November 09, 2007
Addiction
I love coffee and I drink several cups pretty much every day, but for some reason I can't drink a large quantity at once. I can get about two thirds of the way through an 8 ounce cup, and then I just lose interest. Today I had two partial 8 ounce cups, which means I guess I consumed a bit under 11 ounces total. I'm definitely addicted to caffeine, but I appreciate the fact that my body seems to have a built in limit. I never drink more than I can handle. It wasn't always that way.
When I was in college, I didn't drink coffee, I drank Coke. I would easily drink six or eight 12-ounce cans of Coke in a day. The number of calories involved in that level of cola consumption makes me shudder. A couple of times when I had a lot of homework I took caffeine pills in order to stay up all night. Washed them down with Coke. Twice I went too far.
The first time, my roommate and a large football player cornered me in a computer lab and said, "Courtney, you haven't slept in days, you need to stop and go lie down." I went to bed and lay there, completely exhausted, jittery and unable to fall asleep.
The second time I consumed too much caffeine, I had an interview for a campus job working with computers. My heart was racing, my mind was going so fast I couldn't keep up, my palms were sweaty, and I felt a strange sense of elation tempered by nausea. "What are some of your weaknesses?" The interviewer asked. I thought long and hard before I answered: "I don't think I have any." Amazingly, they weren't hiring for interview skills, they were hiring for computer skills, and I passed that test.
I had that job for three years, and it's been another seven and a half since I left. I haven't been tempted to consume too much caffeine ever since.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at November 9, 2007 08:06 PM