“Quit things in the order they’ll kill you”
The alcohol to energy drink pipeline
Hello there,
Writing to you on a (rare) dreary LA morning, and my coffee’s not hitting hard enough. What’s a caffeine-sensitive wuss to do? Slump and bear it I guess.
Unlike those among us who can crush Red Bulls with nary a care, that’s never been my deal, so I was always at a loss when, in my alt career as a health and wellness investor, I’d get pitched energy drinks. If sampling the product means I’ll be up ‘til 4am… “I’m out,” as the Sharks say.
But it was confusing to be pitched these products anyway: What logic pretzels are required to characterize energy drinks as a health product? Sure, maybe “they’re made with ingredients you can pronounce” or “they cause fewer heart palpitations than the alternatives.” But wouldn’t we all be healthier… not drinking them?
My very limited personal experience in the category means I’m not the right person to answer, but we knew someone who was: our friend and LA-based writer Annakeara Stinson. So she crushed some CelsiusTM and gave us her unique perspective on the fraught world of energy drinks.
Buckle up!
Jocelyn, Prism co-founder, one cup a day coffee drinker, and newly fixated on Tuberculosis (read on for context)
Annakeara is an-LA based writer whose debut novel, Nerve Damage, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2026. One thing that makes Annakeara feel well: 9-12 hours of sleep.
To Celsius or Not to Celsius?
Some months ago I was headed on a hike with my friend Nora in the Angeles forest. It was hot and we were looking for a waterfall, and the hike we chose had a beautiful natural pool. It was just a good 3.5 miles of moderately difficult terrain before then, and we were both feeling low. Nora said she knew how we could change that––which sounded, of course, like she was about to slip out a baggie of coke from the heel of her beige HOKAs. Instead, she pulled a U-ie into a MOBIL station and came out with two thin white beverage cans. Energy drinks. I made a face of disgust but took a few sips. Then a few more.
Cut to: the two of us jogging on the trail, adroitly discussing politics, film, attachment theory, bathing joyfully beneath a waterfall, then returning to the car with lifeforce to spare. CelsiusTM! A wonder drug!
As a result of this profound caffeinated experience, I bought my very first case. Now, energy drinks were a popular alternative in my recovery community, particularly when I first got sober in 2013. I would find myself at what I believed to be devastatingly lame “sober events” where youths would be rippin’ JUULs and downing Monsters until they were speaking in tongues. I always had a bias against these drinks, and found them, ironically, too unhealthy to imbibe. (To stave off my binge drinking habit, I stuck with the classic, Nan Goldin’s NY, let’s-ignore-the-cause-of-dad’s-emphysema cool of coffee and cigs.)
Post Super Hike a few months ago, I was excited to find an energizing beverage that made me feel less mentally tweaky than coffee does now. But my excitement was short-lived. After a high-flyin’ week of drinking them daily––it caught up with me. I drank one before I went for a jog one day, then got mild…heart palpitations. This seemed a rather extreme effect for a beverage so ubiquitous and easy to access, but I didn’t want to give up on my new bev so easily, so I went searching for some reassurance.
I discovered, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, that while there appear to be some obvious perks to an energy drink (Redbull, Monster, Rockstar etc.) like energy boosts, increased alertness, and positive impact on workouts––drinking them in excess (which varies depending on the individual) is not without some potential side effects. Anxiety, depression, stomach issues, mood swings, tooth decay, heart palpitations, and high blood pressure, to name a few. Generally, the FDA says you should be fine if you have 1-2 servings of an energy drink a day, or up to 400 mg of caffeine. But like anything, someone’s tolerance for caffeine varies widely person to person.
There have been a surprising amount of studies on energy drinks (is that really the best use of research funds?) including one that correlates an increased risk of stroke or heart issues to their consumption. Another study is literally called The Dark Side of Energy Drinks: A Comprehensive Review of Their Impact on the Human Body, which concluded there were a “significant prevalence of adverse effects, particularly on the cardiovascular and neurovegetative systems”––and called for more restrictions around their sales. A study out of John Hopkins found that energy drinks were linked to unhealthy/high risk behavior in adolescents. (Which may be true, but it reads a little like the Dad in Footloose who outlawed dancing / when people used to blame video games for school shootings.)
Finally, I took it up with Nora MacLeod, the friend who introduced me to sweet Celsius and also happens to be an acupuncturist and herbalist at Tapestry Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine. She says that in general, she’s all for moderation with most things, but that one time, she did have way too much Celsius and hallucinated, which is both wild and actually listed as a potential energy drink side effect. I asked what she hallucinated––she declined to comment.
Her take is that “Caffeine can be useful, it’s a tool. An energy drink is a yang stimulant—meaning it’s active, upward moving, hot energy. When you have excess amounts of Yang, it can deplete your Yin energy, which is what roots you to the ground, and roots your mind in calm. Habitual use of energy drinks can deplete that Yin energy and cause an excess of Yang energy. That’s when you might get irritability, insomnia, palpitations, hormonal disruption, dry eyes, insomnia, and anxiety.”
To her point about moderation, there is a saying in recovery: quit things in the order they’ll kill you. When I think back to those kids and their Monsters at my “sober events”—it makes sense why people who were trying to stave off alcohol/drug cravings were using a less imminently destructive substance to get weird or feel differently. Or even to just stay awake. But there is too much info indicating habitual long term use of energy drinks just isn’t that great for the ticker, among other things––and I felt that pretty immediately. Personally, the cons outweigh the pros for my sensitive self as a daily beverage. But for the occasional boost before a hike on a hot day? I don’t hate it.
FIND ANNAKEARA ON
Our team (2/3 of us *to be specific*) just read John Green’s book Everything is Tuberculosis, a “scientific and social history of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.” The book was perhaps an unlikely choice for our inaugural team book club, but, what can we say, we’re into heady shit (that also happens to be written by the author of YA sensation The Fault in Our Stars).
Green explains that the title’s origin came from his wife’s observation of his tendency to make everything about tuberculosis. Welp, now for us everything is Everything is Tuberculosis, as we’ve been thinking pretty constantly about the complexities of the global healthcare system that the book lays bare. TB is preventable and treatable, and yet over 10 million people fell victim to it in 2023, because, as Green repeatedly illustrates, just because we can treat a disease doesn’t mean we will. There are hundreds of factors that contribute to a person’s ability to combat TB, ranging from as obvious as access to adequate nutrition to as seemingly unrelated as living in a place with well maintained roads (if it takes you hours to get to a clinic on dilapidated dirt roads, daily treatment is near impossible).
It’s easy to write off “wellness” with an eyeroll, dismissing it as bubblebaths and Erewhon smoothies. (We’ve been the eyerollers, we know!) So a book like this is a good reminder of the social and systemic drivers of health, and how “wellness” includes everything from community networks to education systems to wifi access. Indeed, it starts to seem like “everything is health and wellness”... but that’s kind of the point! In that vein, we want to hear your take on unexpected things that you think of as health and wellness, so hit us up. (Or if you just wanna chat Everything is Tuberculosis, that works too… Prism public health book club!?)
Humbled 🍄
Thanks for reading! Hope the rest of your Sunday is more special occasion fancy latte than gas station coffee.
Everything IS wellness and everything IS privilege when you realize there are so many food deserts around the U.S.