What are you addicted to? What do you need to keep your blood warm? What can?t you live without? Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol or vicodin?

College students get a wide berth when it comes to addiction. We are expected to experiment. We are told that now is the time to get it out of our systems. Many college students laugh off the growing addictions that will one day consume their lives. Who hasn?t heard one of their friends say, “I?m not an alcoholic, I?m a college student.” No, you are an alcoholic, and stupid on top of that.But we all have our little addictions, don?t we? The line every morning for Java City is evidence of this nation?s dependence on coffee. Do those of you who wake up every morning with a need for a cup of coffee know what that need is? It is your body desperate for the chemicals. Those little scientifically engineered molecules will eventually give you colon cancer if you don?t throttle back on your lattes.

But then again, one can become addicted to anything nowadays. Television is the most addicting thing I can think of. Sit down and plug in; there?s no need to think. There?s no need to do anything. Why is our nation becoming so fat? It?s because we detach from the world with a bag of Doritos, anxious to know the sex of Ross and Rachel?s baby.

If television is too slow for you, we have something that is a hundred times worse. Once the Internet came onto the scene, I was toast. I can get any research I want, download any kind of reading material that I can?t find in my local library or get whatever music I desire to listen to. Oh yeah, and if I feel like porn, it?s just a point and click away. God bless whoever the heck invented the information super highway.

But addiction is not all bad. In his novel “Choke,” Chuck Palahniuk wrote that addiction can be a healthy thing because, “At least addicts know how they are going to die.” While it is difficult to agree with Palahniuk on this one, he definitely has a point. There is a certain power that comes with addiction. You are choosing the way that you want to meet your end, instead of your end choosing you. Either way, it?s pretty messed up.

Breaking an addiction is the ultimate test of a person?s mettle. Recently, I tried to give up caffeine, and the entire experiment lasted about three days. I got really tired of being tired all the time and having my body revolt against the change in my diet. So I gave in. I had a Pepsi. I have them all of the time. Britney Spearsbeing named spokeswoman for the company did not help me out any.

But hey, I?m a college student, I?m supposed to get all of the soda drinking out of my system.

Contact Ryan Flatley at [email protected].

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