The crash of a Starbucks coffee hits me like the ass end of a crack high. My hands shake like a drunk fiddling with a pill bottle. My t-shirt absorbs the cold beads of sweat from around the collar and armpits. I won't sleep tonight and by morning I'll probably cry at least once from the searing diarrhea pains. Yet by morning, I'll twitch for another. Even worse, I won’t be able to start my day without one.

It might sound like an episode of Intervention. (This would be the part where they do the secret confessional of a mother sobbing.) But this type of thing goes on in everyday life. Addiction is not as funny when it's not glorified on television. My soul is contained in a sixteen-ounce Styrofoam cup with milk and two sugars.

Right now, I have a cup of Bucks right next to me that I've torn the lid from so that I can stick my whole face in the cup. When I finish it, my pupils will dilate. My heart will begin to beat like a techno song, and I will start to look like Nick Nolte's mug shot. How can any conscious mind prosecute a tobacco company when so many coffee profiteers pump a black drug from every street corner in Manhattan? In the words of Reverend Lovejoy's wife from The Simpsons:

"Will someone please think of the children?"

Drinking a cup of coffee is like watching ESPN Classic. You know Babe Ruth doesn't run that fast. He is just on fast forward. That’s the coffee high. You don't actually have the stamina; you just speed it up artificially. Unless they had a Starbucks in Yankee Stadium, no man who drinks beers in between innings and flags down the hot dog vendor in the outfield bleachers can run that fast.

Just as there are level of dependents, who seek different drugs for different reasons, so too, are the bean seekers who ingest the 'C.'

Social coffee drinkers tend to drink higher quality roasts like Starbucks. When they do spend their cash on the dual-sugared substance, they make sure they get the full effect of their drug and feel more comfortable around friends. They tend to chatter endlessly about frivolous matters as if they actually pertained to productivity.

The more avid coffee drinker will cop a fix from any local outlet he can find. He'll brew Folgers at home. She will buy a 16-ounce from a bagel store. It will lap up the liquid from aluminum to go cup. These to go cups tend to represent more of an outward declaration of coffee culture. It's similar to an inner city youth who represents cannabis culture through a bulky pot leaf medallion.

Finally, there are the dependents that would suck gasoline through a rubber hose if it had a shot of espresso in it. They veer to truck stops on the Garden State Parkway and purchase pints of amphetamine fueled Joe for less than 89 cents. They buy twenty-four ounces from Wawa on special occasions. They chew on coffee grinds when there's no hot water or milk. This sect of the population needs our help most. If they don't get it, they'll soon resort to Sanka. Watching someone drink Sanka is like watching an old friend huff paint in a Perkins dumpster. You want to help. But, you don't know how.

At this point, one could suggest they switch to decaf. But, that's like smoking the weed from High Times magazine. It's more frustrating than dropping the drip for good. I just know I don't want to end up like a Truth public service announcement and neither should any one else. I don't want my mother to have to look into my baggy eyes and smell the curdled milk on my breath. I don't want to end up pandering for five dollars outside of Yankee stadium for a small regular.

As the warmth grows in my legs, I can tell the caffeine is kicking in because I've started to tug at the hair on my head. My leg has started to jitter and each time I hit the space bar I emphasize it with a big slam so that all those around me will know that I finished a word. Perhaps because I've taken such a large dose I'll produce more than if I didn't drink any coffee at all. Probably not. Most likely, I'll either read several hundred Wikipedia articles about nothing or I'll look on Craig's List for a clinic to check in to. Except, there is no place for people like me. Scum stick with scum. So, I'll go to Starbucks.