Caffeine Withdrawal - Mental Illness

Categorizing caffeine withdrawal as a mental illness is crazy. It makes a mockery of serious conditions properly defined as illnesses.

From Philly.com:

Ask anyone coming down from the high of one too many cups of coffee, and they'll tell you that the headaches from caffeine withdrawal can drive you crazy. So much so, that the latest version of psychiatry’s bible, DSM-5, is naming caffeine withdrawal as an actual mental disorder.

...So what exactly qualifies caffeine withdrawal as a mental disorder? It’s more than just the splitting headaches and irrilabilty— caffeine withdrawal becomes a mental illness when it gets to the point that it actually interferes with your daily life.

In December 2011 when caffeine withdrawal was announced as being “recommended for inclusion” in the DSM-5, work-group member Alan J. Budney attempted to address the controversy:

“We feel that there is enough data to support a caffeine-withdrawal syndrome. There are enough people who go into withdrawal — that if they don’t get caffeine, it becomes a real syndrome and can affect work, sleep, or whatever they need to do. So we’re suggesting that it ‘make the big leagues’ and become part of the DSM to make sure everyone is aware of it.”

Good grief.

Are people going to try to claim disability because they experience symptoms when they stop downing coffee and other caffeinated drinks?

Something that "interferes with your daily life" can't be labeled a mental illness. That threshold is far too easily met.

Should sugar withdrawal qualify as a mental illness?

Let's call snack food withdrawal a mental illness, too - Cheetos Syndrome. It's ridiculous.

Lots of things interfere with one's daily life and are troubling, such as the stupidity of some in the medical community.