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Dec. 19, 2004 A few weeks ago at the corner store located beside my condo building, my eyes fell upon a sight that set my heart racing and caused my palms to sweat like a Japanese sumo wrestler trapped in a hot sauna. I didn’t dare believe what I was seeing. I closed my eyes. I opened them again. No, it wasn’t a mirage. They were still there, lined up in a neat row, their blue and silver exterior winking out at me. Red Bull was finally available in Canada! Less than two months after being congratulated by my UK friends for having kicked my Red Bull habit, it seemed it was back in my life. My tone may seem very tongue-in-cheek, but to describe my relationship with the Red Bull tonic as anything less than an addiction would be misleading. I was first introduced to the drink that “gives you wings” when I moved to London, England, where I was working double-duty as a supply teacher and actress. Red Bull was just one part of the typical, young Londoner’s arsenal of legal (and occasional illegal) stimulants. Londoners are renowned for working hard and playing even harder. Most of my friends depended on a steady diet of little, pink caffeine pills called Wake Ups combined with copious amounts of Red Bull to make it through the workweek. Following suit, I quickly found myself relying on the slim little blue and silver can during my early evening Tube journeys to and from various auditions, acting and dance classes in the Soho district of Central London. I knew I was truly hooked when, during the first six months I was back in Canada, I experienced such a craving for that special elixir of caffeine, vitamins, carbohydrates and taurine that I sent my husband at the time Stateside on a mission to smuggle a case of it back to Toronto in his suitcase. Then it happened. Last summer I spent an entire month in the UK without consuming a single, solitary can of Red Bull. As my plane taxied down the runway at Heathrow, I congratulated myself. I was finished with Red Bull. However, as luck would have it, within a month, Red Bull arrived in Toronto, accompanied by a wave of aggressive marketing. My daily consumption began all over again. Even the woman who owns the corner store near my flat noted my daily purchases and expressed concern. “Bad for you,” she finally said to me, her usually friendly face clouded with worry. “Too much caffeine.” In a city where people would rather poke strangers in the eye with a sharp object before surrendering a smile, I knew that this warning needed heeding. I vowed to stop drinking Red Bull once and for all. And it would appear that I’m not alone in my fight to kick the Red Bull habit, nor is the woman behind the cash at my local corner store the only person to express concern over the extremely popular energy drink Both France and Denmark have banned Red Bull, citing health concerns after several deaths in Sweden and Ireland with suspected links to the drink. The fatalities occurred in healthy individuals who’d all consumed Red Bull shortly before their deaths. And, perhaps most bizarrely of all, in Australia, a teenager’s 11 can-a-day Red Bull addiction was cited as the reason why the otherwise “conscientious” secondary student robbed a supermarket at knifepoint. With more than a billion cans of the Austrian- based energy drink sold in over fifty countries last year, the number of deaths linked to the consumption of Red Bull would hardly seem like cause for alarm. I pointed this out to a colleague of mine who told me she thought I should really stop drinking it. I’d just been raving about the fact that I’d run for thirty- five minutes the evening before and not felt at all tired, despite having worked a twelve-hour day. “You work in one of the most challenging inner- city schools in Toronto,” she countered. “There’s no possible way that you should be running for thirty-five minutes and not feeling any fatigue after working here all day. It’s not humanly possible.” And that’s when I realized it. Like a cocaine addict, I’d just been raving about the high I was getting from Red Bull. In fact, my workouts were beginning to depend on my consumption of a can beforehand. I vowed, right then and there, that I’d swallowed my last drop. How am I doing? Well, it’s now been exactly four hours and ten minutes since my last can. I haven’t been able to go cold turkey, but am trying to wean myself off slowly. Quite honestly, I felt the irony in trying to stay awake whilst writing an article about Red Bull was simply too much. But now that this is finished, I’m determined once again to kick my habit. I’ll let you know how it goes….. ------------ About the author: Jennifer Payne lives and works in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of numerous short stories, poetry, articles and reviews. Currently she is finishing her second novel. Please visit her website at: www.maryjenniferpayne.com Email: mj_payne00@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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