Hi, I’m Dare and I am addicted to Monster Energy Drinks.

Some people will say it’s not Monster, it’s just caffeine and I can replace it with coffee and be fine and to that I say WRONG! It is Monster. I have tried replacing it with coffee and other fizzy drinks time and time again and it doesn’t work. 

It started in my time in the Navy. I was pounding caffeine like crazy to stay awake during the times I was spending hours reading the most boring technical things ever and couldn’t fall asleep or I got in trouble. Then it was trying to stay awake during field exercises when equipment broke and I was up all night trying to fix it pounding Monster with my nicotine pouch in my cheek. Then it evolved from there.

Monster energy drinks became my comfort drink, my favorite flavors, and the feel of caffeine hitting my system with the other vitamins and chemicals in the drink was just right. In recent years I was up to four Monster Energy’s a day. I drank more energy drinks than I drank water. 

Super unhealthy, I know. But every time I would try to stop I’d get cranky, fatigued, emotional, and have super intense cravings and headaches. I would try to replace it with coffee or other fizzy drinks and it just wouldn’t help. Sometimes I’d make it a month without one, then I’d get a random craving and say “what the heck, one won’t hurt” and then I’d be drinking four a day again within a week. 

I have been a smoker in the past, I put cigarettes and nicotine pouches down no problem without ever looking back. If I randomly go “I want to smoke again” cigarettes and the nicotine pouches I used to use make me physically ill. Alcoholism runs in my family and I was on a path to become one and now I can look at a bottle of alcohol and feel nothing. No desire to drink at all. 

But I try to stop drinking Monster and I see a can, my mouth waters, I get emotional, I cry, and jones, I want it so bad I am almost willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get it. 

But here’s the problem… And it’s a very big problem… Monster Energy Drinks are hurting my brain and liver and setting off my tremors more. 

I’ve been doing experimentation and days I stop drinking energy drinks, I am highly fatigued and sleep so much but tremor less. On days I drink energy drinks I am more awake and alert but tremor so much more. Also, on days I don’t drink energy drinks I am less likely to have nausea and vomit than I am on days I do drink them. 

My doctors have told me I need to go on a specialized diet. I struggle with diets in general but the hardest part of the diet is no Monster Energy. 

I struggle giving up sugar and chips and cooking for myself. I have an unhealthy relationship with food in general,  something I need to work on for sure. But it is so much worse with no Monster!

I have a great support group for sure. Squishy has tried to help me in the past with Monster and I snuck them with cash and hid the cans in the trashcan under other trash. That is how bad it was. Hid the can’s I had left to drink in drawers like they were contraband!

I think I need to see a counselor or someone who specializes in addiction to get rid of this one. 

Go to Monster Addicts Anonymous. 

I need to stand up in front of a group of people like me and say “Hi, I am Dare and I am addicted to Monster Energy Drinks” as I work through my 12 step program to kick the habit. Earn my no Monsters coin. 

Of all the things I have had to deal with since my brain died, I think this is up there in my top five worst. It’s its own level of hell. 

But Monster isn’t worth my life so I guess it’s time I put the can down and fight like hell to kick the habit. 

-Dare