Guilty Pleasure.

Once in a while I get on a kick of needing a kick. This drink is my guilty pleasure and I often find myself nodding off to sleep well after 1am after I have downed one of these earlier in the day. They definitely give you a kick.

These drinks get a bad rap and it's not hard to see why. Even though, as you can see by the label, this particular drink carries a variety of vitamins, it's not really that healthy for you. This drink is also not regulated by the FDA. There is no requirement to show us how much caffeine is actually in one of these drinks. The 16oz. Sugar Free Rockstar that I drink, on occasion, is said to have as much caffeine as 1 to 2 cups of coffee. OK, that's cool, but caffeine is said to also be potentially disguised in other ingredients like Taurine. Anyway you put it, energy drinks are loaded up to give you a buzz and young America is downing them one after the other.

Be careful though, if you need a buzz, be sure to drink these as responsibly as you would alcohol. I read a recent article of a young man that was drinking 8 16 ounce Rockstars a night just to get through his night shift at work. He was rushed to the hospital with basically an overdose. Yah, I said EIGHT, that's a Freegan gallon!

Speaking of alcohol, these drinks are often used as mixers with hard alcohol like Vodka, Rum, and Tequila. The thought being that because these energy drinks have so much caffeine in them it would reduce the effects of the alcohol. Well, the only thing it's been shown to reduce is your awareness of how much you have really drank. In other words, folks were less likely to realize they were drunk making them a larger threat to do such things as drink and drive. Scary.

Side Note: One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor! Five Tequila, Six Tequila, Seven Tequila, Morgue!

So what's the morale of this story. I have no idea.

How about this? Moderation.