pictured above: Starbucks iced tea - passion fruit / lemonade
Addiction: noun. Defined as: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
In recent months, I have come to realize that I am suffering from an addiction. It has not been an easy or fun realization, but it’s something that I’ve needed to face head-on. And while I don’t have to indulge my addiction everyday, it’s still something that I find that if I don’t partake in frequently, it causes me problems.
As lame as it sounds, my addiction is to Starbucks coffee and tea :(
I remember when it was at my worst. I was a senior in college. I had just moved an hour away from school, and got a new job yet another hour west of my new residence. (i.e. now I’m two hours away from school) Was this the brightest move? At the time, probably not. Broke college student pissing away loads of money on gas because I chose to go to a school with no major economic sustenance, duh dummy, maybe you should have picked a school with jobs available in town?
But anyway, I stacked all my classes into 2 days a week, and then worked the other 5 days. Go to school full-time as an honors student (and take more than the allowed amount of classes), work full-time, and also carry a part-time job. Break up with my boyfriend when I moved, who used to fuel my coffee addiction, and live with my parents, who can’t even stand the smell of the stuff. Where do I go? Starbucks. YAY.
Well, Starbucks isn’t cheap. Especially if you’re like me, and you like iced coffee, which needs milk and cream, and a touch of sugar and syrup. So… it started adding up fast. One day, I just quit cold turkey.
I used to work loss prevention for a large department store. My boss was sitting in the next room, and could actually hear me shaking. (How do you hear someone shaking? I never asked, but now I wish I would have, as I’m curious) He was a cheap man, wouldn’t buy us anything for the office, but he offered to buy me a cup of coffee - any kind I wanted! - just to get me to stop shaking. I told him, no, no, I can’t accept that, but boy, did I ever want it.
Eventually I was able to stop shaking, and I slowly started on working having just a cup of coffee here or there. But at some point, the Starbucks habit kicked in again. The fact that you can buy Starbucks in retail stores doesn’t help the cause.
I tend to have an addictive personality (Degrassi, smoking cigarettes, alcohol, pot) but I never actually got addicted to those things. I mean, I can go weeks without watching Degrassi, months without smoking cigarettes or drinking booze, and years without smoking pot. But Starbucks? I can only last a couple of days.
I think the worst part about my Starbucks addiction is knowing that the money could, and should, be going to something else. I’m 26 and living in a shitty apartment. If I would save my money, I could buy something big… like a house. UGH.
If I can get it together, life will be good. My addiction isn’t as serious as an addiction to smack, but I think it might be just as costly in the long-run if I don’t get a grip on it.
