Lately I’ve found myself experiencing an increased feeling of energy and alertness, an elevated mood and a feeling of supremacy. This has been paired with irritability, paranoia, restlessness, extreme anxiety, high levels of energy and excited, exuberant speech. My friends tell me that these are symptoms of cocaine use, but as it turns out they are also the side effects of coffee.

I was never a fan of coffee growing up. Sure, my mother drank it, but I could never understand the appeal and had a hard time getting past the taste. Once I was living on my own I finally succumbed to peer pressure and drank several cups of black coffee late one night. I was told that all the cool kids were doing it and that if I drank coffee then I would look older. Being young and naïve I found it impossible to say no. Surprisingly it was quite delicious that time around and not so surprisingly it caused me to stay awake for three days straight.

From there on out it was a long, dark, lonely road and I began selling my personal belongings and taking poorly planned cash advances just to get my Starbuck’s fix. Soon after that the coffee was happening more often. It was no longer just an early morning pick me up but a full-blown addiction. Soon I was partaking between meals to keep the energy levels high, drinking it at work to stay focused, and even sipping the brew late at night when the rest of the world was sleeping so I could stay up late and catch re-runs of Quantum Leap. The beans kept getting darker, and before I knew it I was a complete slave to the grinder and my Brew-Master 5000. Eventually I was making coffee so thick that it had to be chewed and I was prone to going on week long Dunkin’ Donuts binges. I knew that it was a bad sign when I started importing the heavy duty Columbian stuff and spent my days drinking away my income. It was only a matter of time until I ditched the dark mountain roast and moved onto the harder stuff like latte’s and espresso.

After months upon months of being locked inside my apartment alternating between jumping rope while reciting Shakespeare a la the Micro Machines man, sitting on the couch shaking and sweating profusely, and hallucinating about giant cockroaches stealing my Q-Tips I was ready to admit that I had a problem.

Recently my friends and loved ones hosted an intervention to once and for all separate me from the beans. They sat me down, told me how much they loved me, and explained that I had become a much different person. They confessed that things just hadn’t been the same since my attention span reduced itself to a mere half a second and they were finding it rather disturbing that I could no longer blink. I agreed to attend regular support meetings to help me get through the trying time. However, at the very first Caffeine-Anonymous meeting, which only lasted five minutes, there must have been a mix up with the refreshments order because in the back next to the muffins and behind the lemonade they were serving coffee.

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