Like many people, my late teens and early twenties have shared a commonality based upon a substance. While that substance can vary between common people groups and demographics, it became clear to me during the month of July that I am a complete caffeine junky. It was at the point where it didn’t matter which soda/pop/whathaveyou tasted like, its value was simply centered around its caffeine content. What became a two dollar a week habit spun into 5-6 and I felt like there would be no end to the madness. However suddenly I decided that I would stop wasting my money on two liters of soda and start receiving my caffeine supplements from another source. Any dentist will tell you that the worst thing for tooth enamel is soda and even thought this is something that Dr. Wetzel told me long ago, I continue on my destructive path, a swig here a swig there. Anyway, after discovering that the only positive thing about living south of the Mason Dixon line is the presence of sweet tea, I decided to see what the good folks at Nestea had to offer. So after years of addiction to soda I have now transitioned to tea, a habit in which probably more caffeine is ingested while less sugar becomes the trade off. I tell you all this to say that last night I relapsed…. We had a get-together for our SF group at the seminary and it called for us to buy soda for the group. So after 5 weeks of staying away from soda and refusing to let it have its reign in my life, I tied one on. Somewhere around 2:30 in the morning in the 86 degree temperatures of a Texas night, I came to a deeper realization of just how lame pop addiction is. While I had been drinking sweet tea instead of soda I had evidently been weaning myself off of caffeine, so when I drank two to three glasses of Waco, Texas’ finest, Dr Pepper I was lit like a roman candle and I couldn’t settle down for anything. So maybe after reading this you might too consider options other than soda? Maybe…but probably not and that’s fine.
