My Journey with Caffeine: From Soda to Energy Drinks
It’s 3:45 PM. My arms feel exhausted, as if I just bench-pressed 350 lbs. But I’m not at the gym. Thoughts fog my brain, and my focus disappears from my task. I need caffeine. It would be my second one today, but I desperately need it.
I walk from my work area to the break room, drawn to the vending machine. My job doesn’t offer the “good stuff,” but I settle for the next best thing, a Celsius. It’s not a Ghost or Bang, but it promises effective caffeine until the end of the shift. I immediately pop open the can and gulp down its contents. My thoughts sharpen, and my body feels energized. It’s time to tackle the rest of the day.
I believe in my experience that if you drank any high-caffeine soft drinks, you were likely to become a coffee drinker or a fan of today’s energy drinks. It’s an unproven theory, but it makes sense. We all crave that performance boost, especially in the era of multitasking and side hustles.
Dew It Again
Let’s rewind to my teenage years. Back then, I graduated from Coke and Pepsi to Mountain Dew. I didn’t know much about caffeine at the time, but I realized Mountain Dew had three times the caffeine of Coke, plus the sugar rush. It definitely helped me get going for school and work. It was my go-to energy drink. However, coffee actually has the opposite effect on me. The earthy taste and heat tend to make me feel drowsy. That’s why soft drinks have always been my preferred choice.
There was always a slight weight after I drank the sodas. I got the energy, but it seemed like the dyes and other chemicals in the drink slowed me down. I didn’t know about crashes. It was Mountain Dew, so I didn’t think much of it. I found out that Mountain Dew has an altered version of vegetable oil in it. Imagine that—a citrus soft drink that’s high in caffeine has oil in it. It was crazy to me. I switched from the regular Mountain Dew to Code Red to get my kick without the oil. I was drinking more and more bottles per day until it almost replaced water. I know—very scary.
But that wasn’t the scary part. As I got older and started doing graphic design, I felt I needed a bigger edge. I was walking away from sodas to their evolved form.
Before I continue to the energy drink part of my journey, I want to mention that Mountain Dew had multiple failed attempts at making high-caffeine drinks. I remember Amp, Game Fuel, Kickstart, and MDX. All didn’t last long. To be fair, Game Fuel was a limited edition and released when a new video game came out. I didn’t drink it for the boost. I just liked those kinds of drinks. Kickstart was okay, and so was AMP. I don’t remember MDX so much. I remember Surge that Coke made, but I didn’t like it. There were crazy rumors that it had hormones in it that hyped up males and made women grow mustaches. It was on the news. I don’t know if it was true.
The New High
The first energy drink I had was maybe a Red Bull. No. It has to be the Mountain Dew MDX. No. Maybe it was the largest energy drink I ever drank, Boo Koo. I needed some energy when I started working nights at the airport, cleaning airplanes. I wasn’t used to being up that late, and I was so slow. You have to finish 10 airplanes a night. So one night, I went to a store while waiting on my bus to get a Mountain Dew. In the cooler, there was the Dew but also a can of Boo Koo. It was said to have three cans of energy drinks in one. I needed the edge, so I bought it. While waiting for my shift to start, I began to consume the drink. All of a sudden, I felt a rush. My mind was alert. It was like I could process everything. I looked at a group of coworkers who were larger than me. I thought to myself, “I could kick all their asses.” Yeah. It had me like that. I was zooming through my tasks that night. The only sad thing about it was the crash, and it was a one-time boost. I tried Boo Koo the following night, and it wasn’t the same. I believe that’s when I tried to find another drink to get that high again.
The Clean Period
For years, I had been drinking energy drinks filled with sugar, caffeine, and dyes. I was crashing and felt a weight on my body. I was hating this. I wanted a drink that was clear, had no sugar, and was, in a way, healthy. The drinks at the time were just highly caffeinated sodas. I was looking for something new until I heard about Bang. Bang was different. It was clear, it had amino acids, it tasted great with multiple flavors, and it had no sugar. It had fruit flavors and didn’t taste like whatever Red Bull, Monster, and Rockstar were supposed to taste like. It was 300 mg of caffeine goodness. It was good until I realized that drinking two cans a day is not such a good idea. I was drinking it more than water. That’s bad.
I had to come to terms that I may be addicted to it. So, I looked for a lower caffeine drink. There was Ghost, which was Bang but with 200 mg of caffeine. It’s my go-to until this day. G Fuel was out as well. I had an option of the can drink or a powder mix. One thing about those mixes, you have to mix them well and drink plenty of water. It had no amino acids. It was made to be a drink for sitting at the computer all day. So, I came to a realization that I was depending on high quantities of caffeine to boost my performance, and I needed to slow down. So I did.
The Hereafter
Today, I had a can of Sonic the Hedgehog Peach Ring G Fuel. I’m doing good. It was 300 mg of caffeine, but I should be okay. That was around 1 PM. I’m trying not to overdo it and balance it out. I’m balancing out my resting periods. I was using energy drinks as a substitute for sleep, but there’s a cost to that. Just like with everything we consume, there are risks and rewards. I try to balance out my caffeine consumption with water so I don’t go overboard.
