Terrible Analogies

I think I have a problem.

It started innocently enough.  Friends buying me my first hit, assuring me that it’ll be alright.  After all, everybody does it.

I thought, “What the hell.  Why not?”

And just like that I was hooked.

At first it was just once a day.  Usually a bump in the morning to get me going.  But I knew it was quickly blossoming into a real problem when I found myself looking for a hook-up during lunch as well.  Then I was sneaking out of my cubicle several times a day, grabbing a quick bing in the break room.  The parking lot.  My car.

The stuff pepped me up.  Got my nerves humming.  Made the tedious task of computer work seem infused with endless possibilities.  There was nothing I felt that I could not do while my system was on this junk.  It got so bad that I simply could not do anything without a fresh infusion of this wonderful elixir.

But, as with all things too good to be true, the withdrawals were a nightmare.

I became lethargic.  Depressed.  Agitated.  I snapped at the most inconsequential of things.  Nothing worked right and everything seemed to be “off”.  I got headaches, and just wanted to go home and do nothing other than sleep.

My friends and co-workers became suspicious.  They knew something was wrong with me, and they eyed with me suspicion and contempt.  I felt as if I had become the pariah of my department, the one guy to avoid, and hid myself within the thin confines of my cubicle walls.

“Just once more,” I kept telling myself.  “I can stop any time I want.”

But that’s the lie every junky tells himself.

Yes, coffee is one hell of a drug…