I am an avid coffee drinker and a former cigarette smoker. While I won't deny that caffeine is addictive, the addictive power is so mild that it's mostly irrelevant. I skip having coffee on some days accidentally. The idea of accidentally going a day without smoking a cigarette is unfathomable. The times I've gone without coffee for a few days or weeks I have felt a little bit sluggish. The times I have gone days or weeks without smoking were nightmarish ordeals that consumed my every waking thought. Point being, I would be very careful to assume things about 'addiction' when it's a phenomenon comes in so many shapes and sizes.
I'll match your single sample of anecdata as a previous smoker from the midwest and occasional coffee drinker:
I never found nicotine addictive. It never compelled me to increase my consumption beyond a few cigarettes a day, usually in social settings. I never became a regular purchaser of cartons of cigarettes. It was purely a social activity as most my peers were smokers and participating in the smoke breaks was a huge part of socializing. But it never escalated beyond that, there was simply no draw and stopping cold-turkey was completely uneventful with zero physiological effects.
Coffee however, has such a profoundly stimulating effect on me, it completely derails my life for days after a lone day of consumption. It's a very on-vs-off modal existence, and if I fall into the on mode for more than a couple contiguous days, I begin craving it and actively seeking it out. And when I manage to finally resist those cravings, I end up going through ~three days of hangover-like withdrawal hell which if I'm not up for enduring will just push me back on the wagon to make it stop.
For me, coffee/caffeine is far more sinister and addictive than cigarettes.
Without disputing your personal experience, the parents anecdote is reflective of how most people experience the addictive qualities of nicotine vs caffeine.
"Conclusion: Dependence to traditional cigarettes and snus seem to be relatively similar while NR (nicotine replacement) was rated lower and coffee lowest."
The difference between my anecdote and yours is that everything I said is backed up by volumes of medical literature and everything you said sounds like you have a rare sensitivity to caffeine.
Purely anecdotal, but for me it was the other way around. Last January, for my New Years Resolution, I kicked my pack-a-day-equivalent e-cigarette addiction. Three to four days of feeling anxious, some weird eating habits, a few headaches, but I still felt fairly productive. In February, I tried to quit coffee. Nonstop headaches for the week, complete inability to keep to a sleep cycle, and the worst irritability I've ever had. (I was at ~3 cups/day prior to quitting) Everyone is different - and some people do have quite terrible caffeine addictions.
I suppose if my office gave out free cigarettes and the whole team grabbed one after lunch, I would have had a harder time quitting too. Caffeine is so ingrained into my work life that it's impossible to escape from.
What definition of addiction are you going by? Most seem to include some mention of 'despite adverse effects' or similar. Otherwise isn't it just dependence?
I don't know. I can feel a slight dependence on caffeine if I have been drinking a lot during some weeks and then stopping cold turkey (slight headache, possibly slightly more tired in a day or two) but it does not feel very addictive.
For a long period of time I only drank coffee during the week and not weekends, sometimes I stopped some summers and when I slept badly I stopped drinking coffee for a while. No problem at all with any of that.
I do like like the small energy burst in the morning when I'm working and I like the ritual when it is winter in Sweden it is dark and cold outside and you are freezing, then drinking a cup of coffee as you start up your computer is nice.
I have cycled between heavy consumption and no coffee intake at all. On the first few days I often had headaches and felt slightly depressive (I'm pretty much never feeling depressive otherwise) and unproductive. After a week or so off of caffeine I start to feel great until I restart my coffee habit (the first few days are amazing; it just tastes too good; it is social to drink coffee with friends, family and coworkers; etc.)
I think in particular with coffee there is if anything the opposite cultural bias. Being German, there's a popular Canon (loosely translated)
"don't drink coffee, coffee!
The Turkish potion is not for kids,
weakens the nerves, makes you pale and sick.
Don't be a muselman (muslim, archaic),
who can't do without it"
My almost 90 year old grandmother still talks like this about coffee and many people forget nowadays how bad of a reputation coffee had in the West until it got really popular, and despite not having many obvious bad health effects, and maybe even having positive ones.
that's surprising and I guess you're relatively young and don't have kids because I've actually still heard it sung by kids in kindergarden. There's also Bach's coffee Cantata in a similar vein, and quite a lot of fiction dictated to the allegedly detrimental effects of drinking coffee.
And sadly often a lot of it is tied to the image of the "sickly Turk" which is a popular stereotype attached to most things imported from 'oriental' cultures. You may remember debates about the hookah craze a decade ago or so.
