For addicts in recovery, there’s a topic that has probably run through the minds of many, but yet isn’t brought up much because it’s better to be consuming energy drinks than our prior drugs of choice.
While that’s true, it’s worth looking at the issue of energy drinks–and even coffee–because the “high” that caffeine and other stimulants provide can also become addictive and sought after in place of living life on life’s terms.
In short, they can cap the potential of one’s recovery and happiness in life. And from what I observe, it’s men who are using these drinks far more than women.
Take a look (Courtesy thefamilycompass.com):
We’d rather see an addict with a Red Bull than a Whiskey 7–or a pipe, needle, etc. But there’s also a point in our recovery where we ought to look at whether these drinks are simply a replacement vehicle for our addictive nature.
What do you think?
http://journal.crossfit.com/2008/11/meth-in-a-can.tpl
First of all, no one should be drinking energy drinks anyway – they have no nutritional value whatsoever. On the other hand, I’d rather have a bunch of addicts drinking Red Bull than doing lines. Progress, not perfection.
In the 80s there was an interesting article in Psychology Today where the author discussed drug and high preferences. He said that we tended to prefer downers (opiates, alcohol, shopping) uppers (coke, speed, gambling, sex,) or hallucinogenic experiences (marijuana, LSD.) Note that behavioral addictions can be placed here too. I this starts to explain why not everyone is polyaddicted. Some people are just not moved by experiences or drugs that fall into a different category than the one they prefer. If I had to guess for myself, I’m actually much more vulnerable to the second category than the first. I… Read more »
Oh and I’ve got this bit in my teeth because little press is being given to the fact that both the victim, perps & witnesses were intoxicated @ Steubenville….
Me I think energy drinks are a step down a slippery slope.
I also think alcohol free beers are like going down on your sister. It may taste the same, but it is still wrong.
I hope nobody would disagree that alcohol is an incredibly dangerous drug with virtually no known benefits. But there’s no evidence for your “slippery slope” theory connecting less harmful drugs to alcohol, so a tragic story involving alcohol abuse hardly seems relevant to a discussion of caffeine.
@Protagarus- that’s called Marijuana Maintenence.
As in after several years of marijuana Maintenence I couldn’t see anything wrong with a beer, or a case of beer, or a shot and a beer, or a fist full of oxy and a quart of vodka…
@ J. A. Drew Diaz- People who try to do without any drugs relapse a lot. There is zero evidence that trying to do without drugs completely is a superior method of preventing relapse to serious addictions, and quite a lot of evidence that it is in fact inferior to methods that employ medication. Only AA dogma, not evidence, says otherwise.
@protagoras- I’m not tracking your point.
People who do drugs aren’t relapsing?
I was married to a drug & alcohol counselor for over 20 yrs, been around addicts for 50 and observe there ain’t a lot of drugs that cure drug use….
Sure a lot of people relapse- for instance all of those that pick up.
I can only speak for the myself & the 2 other guys with whom I’m having dinner tonight and our combined 100 and some odd years clean.
I would say that someone who never binges, never does anything foolish that they need to apologize for, never gets hospitalized for the effects of their drugs, and shows no signs of building tolerance and needing increasing amounts of their drug is not relapsing, even if they use their drug every day. As I said, I tend to think drug use is a problem only when it produces problems, which of course it does not always do (and there are predictable patterns to when it is likely to do so, and some kinds of drug use almost never produce problems… Read more »
I am a bit hesitant to intrude on this discussion/argument. I hear a lot of people who talk about going back to using after a period of sobriety and I cannot say whether that works for them or not. That is a personal decision BUT I do know that the best judge of whether that is causing problems is probably the other people in the person’s life not always them. Talk to the other people in their life and you often hear a different story about how the whole “using again” is going. There is some solid research coming out… Read more »
Several years of continuous sobriety is all AAs are likely to get, if the truth be told. I was sober (alcohol) for seven years after quitting (through AA) in 1973. I smoked marijuana (never my favorite – but sex was great on it) during that time. I was dumbfounded when late in that period someone told me I had breached my sobriety. I never had any sort of daily need to smoke MJ. When I went to grad school, I came back to being a very, very spaced out periodic either completely appropriate or occasionally binge drinker. I do think… Read more »
This is part of the reason I dislike the AA philosophy; to me it is just obvious that the only important question is whether the drugs are disrupting your life, not whether you’re using any drugs at all or whether you are “addicted” according to some arbitrary standard. People often have a lot more success replacing more harmful drugs with less harmful drugs than they have avoiding drugs all together; drug users are often self-medicating, and giving them safer meds often works a lot better than telling them to tough it out and just put up with the underlying condition… Read more »
Well, the nice thing about a poster is that one doesn’t need to document the research. Seriously, I wonder if the effects of a can of Red Bull daily are worse that constant nerve wracking demands to have a more perfect “recovery.” I remember the guy I knew who said “I’m going th three AA meetings a day and I’m still depressed. I told him, “Don’t go to so many meetings.”
It’s all progress not perfection, to use a cliché from 12 step community. There is no doubt that going to meetings can become another way of avoiding life…
The first time I quit smoking, I noticed that I had subconsciously replaced cigarettes with coffee — not to the extent that it was dangerous, but still, quite a bit. I’ve also known people to quit smoking and replace that rush with exercise — probably healthier, but after a point it gets a bit ridiculous. Some people have a lower threshold for addiction, and when they try to break one habit they often make up for it with another. Let’s just hope the replacement is a little healthier than what they’ve given up
I think it is all about quality of life – what quality of life do I want to have and are there things in my life getting in the way of that. I have found that the longer that I am sober the more I notice the things that get in the way of my experience of the life I want to have. But that is all choice