caffiene pills as a substitute for coffee

That's an excellent question. I was wondering that myself. Would green tea work for a pick me up? Or as you suggest, caffeine pills?

I don't know what's wrong with hot foods or coffee and tea. Acid foods tell the stomach to not produce it's own acid. Bland foods do the opposite. My gastroenterologist never put me on any sort of diet, none whatsoever. All I have to avoid is my food triggers.

I drink my coffee with a lot of skim milk. 1/3 cup. I like the taste. I only put sugar in my tea.

I don't believe in supplements or drugs unless you need them. Caffeine is something you can learn to do without. Decaf coffee doesn't have much flavor but you can learn to not need the morning boost. Best thing is to not take anything that knocks you out before bed, and you will wake up better in the morning.

I mentioned trigger foods. There may be hundreds of posts on that subject and keeping a food journal to find your own triggers. See the search box at the top of the page! I had what I call "reflux events" - heaving of the stomach causing acid to irritate the esophagus. I found mine was "triggered" by certain foods - in my case all containing sulfites. But others have different triggers, so you have to find your own. It takes a while, maybe a couple of months or more, but it's worth it. Just avoiding acid foods is an old idea, not necessarily your problem. Now I can have my coffee and all my spices except dried ground ginger (preserved with sulfites), lemon juice if it's from a real lemon and not bottled with preservatives.

Do your own thinking and experimenting. Find your own problems.

If your reflux includes non-acid such as pepsin, which it probably does, then you do need to avoid acidic foods as they may trigger pepsin activation upon contact.
Thus even if acidic food themselves don't cause symptoms, but they are a trigger for pepsin, that is already present in your refluxed regions from a previous reflux event, to activate, and hence causing symptoms.
I try to avoid acidic foods but if I can't, I try to wash it down by something alkaline like a gulp of milk or even just plain water.

[From what I read, The only way to permanently deactivate pepsin is to expose it to substances with high alkalinity of Ph higher than 8.5]