Metabolic and Mental Health
Tina Quit Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol and Replaced Them with Healthier Options.
According to this neuroscientist, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol might affect the brain’s biochemistry.
Purpose of the Story
By providing a snapshot of the experience of a person who struggled with addiction to caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, my goal is to introduce alternative ways to replace them.
The purpose of replacement is to reduce the adverse effects of addictive molecules on our physical and mental health.
I articulate the critical points under ten headings using Tina’s story as a case study. This story provides information only, not health advice.
1 — Impact of Addictive Molecules on the Brain
Humans evolved with natural ingredients in food and drink format.
However, as we evolved and developed technologies, we found ways to extract specific ingredients from plants to enjoy their effects and use them as healing agents.
Undoubtedly, controlled drugs in medication saved millions of people's lives.
However, uncontrolled or semi-controlled ones caused mortality and morbidity to millions globally.
2 — Introduction to Tina’s Background
With a fascination with the human brain, Tina became a neuroscientist at 50.
She completed her tertiary studies after being redundant in her cushy office job in an academic library at 45.
During her tenure in the academic library, she had an opportunity to review and catalog thousands of scholarly books, theses, and journals.
However, after the emergence of the internet, the library she worked for many years had to make several other experienced librarians redundant.
As libraries undertook significant digital transformation initiatives, she believed that technology-savvy graduates appealed to the academic organizations from productivity and economic perspectives.
However, the real problem for Tina’s redundancy was her poor work performance caused by her addictive behavior toward some molecules.
I outline the key points and give a snapshot of Tina’s interesting health transformation.
3 — Tina’s Struggle with Caffeine and Nicotine
In her younger years, she smoked in the back office while cataloging books with her colleagues.
The office even had a tea lady who offered the employees tea and coffee hourly. Tina always drank her coffee by smoking cigarettes.
However, after the mid-eighties, like many organizations in Australia where I live, her workplace banned smoking in closed environments. So she was unable to smoke in her office.
This ban created an inconvenience for her. Thus, she attempted to stop smoking, but her coffee addiction prevented her from succeeding.
Her brain created robust pathways associating coffee with cigarettes.
Tina and her colleagues got used to the inconvenience by creating new habits.
Their excuse was to have fresh air every hour by taking their coffee in disposable cups and smoking outside the building with colleagues.
In a few months, this habit became a ritual, creating more robust neural pathways in her brain. Her brain was asking for more caffeine and nicotine to make similar effects.
Tina understood that she needed to clean the body from these molecules in her system to get the same effects.
4 — Dealing with Withdrawal Symptoms
Hoping she would enjoy coffee and nicotine more after a few weeks, she attempted to stop. The first few days were bearable, but she started feeling worse.
She experienced terrible withdrawal symptoms, making her feel miserable. Thus, she had to break her fast from these molecules to keep her sanity.
In her words, she couldn’t quit them. So she failed to achieve her goal.
Despite her willpower fueled by valid reasons like more enjoyment, she started drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes after five days.
Ironically, she enjoyed them more and gradually increased the amount again. The more caffeine and nicotine she consumed, the more her body desired them.
5 — The Emergence of Health Issues
Unfortunately, increased caffeine and nicotine in her system caused sleep disturbances. Since she couldn’t get restorative sleep, her stress increased.
To be able to sleep, she started taking alcohol every night to numb her stimulated brain.
Previously, she used to drink socially or sometimes with her dinner. Adding an extra glass of wine, primarily before bed, increased her caloric intake and caused more hormonal imbalance.
Within a few years, she experienced symptoms of chronic stress. Her cortisol levels were at the high end of the spectrum.
Her family doctor advised Tina to reduce her stress; otherwise, she might experience other health issues.
Not to her physician’s surprise, she started feeling back pain, joint pain, and muscle pain in various parts of her body.
Sadly, her family doctor advised that her inflammation markers were above the threshold.
She was put into anti-inflammatory drugs with pain killers. These medications reduced her inflammation and pain giving her a bit of relief, but painkillers caused addiction too. Her brain created new neural pathways for painkilling molecules.
After a year, she started having symptoms of brain fog.
Her sharp brain was struggling to process information. Her speech slowed. Her hands started shaking. Her mood got gloomy. She had difficulty remembering facts.
Due to sleep deprivation, she fell asleep in the afternoon, especially after consuming additional carbohydrates.
Her snacks included refined carbohydrates, like donuts, cakes, pastries, pavlova, lamington, and cookies that her friends brought to the office daily.
6 — Impact of Health on Work Performance
Due to declining health, her work performance significantly dropped. However, she was not the only one facing these challenges. Her colleagues of similar ages started having the same symptoms.
Tina and her colleagues started taking more sick leaves.
Her workplace allowed only 12 days of sick leave and 30 days of annual leave. After consuming those days, she asked her family doctors to give her a medical certificate.
After several attempts, her behavior and performance concerned the workplace. She had a few warnings about her performance.
These warnings adversely affected her mood. She lost interest in her work.
She considered herself lucky when the workplace made her redundant, paying her a reasonable compensation. However, she believed that every cloud came with a silver lining.
7— Opening of a New Chapter
Tina applied for unemployment benefits, but the government did not give her monetary support until she consumed the redundancy money.
