SCIENCE: The Coffee Shakes are Worse than Puberty

I am well aware that coffee is a drug. A legal drug, to be sure, but anything whose absence can give me headaches, grumpiness, and leave me unable to function properly deserves the title. Under this definition, I also count "water" as a drug.

But for whatever reason caffeine's addictive powers are unquestioned, almost joked about, as though people's relationship to the stuff is permanently in the 1950s. "Oh that Henderson, can't make it through the day without his cup o' joe and his 5 fingers of whiskey!" and everyone laughs chummily.

Which is why the caffeine shakes, already a horrible feeling, of mixed anxiety, mild nausea, and, well, shaking, are even worse; because caffeine's very acceptance as a legal stimulant means the world expects you to regulate yourself appropriately and, if seeing you in a state of either severe withdrawal or serious overdosage, will look at you as though you're any other drug addict.

Not "they treat you like they treat crackheads," mind you, but "they treat you like your shaking problem, currently, is arising from crack."

It's odd that even the most regular of caffeine drinkers will still encounter the shakes on occasion; with most other regularly-used "drugs," say alcohol, there is usually some point in one's life where you stop being an annoying adolescent about the thing and, having gotten the "too much is never enough!" impulse out of your system, no longer, or at the most very rarely, indulge to a point where the casual passerby would point you out as troublingly intoxicated.

Okay, okay, so people still get wasted plenty after the age of 21, but when that happens, usually you either a.) aren't much of a drinker, generally, or b.) see it coming. With the caffeine shakes, I feel as though I've moved into another realm of addiction, one where need overwhelms logic entirely; I may know this next cup of coffee will put me over the edge into a realm of pure pain, but I'm tired, so it's going in my body. Or worse, I'm so out of tune with the amount of crap I've already poured in there, that I don't realize this is going to blow my mind...and my nerve endings.

And yet I never learn my lesson; in the next week of holiday madness, I'll likely get the caffeine shakes more than once in my efforts to stay awake long enough to plod through the monotony of working retail for hours on end...the sign of a true addict, indeed.

-Posted by Jilly