wrong; they weren't pleasure centers, but were to do with compulsion. So these poor little guys were trapped in an endless cycle of compulsive behavior. Nevertheless the concept of substituting fake pleasure for real pleasure is still a valid one. Real pleasure aims to make you better able to live (even if it doesn't always work out for the best). Fake pleasure is not related to life at all, and can much more easily easily get in the way of it.

[xxclovergrrlxx.livejournal.com]

that's pretty messed up about the rats. interesting though. yes, our society is very wrapped up in fake pleasures though, even aside from drugs. our materialistic yearnings, which many attribute to a 'pleasure', will eventually cause more misery. getting that camero you always wanted will only create more worry and attachment. be it just the natural unstoppable decay of the physical or an often inevitable scratch or accident. this is a very basic premise of buddhism. attachment makes real happiness unattainable.

regarding drug use though, i know many pot heads who need to be high each and every day to "feel normal", as they say. they say without pot, they are too stressed and don't feel right. but life is stressful! lol. they avoid actually dealing with life and it's problems by running to a drug which makes them feel that life is different. but avoiding reality is not helpful and just creates more stress when one is thrust back into it. it is very sad to me that some people's lives are this way. in buddhism, real happiness is attained by dedicating yourself to others and helping them find their happiness. self-centered happiness is too fleeting so the goal is to realize the connection between everyone and everything so that eventually, others happiness does become your own. most problems arise from the illusion that it is us vs. them and a need to establish your own superiority.

fyi, i'm not there yet, haha. but i try! i'm currently in the state where i still very much act on impulse, but i know enough to contemplate my actions afterward and try to do better in the future.

since you seem interested, i'll give you a small overview of the ten worlds. basically, the philosophy is that we live in an ever shifting state of 10 worlds/life states.

these are: hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity/tranquility, rapture/heaven, learning, realization, bodhisattva, and buddha.

the first 6 are called the lower life states because any human beings can experience these without much effort. they do not help much for self improvement. on the other hand, the last 4 require effort and are considered positive life states. however, it is said that all of these exist within us simultaneously. buddha exists in hell, realization in anger, etc. so no matter what life state you are currently in, the potential for greater is still there. it is also said that even though they are referred to as the "lower 6", that does not mean that there is no good in the bad. going through "hell" is often needed to develop empathy for others experiencing the same situation. "anger" can be redirected toward an oppressive force for the betterment of society. even the fleeting emotion of "rapture/heaven" can give us a renewed sense of purpose at times.

this concept is also used to attribute to the shifting nature, like we were talking about before. i read one book that described it in this way:

imagine that there are two people driving up a mountain. storm clouds begin to form and a light rain develops.
the first person feels the mountain is menacing. the sky then begins to darken and even worse! now it's raining! he is depressed and feels on edge.
the second person, however, is thoroughly enjoying the scenery. the mountain is beautiful and majestic in his mind. he sees the birds flying and the interesting mountain animals. then it begins to rain and he notices the interesting cloud formations. he enjoys the sound of the light pitter patter of rain on the windows and feels at peace, happy to experience this moment.

these are two completely different interpretations of the same event. it is obvious that it is not the external forces causing these feelings, although we often attribute it to them. but rather, it is the external giving rise to the "feelings" already within us. it is actually our nature, something within us, that is shaping our view of the world. once you realize it is not the external, but the internal, then you realize that your emotions/feelings/interpretations are not out of your hands. this concept helped me a lot with my depression. i still become depressed, but i realize now that i am actually in control. i may not be able to affect everything that goes on in the world, but i can affect the way that it affects me.

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

"Ending opiates was a snap..."
That's fricking amazing. I've had at least one friend die from doing just that. Maybe more, cause heroin addicts can be very hard to track.
I'm sure you're right, the fact that you weren't all that into it has got to make a difference.
You do seem to enjoy your coffee even if you question why and I doubt it seems like its causing much havoc so it's got to be harder to make a case for quitting that.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Your friend probably didn't die from heroin withdrawal, they probably overdosed on something else they used to take away the symptoms of withdrawal. I know you can die from alcohol withdrawal, but I'm pretty sure you can't die from heroin withdrawal.

There are two things that keep me using caffeine. I need to leave a window of 3 days for the headaches and sore skin and joints that I get from the withdrawal, and I value the little lift the drink gives me (even though I know it is probably simply alleviating the longer term caffeine-induced tiredness).

At this stage I am on track to giving caffeine up next week. Hopefully there will not be any visitors next Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

Well that's possible, however you can die from heroin withdrawal. Really. I think it depends largely on how long term the addiction is and how healthy the person is. And whether they have access to proper medical care.
Thankfully not everyone does have to die for it, but some can and do although with good medical care they probably wouldn't have.

Hokay, that makes me sad, moving on.

Good luck on your caffeine thing.
Perhaps you should put a sign on your door, or let people know to leave you be for those days.
My man when he gave up cigarettes for the last time, he'd figured out he needed to go away for at least 3 days. And he did that, and it was good.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It should be pretty easy for me. I've done it before. I'm a bit of a hermit, so unless someone makes a surprise visit, which is very rare, I should be able to sleep and read my way through it. The trick is not to have to stay up nights to meet deadlines like I've had to do before... and ending up on the caffeine again.

Your guy sounds like he's smart and considerate. Good strategy -- eases the load on you and him.

I know a lovely person who tries to escape when the stress of weaning off drink and smokes gets too bad. Unfortunately she visits another nice person who drinks and smokes. Oops.

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

It took my man a few tries to get that right, but yes, he's smart, he figured it out.

Good luck with your plan. :)

One of the biggest improvements in my life!

[(Anonymous)]

For well over a decade I had a major panic attack problem, generally triggered by odd heartbeats, and plagued the ER people a lot, thinking I was on the point of death. Then one day I got a bigger arrhythmia, and they did a full investigation, and the consultant suggested coming right off caffeine. (I already knew that 4 or more cups a day was too much, but thought I was OK with 2.) I tried it -- a couple of weeks of feeling a bit grouchy and maybe slightly slow, but... the arrhythmias and panic attacks disappeared almost completely. I still get a few, but around 1% of what I used to (i.e. average rate from at least one a day to a few per year). It really has transformed my life.

Re: One of the biggest improvements in my life!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

That's really encouraging to hear. I know a few people who've had to drop caffeine because of heart disturbances. It makes me wonder if perhaps it may be an important factor in the incredibly high heart attack rate in Western countries.

I have become increasingly concerned that caffeine has been making me more tired than I should be. It gives a short jolt of energy when consumed, but that doesn't last long and it seems that every biochemical action has a reaction.