As we ramp up into an age where we have a day or month to celebrate or raise awareness for just about anything (What are you doing for International Talk Like a Pirate Day? I celebrate privately), it’s no surprise that we have a Caffeine Awareness Month. The real surprise to many people may be the reason you’re reading about it on a site dedicated to sobriety. Certainly, those in recovery know how to celebrate caffeine, as coffee is the only thing more consistent at an AA meeting than denial, but why should we be aware of it?
Caffeine is a fickle beast, mostly due to its prevalence of use, social acceptance, and highly addictive qualities. Readers may be no strangers to addiction but may turn up their noses to the fact that caffeine is “the most popularly consumed psychoactive drug worldwide.” (Ajmal, et al., 2023) While there are some similarities to alcohol use when it comes to societal normalization, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone getting a ticket for operating under the influence of caffeine. So, if it’s such a big issue, why don’t we hear more about it? Furthermore, how bad is it?
To answer the former, let’s reference the month of March. The long 31 days that used to be most closely associated with drunk leprechauns now rests in the hands of those that are adamant about letting each and every one of us know about the dangers associated with caffeine use. An organization called the Caffeine Awareness Association was founded as a non-profit in the early 2000s and aimed to raise awareness of the dangers of caffeine overdoses, eventually declaring March the official National Caffeine Awareness Month. In an email to a local Northeastern government office, the founder, Marina Kushner, provided statistics about caffeine overdoses and pleaded with local governments to join others in signing a proclamation to make March the official Caffeine Awareness Month. This was 2012, and Kushner claimed to have already proclamations signed by the governors of Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Nebraska (Kushner, 2012).
Before we get to the next part of this story, which provides a fun little twist, I do find it necessary to provide some of the real dangers of caffeine. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) refers to caffeine use disorder on its own. The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10) names caffeine as a stimulant other than cocaine. The effects of addiction are prevalent and anyone who’s tried to cut back, a concept many of us are familiar with, will find uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms like irritability and headaches. Caffeine, like many drugs, raises dopamine levels in the brain and adds a similar effect, albeit minor in comparison, as cocaine and other stimulants (Jain, et al., 2019).
Moderate use for most people doesn’t seem to raise red flags, but some studies show increased use over one’s lifetime and physical symptoms reported from caffeine abuse range from increased urination/dehydration to nose bleeds, and include high blood pressure, nausea, dizziness, and headaches (Ajmal et al., 2023). Anecdotally, I would say that if you are worried about your own intake of caffeine, you may be right to do so, as I have seen an increase in coffee drinking when people get sober, and some as far as becoming coffee pretentious. These are the folks who replace their addictive ritual of needles and spoons with exotic beans and fancy coffee scales. Considering the alternative, though, I’ll take embracing coffee over drugs any day of the week.
Circling back to the hilarious mystery of National Caffeine Month, let’s redirect our attention to its founder, Marina Kushner. In addition to asking governments to jump aboard the National Caffeine Awareness Month bandwagon, Kushner provided other resources. She published numerous books on caffeine addiction, abuse, and overdose, as well as an outlet for others to gain more information or become more involved on their website (linked at the end for comedic purposes). There isn’t a whole lot about Marina Kushner out there as far as her history, but her legacy is one of unexpected twists and turns.
As a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit, Marina was able to add herself to lists of companies that offer community service to felons and others sentenced to perform community service for one reason or another (something else we may relate to). These folks would join up with her organization, Caffeine Awareness, and after answering some questions, attending trainings, and spending their hours learning about the dangers of addiction, they would be given a certificate of completion, fulfilling their hours of community service. This was great, educational, and above all, extremely fake.
That’s right! Our founder of Caffeine Awareness Month and author of books like Confessions of a Caffeine Addict and The Truth About Caffeine, Marina Kushner, was defrauding the criminal justice system. In 2014, after searching for her for months, Kushner was arrested in Delray Beach, Florida and taken to Manhattan to stand trial (CBS News, 2014). The prosecutor reported that criminal defendants were paying Kushner’s organization a fee, answering some test questions (that were not checked or graded), and being given certificates of completion. The certificate that caused the suspicion was a woman claiming she had done 100 hours of community service learning about and informing people about caffeine.
After initially pleading not guilty, Kushner pleaded guilty and was sentenced accordingly. In addition to a hefty fine, it was 300 hours of community service and five years of probation. She was also ordered to take down her website. (Cusma & Rosenberg, 2014)
Ironically, All the work she did to raise awareness around caffeine addiction and its dangers lives on and still protects her to this day. After all, here I am, writing about it. The dangers are real, for sure, but this rabbit hole has left me questioning the legitimacy of the cause. Search for Marina Kushner and your Google results will be all about this organization and the terrible things that caffeine can do to you and hidden in little pockets are some buried news stories about Kushner’s case. I hope you think about Kushner when you are drinking your coffee…in moderation, of course.
I want to leave you with a special thanks to Wild Acres Coffee Company, who took over the domain CaffeineAwareness.org, which previously housed Kushner’s fraudulent community service website. The irony is truly the coffee cherry on top.
References
AJMAL, S., AJMAL, L., BABAR, A., RIASAT, A., BATOOL, F., & ZAFAR, T. (2023). Caffeine – an invisible addiction. Bulletin of University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca. Food Science and Technology, 80(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.15835/buasvmcn-fst:2022.0022
CBS News. (2014, July 29). “caffeine awareness” group accused of running Community Service Scam. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/caffeine-awareness-group-accused-of-running-community-service-scam/
Cusma, K., & Rosenberg, R. (2014, August 8). Woman who sold fake community service vouchers gets 300 hours. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2014/08/08/woman-who-sold-fake-community-service-vouchers-gets-300-hours/
Jain, S., Srivastava, A. S., Verma, R. P., & Maggu, G. (2019). Caffeine addiction: Need for awareness and research and regulatory measures. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 41, 73–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2017.01.008
Kushner, M. (2012, January). Proclamation request. Document center • town of amherst • civicengage. https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter
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