Happily Hippie-American

Paul’s Addiction

It was sometime in the 1980s. I was irked with myself: I need to be productive, and I wasn’t getting enough done. But it was a hot, wearing summer, and early in the day, I had a tendency to be a sleepy-head. I wanted some kind of help, a mild stimulant, perhaps. Then, one day as I pushed a grocery cart past the coffees and teas, I spied it: a large glass jar with a bright-yellow, generic label: Instant Tea. “Hmm,” I thought, “what could be easier? You toss a teaspoonful into some water, stir, add ice, and away you go. It’s inexpensive, and millions of people use it. I’m going to buy a jar and try some.”

Well, I was happy with my new drug. I mean, I would wake up early, make a glass, and within minutes, I felt wide awake, ready to take on the world. And I was getting things done. “Great stuff,” I thought; soon, instant tea became a part of my life. 

This continued for some months when I started to notice some side effects: while that first glass in the morning seemed righteous, after an hour, I needed a second glass. And while the second glass was good, it wasn’t quite as good as the first. And come to think of it, the third glass wasn’t quite as good as the second . . . . Years later, when a recovering friend explained to me the psych- ological aspects of his cocaine addiction, I related to his description of a coming-down-the-stairs effect—each new dose doesn’t get you quite as high as the last; by the end of the night, you’re burned out and can’t “get off” anymore.

Also, iced tea gave me an edge—but not necessarily a good one. I was pushy and irritable. Clerks would take one look at me, sense my annoyance and impatience, and tense up. I scared people. I recall with embarrassment how rude I sometimes appeared—even when I was trying very hard not to be.

The thing is, I was in pain. I mean actual physical pain: all that caffeine was giving me headaches. And it got worse: When the headaches became serious, I would try headache medicines, but I found that the only products that helped contained caffeine. Yes, the only way I could escape my caffeine-induced headaches was to take more caffeine; I was like the alcoholic who drinks to relieve a hangover.

And after a while, it seemed like I’d had a headache for weeks; I had to do something. I realized I was acting like a drug addict: I either had too much caffeine in my system or not enough, and it was like I was trying to do “maintenance doses”—and not succeeding. I never felt good anymore. I looked around and saw the peculiar clutter with which I now lived: there on the kitchen table, there on the desk, there on the radiator shelf—a partly drunk glass of tea, the dark dregs thickening at the bottom. Like little toxic-waste dumps, like a junkie’s used syringes, they littered my apartment. “Okay,” I concluded decisively and with a great deal of relief, “let’s get this stuff out of my life.”

For the next three days, I went through withdrawal. Oh, it wasn’t gut wrenching like the withdrawal from heroin or something , but it was physical withdrawal—a sort of extended low-level hangover. Then, I began to get my old life and self back. I haven’t touched instant tea since.

Yes, I was an abuser/addict, and in addition to all the matters mentioned above, I know I was an abuser because even today, my body remembers: if I open a jar of instant tea and sniff, at the very top of my head, I feel a sharp pain—a tiny, intense headache like someone had pricked my brain with a pin. It’s the only time I feel pain there, and it only happens when I smell instant tea.

Would I ever go back to my drug habit? Not on your life. Now, I rarely have headaches; in addition, I’ve learned ways to energize myself that aren’t drug induced. Clerks no longer fear me, and I find it far easier to behave the way I’d like. Goodbye and good riddance.

So, drug abuse isn’t necessarily the province of Countercultural drugs or illegal drugs; as likely as not, it’s the province of legal and socially sanctioned substances. As a nation, our double standards on drugs don’t just unfairly target certain substances, they also help blind us to the potentially harmful ones in front of our faces.

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