[mindcrime]

Alcohol? Almost none. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a teetotaler or anything, I just rarely drink. I drank a little more in my 20's (who didn't?) but I'd say for the past 20 years or so, I average less than 1 drink / month, and probably drink enough to get a buzz less than once a year.

Caffeine: If you poke me, I'd probably bleed pure caffeine. OK, maybe not really, not anymore. On average I'd say I drink 2 or 3 cups of coffee during the day, and maybe 1 or 2 cups of green tea. And a couple of 20 oz bottles of Coke Zero spread throughout the day as well.

What I don't do, that I used to do, is consume completely ludicrous amounts of caffeine... in years past, I'd drink 4 or 5 cups of coffee during the day, then after work go to Starbucks and sit there and drink a can of Red Bull, a triple-shot latte, and maybe eat a box of chocolate covered espresso beans. And I'd do that sort of stuff 5 days a week and something similar on the weekends. Then I had a heart-attack. My doctors say caffeine is fine now, but in moderation. I don't necessarily claim that the caffeine per-se contributed to my MI, but what I believe did is the sheer stress of how hard I was pushing myself during the period. So I don't do that anymore. Not to that extreme anyway.

[chatmasta]

I’m not your doctor, or even a doctor, but I don’t think 2-3 cups per day + Coke zeros + green teas is considered “moderate” caffeine intake.

If I drank so much caffeine that I got a heart attack, I’d probably stay away from the stuff...

[mindcrime]

True. In relative terms though, I'm in a much better place now than I was.

That said, I probably could stand to cut down even further. What I have been slowly trying to do is move to not consuming any caffeine after about 5:00pm or so, to avoid having it affect my sleep. I read something here on HN that mentioned that even people who can fall asleep after consuming caffeine late, may not experience the the quality of sleep they need due to the caffeine effect. So cutting out Coke Zero after work will help with that, and reduce the total caffeine quantity a bit.