First, she became unhappy. Then she created a mental plan.
Using the redundancy money, Tina decided to have psychotherapy to address her addiction issues. The sessions worked well as the symptoms of her brain fog diminished.
After the initial analysis, the therapist created an improvement plan.
The plan included a specialist who helped her to stop smoking. Then a dietician created a personalized diet to address nutritional deficiencies.
Her desire to drink coffee and alcohol decreased with an improved diet and smoking cessation. She did not feel addicted to alcohol, but she was to caffeine.
As a low-hanging fruit, Tina reduced her amount of alcohol consumption. She managed not to drink coffee after 3 PM. So her sleep improved.
When she started having a restorative sleep, her stress reduced. She got delighted when her cortisol levels normalized.
With the energy from the new diet, she started adding more exercise to her day. The regular movement made a noticeable impact on her mood. She enjoyed her memory and attention improvement.
This new chapter got more exciting for Tina. Her inflamed body started healing. The back, joint, and muscle pain were released. She wanted to do more exercise. She joined a health club.
The health club comprised practitioners, scientists, biohackers, bodybuilders, and athletes who enhanced her knowledge.
With their input and support, Tina discovered valuable information about emerging research on autophagy, mitochondrial health, and thermogenesis, accelerating her transformation.
These practices helped her make her body insulin-sensitive and leptin receptive, allowing her to lose visceral fat, acquire brown fat, and maintain lean muscles.
Adding cold and heat therapy to her regime further enhanced her health.
8— The Next Chapter Got More Exciting
Tina met high-performing people in the club. She made new friends and mentors who inspired her to achieve her goals.
She met a retired neuroscience professor who agreed to mentor her.
The mentor encouraged and helped her apply for a neuroscience degree as a mature-age student. The science college accepted her application.
The school program excited her since Tina loved reading and read hundreds of neuroscience books. Receiving the highest mark in each subject further motivated her.
In the second year, she found a casual job as a research assistant.
With this experience, the clinic gave her a part-time job in the third year.
Since she was ahead of her friends at school and gained significant experience in her career, she completed her degree with high distinction and an additional honors degree.
9 — Benefits of the Neuroscience Studies to Tina
Tina not only gained knowledge and discipline in academia, but she also learned more about her brain. But, more importantly, she became the healer of her problems by taking personal responsibility and accountability for her health.
In addition, she learned how to protect her health, reduce risks, increase her cognitive reserves, and prevent her body and brain from neurological disorders. Yet, paradoxically, she felt more energetic and joyful as she got older.
With this motivation, she completed a doctoral degree researching the addictive brain. Her cloudy days gave her insightful perspectives. She wanted to pass along her knowledge and experience to others who suffer from addiction problems.
She published her research in various scholarly journals. In addition, she became a public speaker to educate people with addiction problems.
After a while, she resigned from academia and opened her clinic, giving consultancy on addiction problems.
10 — Conclusions and Takeaways
The fascinating part of this story was learning about how Tina replaced caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol with healthier alternatives.
When I asked her about her replacement approach, she mentioned valuable insights I list as takeaway points.
As a neuroscientist, Tina believed that psychotherapy for addiction problems could be beneficial. Without this therapy, she thought her success wouldn’t be faster than she experienced.
Improving sleep quality was critical for her. She mentioned that stopping coffee after 3 PM was necessary.
Nicotine is addictive, but once it leaves the body, cravings naturally diminish and can be more manageable.
During the transition period, supplementing with mood-boosting molecules like lithium orotate, acetyl-l-carnitine, n-acetyl-cysteine, n-acetyl-tyrosine, creatine, choline, alpha-lipoic acid, CoQ10, some nootropics, NADH, TMG, SaME, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, and magnesium might reduce the withdrawal symptoms.
In her opinion, giving up caffeine was easier than nicotine as symptoms of caffeine withdrawal lasted shorter than nicotine. Withdrawal symptoms and duration might vary from person to person.
Besides, cigarettes might have other molecules affecting the brain for addictive behavior, especially harmful ones for the body and the brain.
Tina thought that the supplemental molecules mentioned above, in the proper doses, could replace the effects of the caffeine giving more energy to the brain without causing jittery effects and addiction issues.
However, before starting any molecules, she highlighted that discussing the supplements with qualified healthcare professionals would be essential.
Even though they are usually safe and publicly available, these molecules, especially the acetyl and orotate-bound molecules, can pass the brain-blood barrier affecting neural health and interfering with neurological and mental health medication.
Joyful workouts were another replacement option for Tina.
When she immersed herself in swimming, biking, tennis, basketball, and martial arts, her brain did not desire caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol.
Instead, these exercises created endorphins and enhanced her BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), giving her a good mood naturally and sustainably.
Last but not least, Tina emphasized the importance of nutrient-dense food for her physical and mental health. Her point on nutrition resonated well with me.
She pointed out that a lack of some nutrients could cause cravings. The body search for ingredients to address urges when we have cravings.
So, we look for supplementing with caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and even illegal drugs to satisfy biological and psychological needs due to deficiencies.
Interestingly Tina believes that if coffee and alcohol are used cautiously, controllably, and in moderation, they might benefit some people.
However, she does not believe in the moderation of tobacco smoking as its harmful effects on the body and brain are well documented in the literature.
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