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 caffiene. 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 second best, 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.
How It started. How It's Going.
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.
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 the slight weight after I drank the sodas. I get the energy but it seems like the dyes and other chemicals in the drink slowed me down. I didn’t know about crashes. It was Mountian Dew so I didn’t think much of it. I found out Mountian Dew have an altered version of Vegatable oil in it. Imagine that a cirtus soft drink that’s high in caffiene has oil in it. It was crazy to me. I switch from the regular Mountian 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 start doing graphic design, I felt I needed a bigger edge. I was walking away from sodas to its evolved form.
Dew It Again
Before I continue to the energy drink part of my journey, I want to talk about the fact that Mountain Dew had multiple times it failed at making high caffeine drinks. I remember Amp, Game Fuel, Kickstart, and MDX. All didn’t last longer. Well to be fair. Game Feul was limited edition and released when a new game was out. To think about it, back then I didn’t drink it for the boost. I just like those kind of drink. Kickstart was ok and so was AMP. I don’t remember MDX so much. I remember Surge that Coke made but I didn’t like it. It was crazy rumors it had hormones it in that hyped up males and made women grow mustaches. It was on the news. LOL. I don’t know if it was true.
The New High
The first Energy Drink I had maybe was a Red Bull. No. It has to be the Mountian Dew MDX. No. Maybe it was the largest Energy drink I ever drank, Boo Koo. I need 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 finished 10 airpanes a night. So one night I went a store while waiting on my bus to get a Mountain Dew. In the cooler , there was the Dew buy also a can of Boo Koo. It came to have 3 can of Energy drinks in one. I needed the edge so I bought it. While waiting for my shift to start, I started 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 groupp 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 task 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
years, I have 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’s clear, no sugar, and in a way healthy. The drinks at the time were just highly caffeine sodas. I was looking for something new until I heard about Bang. Bang was different. It was clear, It had Animo 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 support to taste like. It was 300 mgs 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 comes to terms that I may be addictive to it. So, I looked for a lower caffeine drink. There was Ghost that was Bang but with 200 mgs of caffeine. It’s my go to until this day. G Fuel was out as well. I did have an option of the can drink or power mix. One thing about those mixes, you have to mix it well and drink plenty of water of worths. It had no amnio acid. It was made to sit on the computer all day drink. So, I came to a realization that I was depending on high caffiene quanities to boost my performance and I need 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 300mgs of caffeine, but I should be good. that was around 1PM. I’m trying not to over to it and balance it out. I’m balancing out my resting periods. I was using energy drinks as a sub for sleep but there’s a cost to that. Just like with everything we consume, there’s risk and rewards to them. I try to balance out my caffeine consumption with water, so I don’t go overboard.
