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Treat Red Bull Like Alcohol and Cigarettes

I’m an avid consumer of sugar-free Red Bull and have been known to down more than one can a day. I see it as one of the only vices I have left after quitting booze, flour and sugar a few years back. So when I saw online protests about the government looking to regulate the sale of such energy drinks, I balked.

Mood music:

I was originally going to write a post blasting government for trying to control us yet again. Then I read about ER visits skyrocketing and children dying. According to ABC News:

Fourteen-year-old Anais Fournier of Hagerstown died in December of 2011 after drinking two 24-ounce Monster Energy drinks. Her family is suing that company. Fournier had a heart condition — her family’s attorney, Kevin Goldberg, tells ABC-2 News one problem is that many children are too young to have ever gotten that diagnosis.  And consuming highly-caffeinated beverages is like pouring gasoline on a fire they don’t even know is there. The US Department of Health and Human Services found that in 2007, there were about 10,000 emergency room visits related to energy drinks.  By 2010 that number doubled to 20,000.

As a confessed addict, I know it’s ultimately my choice whether to consume the stuff that drives me to madness. My addictive behavior has historically centered around binge eating. I started using wine as a crutch when I decided to bring the binge eating to heel. More than a year after quitting booze, I started smoking again to keep from taking a drink. And so the vicious cycle goes.

Today I cling to my caffeine and e-cigs. Not what one would call a solution, but I consider these the lesser evils of addiction.

The government can regulate food and drink all it wants. If you’re an addict hell-bent on getting your fix, you will find a way. That belief has driven much of what I’ve written about past efforts at regulation. But I’ve come to realize the bit about energy drinks is different.

Red Bull, Monster, Rock Star and other drinks are sold out in the open in any convenience store, right next to the Gatorade and Pepsi. There’s no age restriction on making the purchase that I know of. Energy drinks come in cans with cool, sleek artwork and color schemes, which attracts kids as a red cloth would attract a raging bull. That’s how you get deaths like that of Anais Fournier.

The government would be going way overboard if it decided to ban these drinks outright. But there are simple measures I think would be fair. For example:

  • Put the energy drinks in the same refrigerated cases and sections as the alcoholic products.
  • Sell them behind the counter, just like the tobacco products.

Those moves wouldn’t cut off my access to Red Bull. But it would control access to children, and I’m fine with that.

Red Bull

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The Real Problem With Bloomberg’s Soda Ban

A state judge has struck down New York City’s large-soda ban, which was set to take effect today. Judge Milton Tingling of the New York Supreme Court called Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s public health measure “arbitrary and capricious.” I agree, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

Here’s what I jotted down last year, when Bloomberg first announced the ban. It’s my perspective as a recovering binge eater…

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has generated lots of noise with his ban on uber-sized sodas. Supporters say the fight against American obesity needs to start somewhere. Opponents accuse him of leading a nanny state. Both sides are barking up the wrong tree.

Mood music:

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I look at this as an addict. My most destructive addiction involved binge eating on junk rich in flour and sugar. I had to eliminate both ingredients from my diet to regain control over my mental and physical health. If that battle has taught me anything, it’s that government can’t do a damn thing to save you from yourself.

Those who have no problem with a soda ban raise some interesting points, including Gawker’s Drew Magary, who wrote that people should “quit complaining” about the ban. He writes:

If you think that a ban on large sodas is somehow an affront to America freedom, I have news for you: You don’t live in a free country. You never have and you never will. That’s an illusion. You are not free to murder people in America. You are not free to stand in the middle of an intersection and block traffic like an asshole. You do not have the absolute freedom to do anything you want in America, and that’s a good thing, because living somewhere with absolute freedom means you live in fucking Deadwood.

New York city residents were already fully aware that Bloomberg was prone to implementing drastic public health measures, like the 2003 ban on smoking in bars. And yet, they re-elected him. In other words, New Yorkers were FREE to vote for the man who installed laws that they apparently considered both sane and reasonable. That’s how democracy works.

He’s right about the freedom part. People keep re-electing Bloomberg knowing full well that he has a track record on this stuff. And no, we’re not free to murder, steal and destroy without consequences. But I’m with those who say the laws we live by should not extend to what we do with our own bodies. The government has no business telling us what we can eat and drink.

But that’s beside the bigger point here: Regulating addictive substances does little to keep addicts from using. That’s true of heroin and coke users. It’s all the more true with alcohol and tobacco. If controlling the use of those things is so difficult, then controlling the use of perfectly legal and freely available junk food is fruitless.

We’ve been down this road before. I’m reminded of a book called The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kessler makes a compelling argument: Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying in “David Kessler: Fat, Salt and Sugar Alter Brain Chemistry, Make Us Eat Junk Food.”

For the true addict, regulation is a joke, especially if the drug is junk food. Knowing what’s in junk food won’t keep the addict away. I always read the labels after binging on the item in the package. And the labels have done nothing to curb the child obesity pandemic.

That’s the real problem with Bloomberg’s soda ban.

I liken it to recent efforts to punish McDonald’s for contributing to child obesity. As one McDonald’s restaurant put on its outdoor sign recently:

Saying your kids are fat because of us is like saying it’s Hooter’s fault your husband likes big tits.

McDonald’s is where I binged again and again when my compulsive overeating was at its zenith. But I’ve never blamed the fast-food chain. Buying its food — my heroin — was my choice and responsibility.

When you have young children, you have far more control over what they put in their bodies. If you’re an overeater yourself and you’re always stressed and on the run, you probably let your child eat this stuff all the time. If your child is fat as a result, that’s your fault, not McDonald’s.

We all have choices. When we make the bad calls, we have to own it.

If the bad choice is too many large sodas, Bloomberg can’t help us by banning the beverage, no matter how pure his intentions are.

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Time for Tea

This is going to shock a lot of you, given the steady flow of coffee you’ve watched me drink day after day, but try to stay calm.

I’m drinking tea, and lots of it.

Mood music:

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This change wasn’t planned. No doctor told me to do it or risk a heart attack. And I haven’t given up my beloved java.

In recent days, I’ve started splitting the day between coffee and tea: coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon and evening.

For whatever reason, I really started to crave tea Saturday afternoon. It could be because my mindfulness teacher keeps telling the class to “have tea with your problems” or “tea with your dragon.” When you have an addictive personality like mine, the more someone repeats something like that, the more you start to want it. It’s why I can’t hang out with people who want to talk about nothing but boozing. Before long, I start jonesing for a bottle.

I got home that afternoon and had some green tea. Later, I had some chamomile. It felt good. I felt more at ease. A new afternoon-evening habit was born.

Those who know me well know how much I love caffeine. Coffee is the main delivery system, along with Red Bull, though I haven’t had the latter for a couple weeks now. I simply haven’t felt like having it.

There’s a stupid part of me that sometimes resists change because I’ve spent so much time building up an image. Admittedly, I like the sober, bitter-coffee-swilling hardcore image I’ve built for myself. But the smarter part of me knows that it’s always best to try new things and expand one’s horizons. That’s why I started playing guitar again after nearly 20 years. Playing is quickly becoming my main addiction and I’m fine with that, because it means I’m not burying my face behind the laptop screen as much as I used to. I discovered Saturday that tea goes really good with guitar playing.

So here I am, drinking tea and coffee. Turns out, there’s plenty of room in the day for both.

Just as long as the writer doesn’t drink all the editor’s tea. —The Editor

Green Tea