Reactions to alcohol and caffeine

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Alcohol - its effects on me aren't all that different to what you'd expect for a "normal" person, though it doesn't take as much, probably because I don't use it regularly. 0.5 to 1 pint of Guinness, it's a mild social lubricant and it can make me a little more extravert and "confident" than usual, 2 pints and I start to feel woozy and it seems to be dulling my thinking, and it seems to numb the part of my brain that's responsible for telling me "don't do that, you'll upset somebody," though it's never got me into any serious trouble, probably because my strong self-control is very hard to override. Much more than that and I start to get balancing problems and nausea, and I just want to go home and wait for it to wear off, and I feel ill the next morning.

Caffeine - I've often tried to use strong tea in the mornings to wake myself up, as I'm often sleepy for a few hours after getting up, but I haven't noticed it's helped much. I often notice an unpleasant "poisioned" feeling (as well as the sleepiness) in the mornings, and recently when I cut out caffeine completely, that poisoned feeling is much reduced, so I suspect it could be caffeine withdrawal, but the evidence isn't conclusive yet. Unfortunately I can't seem to stop drinking huge amounts of hot tea. Decaffeinated tea seems like the answer, but the packets don't tell me whether they're using safe or dangerous methods of decaffeinating it. Luckily I can live with green tea, which is fairly low in caffeine, but like I say, I drink a lot of it, so I'm looking for safely-decaffeinated tea so I can eliminate caffeine entirely without swapping one health risk for another.

In my mis-spent youth I discovered that large numbers of Pro-Plus (caffeine) tablets helped me to stay awake when performing in a band, and I felt great at the time, but then I had a bad experience with them at a party - my heart started pounding horribly fast, and I was in a cold sweat and thought I was going to have a heart attack. After that I just stuck to tea.

(5-y-o thread)

I like wine but even a glass of wine can make me very sleepy. My tolerance of alcohol is very low.

I love coffee. Caffeine doesn't affect me at all. I can easily fall asleep after a few cup of coffee.

Reading other people's posts, I can see that they are affected by alcohol and caffeine in different ways. So probably autism has nothing to do with how one tolerates alcohol/caffeine.

I hate the taste of all alcoholic drinks I've ever tried. All wine I've tried (and that's many due to my parents) tastes like vinegar to me. All beer I've tried (dad daring me to try it) makes me want to puke if I just take one small sip. All spirits I've tried burn my insides for ages after drinking them. Cider does not taste at all like apples, it tastes like rancid rotting vegetables.

I do not drink alcohol at all for this reason, and also because my meds would interact with it anyway.

As for caffeine. Coffee makes me hyper (which is a horrible experience). Tea does nothing to me (I like to drink Earl Grey tea, but only for the taste). Red Bull and other energy drinks give me palpitations and panic attacks. Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc, are unusually ok for me, maybe some mild hyperactivity, but they wake me up. I don't really drink coffee, just Pepsi Max or sugary Coke.

I have a ridiculously low threshold of tolerance to both alcohol and caffeine.

I'm addicted to dark chocolate at this point and I'm trying to stop or at least cut down because I know it contributes to my sleeping problems. Arrgh!

Caffeine just make me alittle more awake. Alcohol helps me relax but it makes me tired & I think I would pass out before getting drunk. I seldom drink thou & most I had was acouple beers at a time.

Getting drunk, well, I'm still underage, but I suspect I'm a bottomless pit for alcohol and get drunk quickly. It tastes bad, but then I think "Maybe I should try some more..."

Caffeine has literally no effect. Despite being ADHD I haven't gotten massive caffeine hyper spikes, but I do get hyper when I eat savory foods.

I have a strange relationship to alcohol. I have drank enough, but still have no concept of what drunk does and doesn't feel like. If you ask me, I feel the same after a couple drinks as I did before save for a mild stomachache and perhaps a bit more ease socially. I'm unsure as to whether this is me having a high alcohol tolerance or me having difficulty figuring out how my body feels. I sort of wish that I could get drunk more easily-- I could use a bit of loosening up.
As for caffeine, I believe my reactivity is average. I like a large cup to start the day but anything after 5 pm or so adds to my difficulties falling asleep. Too much coffee at a time can make me unpleasantly jittery or hyper. A regular cup of coffee also gives me shooting stomach pains, but this is usually only for a couple minutes, and I enjoy coffee enough to continue drinking it despite this!

I know this is old but I have this. Sounds become a cloud of nonsense when I drink.

Caffeine makes me pace around like a crazy person. I don’t know how I react to alcohol—I’ve never had a lot of it, only half a drink at the most

Sensitive to all drugs, mostly the negative effects

am largely imperious to all but elephantine doses of narcotic drugs. my body will not tolerate more than trace amounts of alky, it just goes right back up when I try it.

I don't drink often, but when I do it doesn't seem to have much more of an effect than on anyone else. The one thing it doesn't do at all is make me belligerent to others.

Tea and coffee do give me problems. They have so much caffeine that they can quickly make my heart beat go nuts.

I've always reacted badly to alcohol, and hate feeling groggy and stupid.

Caffeine makes me feel happy and energetic. (Withdrawal makes me psychotic.)

caffeine is a tool for me, when i'm feeling drowsy too early in the day I pop one. I don't take enough of it to get any kind of side-effect.

Same here for me. I don't drink coffee but I sometimes take Vivarin which is a caffeine pill that has about the equivalent of a cup of coffee. Most of the time I take it, it's because I got up early(for me) because of things going on. I'm fine taking one but I felt shaky & hyper the one time I took two. I have a tremor disorder thou that some meds have aggravated before so that may be why I'm sensitive to being shaky. I have drank a soda or two around the time I take Vivarin more than a few times & I don't notice negative effects.

Alcohol on the other hand makes me feel alittle buzzed & helps me relax & can help with my tremor disorder for abit but alcohol also kind of makes me tired. It's good for relaxing like in a social situation or after I've done some chores or on a special occasion but I only drink occasionally.

There has been times when I have taken a Vivarin a while before I had a beer or two & I haven't noticed negative effects from the combo. The Vivarin just doesn't make me quite as awake as it normally would & the beer doesn't make me quite as tired as it normally would.

ah, better living thru chemistry