J. Dotson
Many people visit Joe on a daily basis. And some visit even more than that. Some people have met Joe, but didn’t really like him. Still others have never even met Joe. I like Joe, but I can only stand to visit once every couple of months, or when I really need his help. It had been a long time since I last visited Joe, and I was in a bit of a fix that he could help me with. So, on my way home, I stopped in at a fast food restaurant, and ordered a cup of Joe. That’s right. This is about coffee. More importantly, though, this is about caffeine.

Coffee is a wonderful beverage, able to be flavored with chocolate, vanilla, caramel, milk, and all sorts of other delicious things. It goes well with donuts, cakes, and pastries. It is romanticized. The idea of sipping coffee on a wonderful spring day at an elegant café, or sharing a warm cup with your significant other ‘the morning after’ is an alluring, romantic prospect. It’s an amazing pick me up, and a great source of raw energy, (which is fueling the writing of this essay, by the way) and that energy comes from caffeine. Caffeine is a drug, a stimulant, more precisely, and it’s mostly harmless. Which is good, because it’s found in more places then you might think. Coffee, of course, has a large quantity of caffeine – anywhere from 60 to 90 mg per 8 ounces. Even decaffeinated coffee has some minute traces of it. An espresso, the self-proclaimed coffee-zilla, can have as much as 500 mg of caffeine per eight ounces. That’s five grams. If you dropped a nickel in an eight ounce glass of water, you’d see just how much five grams is. Drop in another nickel and you’ll have yourself the equivalent of a caffeine overdose, possibly even a lethal dosage, depending on your weight (Daniel). Caffeine can be found in other foods as well. Chocolate is a minor source, be it hot cocoa mixes or an eight ounce candy bar. Many teas have a high value of caffeine, but not nearly as much as coffee, barely half in most cases. Most carbonated drinks run the spectrum between tea and coffees. It is also included in several prescription and non-prescription drugs, such as painkillers or cold remedies. The fact that this natural stimulant is found in so many places tells me that it is mostly harmless – if taken with moderation (Drummond).

However, as with any drug, caffeine can cause addiction. According to the Webster’s New Explorer College Dictionary, 2003, addiction is the “compulsive physical need for a habit-forming drug.” From the same source, caffeine is “a bitter, stimulating compound… ...found especially in coffee, tea, and kola nuts.” The root of the word ‘stimulating’, stimulant, is defined as “an agent (as a drug) that temporarily increases the functional activity or efficiency of a tissue or organ.” Thus we can conclude that caffeine is a drug, and is therefore potentially addictive.

The primary problem with caffeine addiction is that if you pump too much of the stuff into your metabolism, it simply starts to shut down. Though a chemical chain reaction, caffeine triggers a state of stress in your body, causing it to produce adrenaline. Adrenaline is what lets sprinters run 100 metres in under ten seconds, helps a firefighter rescue victims, and helps you win a fight against a guy twice your size. But, if you have ever experienced an adrenaline rush, you know it has a serious downside. Once the adrenaline stops pumping, so do you. The chemical boost burns out the body’s functions temporarily, leaving you – hopefully – safe, at the expense of exhaustion. Normally, this is fine, but when adrenaline is produced for an artificial reason, say a cup of coffee, you end up exhausted for no reason afterwards. What’s worse is the usual response to this caffeine down is to drink more coffee! I’m sure you can see the cycle here. Before you know it, you’ve burnt yourself out doing nothing but pumping adrenaline through your veins. This is why ‘dedicated’ coffee drinkers can go through four double shots of espresso and still look like the living dead. They’ve burnt themselves out indulging in the drug (Veracity).

For those of you who have become a little concerned with your coffee consumption after reading this far, don’t panic. Like any addiction, the physical dependency can be moderated or broken entirely. Unfortunately, since it is found in so many sources, and is so readily available, relieving your addiction can be problematic. As with any addiction, quitting ‘cold turkey’ can result in withdrawals, ranging from intense headaches to sleeplessness to nausea, so it’s recommended to ease yourself back to a more manageable level. Switch a cup of coffee a week with a cup of decaffeinated coffee. Downsize from 32 ounce cups to 22 ounce cups. Substitute coffee for tea, like I have, though I still enjoy the flavor of an occasional cup of caramel mocha. Spread your consumption throughout the day, rather than downing it all in a fit of ‘the mornings’ (Thompson). I enjoy about a one and a half liter bottle of green tea over the course of a day or even a couple of days, rather than guzzling the whole thing at once.

I have a mild caffeine addiction, as one could guess by now. But I’m doing what I can to make sure it doesn’t dictate my life style. I love the taste of green tea, and the occasional tantalizing taste of a good brew of coffee mixed with some delicious chocolates, caramel, and topped in whip cream. I get along pretty well with Joe Coffee and his occasional unsavory habits, but I try not to visit too often. Otherwise, I spend the whole day on his couch, burnt out, exhausted, and craving more and more of his company. In Copia Cautus, as my family says ‘Careful amid plenty’. Take everything in moderation. That includes my visits with Joe.

Works Cited
Daniel, “What happens if you overdose?” Coffee and Caffeine FAQ, 15 Jan. 2006, Web. 23 May 2009.
Drummond, Karen Eich, “Caffeine” Internet FAQ Archive. 2008, Web. 9 May 2009.
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Federal Street Press. Webster’s New Explorer College Dictionary, 2003. 12 May 2009.
Thompson, Steve, “Breaking the Caffeine Addiction”, Associated Content, 9 Nov. 2006, Web. 12 May 2009.
Veracity, Dani, “The hidden dangers of caffeine: How coffee causes exhaustion, fatigue and addiction” Natural News, 11 Oct. 2005, Web. 12 May 2009