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 think the difference is there is no evidence that it’s a harmful addiction, growing evidence that stimulants like caffeine and Adderall protect the brain, and no growing tolerance, one big cup of coffee for me on weekdays & weekends for years, but even a small one will prevent withdrawals.
So yes, physically addictive but not unhealthy.
I wanted to add an anecdote:
I have on occasion had a migraine so bad that I couldn’t eat for days, vomiting, so the caffeine withdrawal headache just got wrapped up in the overall migraine.
A couple of times this happened, I figured I’d leverage it to quit caffeine. What was the result of these caffeine free months, or one time a year? More frequent migraines and about 3lb of extra weight. I found no upside to quitting, personally. The steady once a day caffeine helps prevent the migraines and keeps a little weight off, I like it.