You can OD on caffeine!

I have somewhat of what I would like to call a "relationship" with high-caffeine (energy) drinks. This relationship is kinda what other people have with coffee, except in this case, it's energy drinks. I wouldn't go far as call it an obsession, but rather a former, deep, dependency on the beverage (but NOT addiction).

Last Summer at my old job I would always work at 8am until 4:30pm 5 days a week. I would sleep about 5 hours before getting up for work, so I often craved caffeine prior my shift, and lots of it, fast. I used to really like coffee when I was 13 but recently I had stopped taking any interest in its bitter taste and the small amount of caffeine. After being introduced to high-caffeine drinks through my dad when he brought them home one day (back then I was consuming them like cans of Coke), I turned to them for the energy I would require to push throughout the day. At first it was Energy, then it was Red Rave - pretty much the cheapest ones at 7-11. Red Bull was overrated and contained only 5mg more of caffeine than the former 2. If we didn't have any in the house, I'd just leave a couple minutes early to drop by the convenient store to purchase the thin can of caffeine goodness. I did this pretty much through the entire summer, a little over 3 months. 1 can a day, 5 cans a week.

By the following Fall semester, I was once again in need of surges of caffeine to make up for the loss of sleep (due to nothing special, internet or TV...) on school nights, to keep myself awake during lectures. But alas, the 75mg of caffeine per dose no longer had an effect on me anymore. And I mean NONE. It's not like it had a much more minimal effect, I mean it did NOTHING. it was a very disappointing moment, though I guess I had it coming. As a result I was forced to move on to the much larger cans, containing twice as much caffeine. That was pretty much Rockstar or Full Throttle (I didn't like Monster), what the campus sold. A couple sips and I was wide awake. I turned to these and burned a lot of money drinking them up before and in lectures to last throughout the day. So you can pretty much guess what happened next - a few months after I discover that one giant can no longer did anything for my body or alertness. I was convinced I was immune to caffeine. Having read the back label of these several times, I know that one big can was all I could have according to the recommended dosage.

But it's a drink. A non-alcoholic, legal beverage. How could having a little more hurt?

One day I needed to get some readings done so out of false hope I downed one Rockstar. It didn't work, obviously, so I popped open another a couple hours after. I was drinking, reading, highlighting, and finished the second can for the day. The second can definitely worked and did the job, but before I knew it I was feeling all jittery and shaking and couldn't keep myself still. I also had a sick feeling in my stomach as if I was going to vomit it all back up (which would be a total waste..). I began to get somewhat worried so I did a little research on the internet. And guess what?

You can overdose on caffeine!

How the fuck was I to know this? I guess I never saw caffeine as a harmful substance when taken in large doses. Well, any dose. I read that I'm not to induce vomiting unless instructed to by a physician - so I kept it down in there (though it wasn't like it was on the verge of coming up). The next morning I felt fine and vowed never to OD on caffeine again.

I stopped taking energy drinks since of any type or amount shortly after as the daily dosage was doing me no good and neither was the over dosage.

This was last Summer and Fall.

This Summer, I had one Coke Zero an hour before going to bed and could not get a blink of sleep until 3 hours past the hour I had decided on going to sleep. Until that night I was still kind of convinced that I still had a little bit of immunity left in me towards the deadly, strong stuff (especially because a couple weeks prior to the incident I had a couple of huge cans of Inked, supposedly a new type of energy drink, being sold for a 2 for 1 deal at 7-11). Either way, I have no particular interest in finding out anytime soon.