The people who say they need 3 cups of black coffee to start their day are just addicts with a high tolerance that experience mild withdrawal symptoms each morning.
If you feel like that, it’s your body crying for you to take a break.
If you like an occasional cup of coffee or energy drink to get through something, then that’s fine. But if you ever feel like one isn’t working like it used to, you should take a break from caffeine to reset your tolerance, not up the dosage like an addict.
I mean y’all are both right, no? Caffeine is a drug but its addictive nature is nothing compared to other drugs.
The secondary point, as mentioned, is “who said anything about comparative addictiveness?” Is heroin not bad because it isn’t as addictive as meth*? How is that relevant to the point that coffee can be addictive? Saying “claiming coffee is addictive just shows you’ve never been on hard narcotics” is at the level of an ad hominem, as if their point is invalidated by their sobriety.
*I have no idea the relative addictiveness of either (or really any drugs)