My energy drink junkie hell

By James McKean

It was with some trepidation that I decided to attempt to emulate Morgan Spurlock’s amazing documentary, Supersize Me. Friends said that it was an utterly pointless task, devoid of any kind of meaning – what the hell was the point, they said, in rehashing something like that? 

The battle’s already been won, they said. Everyone knows that fast food is bad for you. What can you possibly to contribute to his legacy?

The ugly truth is that they were absolutely right – and anyway, after the third day of eating nothing but fast food I found myself peering into the toilet bowl, staring at my slimy , regurgitated chicken nuggets. It took Spurlock must less time to get to that rather depraved stage, it must be argued.

For that reason, I decided instead to see what happens when you drink fuckloads of energy drinks – and I mean nothing but energy drinks, not even water – for one week. 

The reality is that I didn’t make it past one week – I barely made it past the third day. In those 70 or so hours I realized pretty damn quickly that energy drinks – and of course caffeine – are not to be fucked with.

On Day One, I woke up already feeling rather hungover from last night’s crew date. Instinctively, I reached for a large bottle of water kept next to my bed, but suddenly remembered my resolve and went for a can of Tiger instead. 

Initially it was delightful – unlike the lukewarm bottle of H20 I’d carelessly left out all night exposed to the sun through my window, the Tiger drink was ice cold and delicious. I could feel it cooling down my insides, and got that pleasurable kick in the seat of your stomach and your lower chest when you know the caffeine is kicking in.

But it sure as hell didn’t do anything for my thirst, especially considering I was already fairly chronically dehydrated. Cycling from my student house down into College was an utter nightmare, even thought it was barely downhill – the sun tore at my eyelids and my head was throbbing, my back drenched with sweat and sticky, sticky nasty yesterday’s clothing clinging to me all over. 

I hauled my bike and my sorely dehydrated ass into College, gasping for something to drink only to find my bag filled with cheap and nasty little cans of KX. Oddly enough, after two of those and some food I was feeling better. Furthermore the colour of my piss had changed from an alarmingly dark hue of green to a light yellow. So far, so good, I reflected, necking a 500ml can of Monster as I walked to the library to pick up some books I was never going to read. 

Working in the library was easy  – by this stage I didn’t feel thirsty at all and the caffeine had given me a serious buzz. I pulse through three quarters of a problem sheet in what feels like less than an hour, but actually takes far longer, and then settle down with some funny videos on YouTube.

The next two days go ahead with roughly the same level of success – but on the third day, things suddenly took a turn for the worst. I woke up with my head throbbing wildly, to the extent that I could barely stand up, for the dizziness. Hovering over the toilet, I realized I hadn’t seen clear piss in over 72 hours, which was somewhat worrying. Instead it had returned to a curious compromise of a mid-yellow tone, something I had hitherto ascribed merely to the colourings of the drinks themselves.

By the time I’d cycled into College on that third day, I felt like I was going to faint. Unable to take it any longer, I virtually crawled over to the College water fountain and drank madly for what seemed like several minutes. I threw up after that, and then again, but then the piss was flowing, and it was a delightful clear white. My dehydration episode, it seemed, was finally over. Obviously I was rather chuffed, indeed somewhat over the moon. I resolved never to fuck with caffeine ever again – and especially not with energy drinks. That shit is dangerous. 

-James Rothwell

PHOTO/Guudmorning!

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