Ice did nothing. Aspirin did nothing. My hands were shaking. I felt nauseous and was suddenly afraid that if I blew the second day, student evaluations would be dismal. A single thought pounded in my head: “Have a cup of coffee. There’s too much at stake.”

One large cup of coffee later, the headache was gone. Within an hour, I was a new man, pain free and alert. It was hard for me to admit that I was addicted to coffee, but the hell I had been through the day before was clearly a drug overdose, and the worse hell I had faced that morning was clearly a drug withdrawal. Quite simply, I was feeling better because I had my fix. This realization was frightening and unacceptable to me, so I decided then and there to kick the caffeine habit.

What I quickly learned was that everyone has been snowed—researchers, doctors, journalists, and especially the public. The deception has been well coordinated by an industry whose goal is quite simple: to get as much caffeine into your body as possible. If the caffeine industry can accomplish that, they have you as a customer for life. They know caffeine saps your natural sense of vitality, leaving you dependent on their products to get through the day. They know that you actually crave their products and, more importantly, that you suffer when you don’t consume them.
It’s a marketing dream, and it’s legal. No wonder more and more companies are jumping on the caffeine bandwagon, churning out products from specialized coffees and teas to “herbal” caffeinated energy pills, caffeine-laced fruit beverages, “supercharged” soft drinks, caffeinated beer, and even caffeinated bottled water.