You know that warm fuzzy feeling inside you, the one that makes your heart leap with joy, expectation makes your palms sweaty, you cannot help but smile, you can't wait any longer... Oh dear, you thought I was talking about love, didn't you?! The braver or more vulgar amongst you are probably proudly thinking "nope, you snide woman. We were thinking sex." Nope. I am talking about addiction.
Whether it's cocaine or, like in my case, caffeine, addiction leaves no loose ends, imagination is scrapped for what is a story so predictable that every word of it has been written before it has even begun. In fact, I'll give you that, it is very much like a love story.The initial thrill and enjoyment are quickly replaced by habituation, and then a need for it. It will never feel as good as it did the first time but we try it anyway. Quantity does not substitute quality.
There is no such thing as an ex addict. Addiction, you cannot undo. The body will be physiologically altered but it's the mindfuck that will keep you going. What I love about addiction is the warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. It is like meeting an ex: maybe you haven't seen each other for years, and then, as soon as you meet up, it's like you were never apart. There are weeks, months even without a single drop of caffeine, not in tea, not in Coke, not in energy drinks. And then, a smell... out of nowhere, an echo from your past reminds you of how good it used to feel, to have coffee. Your experience and your instincts battle. It's not that you can't have just one, it's that you won't. The pattern, the self-destruction and the unconditional, albeit residual, love from the object of your addiction, make it so easy to have just one more. One more.
I know for a fact that I have an addictive personality, so believe it or not, I do actually handle things fairly well. Thought, here it is- I think another common thing between addicts (to anything) is control: addicts possess a specific type of weak character, perhaps rooted in a challenging childhood, a character attracted to power and control. Because addiction, control and the lack of it are a match made in Hell, a destructive threesome: the illusion of control, the self-torturing game of losing control and gaining it back again, the arrogance when we accept the challenge that "it's just one more time, just this once". So, even though I know have an addictive personality, despite my knowledge of psychology, anatomy, and that painful feeling in my kidneys I got last year, I keep going back to drinking energy drinks and coffee, every few months. I handle it by having long periods of time, when I don't do it, and in the times when I do "binge" on caffeine, I still try to it in moderation. Or what for me is moderation. Only 3 cans today, watered down with tea.
Yet, for all my efforts, I know I will spend the rest of my life having nights of caffeine and self-destruction, despite my better judgment, because... it feels good. It feels welcoming, it feels a bit mischievous, it feels complete, and, for a second, that first sip makes all the rest of the world disappear, while my body is filled with bliss and taurine. It is a forbidden love affair. The object of your desire doesn't judge you for relapsing, it doesn't even judge you for not coming back sooner, it loves you because you love it. I won't quit caffeine not because I can't, because I don't want to. Sad, perhaps, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
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