Abuse of supplements has dire consequences

  Dylan Hernandez Dylan Hernandez will be
forming a Devil Juice recovery group on campus. Those interested in
joining can e-mail him at [email protected]

I had one of my worst drug experiences this past weekend. That
shouldn’t be taken lightly, considering that, in the past six
months alone, foreign substances have convinced me that I was God,
that a sofa was attacking me, and that plunging to my death out of
a sixth-story window would make my parents proud.

No, I didn’t smoke crack or snort PCP. I drank a workout
supplement beverage. Because we here at the Daily Bruin don’t
like potential lawsuits, I’ll refer to this drink as
“Devil Juice.”

Devil Juice contains 27 mg of ephedrine, 200 mg of caffeine and
27 mg of white willow bark (whatever that is). Ephedrine
isn’t one of the safest substances on the planet. It’s
known to cause, among other things, heart attacks, strokes,
respiratory depression and paranoid psychosis.

My best friend “Pedro” (this name, too, is
fictitious) first found out about this stuff about a year ago when
he began working out at a gym. Some body-Nazi there recommended the
drink to him, saying it would give him an energy boost, allowing
him to get the most out of his training session.

Being a rather smart guy (depending on your definition of
“smart”), Pedro found other uses for Devil Juice. He
began using it to stay awake while studying.

Before long, Pedro, myself and a couple of our other friends
were passing bottles of that crap around the car on our way to
concerts. I never really noticed its effects because I always had
about 50 other toxins in my body.

But last weekend, I really needed something to keep me awake. I
was driving up to Fresno to cover a sports event on Saturday, and I
wasn’t feeling particularly energized. I hadn’t slept
much in the past few days because of midterms and Internet
pornography.

As we headed to the horse races on Friday evening, I asked Pedro
for advice. He recommended Devil Juice, which he had just bought in
bulk. He had his trunk filled with the colorful plastic bottles and
offered to give me a few for my journey. I took five.

“Use them carefully,” he warned. “The bottle
says it can stop your heart. My pulse is usually in the 40s and
this thing jacks it up into the mid-80s.”

So much for that. I carried one into the park and downed it as
soon as I got in. It was nice. Even though I was continuously
losing money, my enthusiasm didn’t diminish at all. I had a
good time.

I went back home, $30 poorer, and spent a few hours watching old
boxing tapes before making my way north. I jumped in my mom’s
1981 Toyota Celica and drove to the mountains. Within no time, I
was cracking open another bottle. The liquid wasn’t at all
filling and went down smoothly.

The boost was incredible. I had so much energy it was
ridiculous. I wanted to rip off the roof of my car and hurl myself
into the mountains. Getting to my destination quickly became a main
priority. I forgot that getting there quickly would mean having to
spend more time in Fresno.

By the time I got there, my body had slowed down. Nonetheless, I
had little trouble covering the event. I hadn’t eaten in a
while, but I had no appetite. My brain was certainly dead, but I
wasn’t getting sleepy at all. Everything was fine until the
award ceremonies. That’s when I came crashing down.

For some reason, I thought my misery was of some significance,
and I scribbled a few notes in my pad. They are barely legible, but
I can still make out the words: “temples are caving in …
eyes not following head … head turns one way, takes a second for
eyes to catch up … going to vomit … so, so sick … I’ve
put a lot of shit into my body during my life but I’ve never
come down this hard…”

With some luck, I got my interviews done without making a total
monkey of myself and blasted out of the area. Sensing the ephedrine
was wearing off, I downed another bottle. I was hanging on decently
until I got to Bakersfield. There, I started to go up and down
rapidly.

One moment, I was singing along with Destiny’s Child
without a care in the world; in the next, I was literally crying
behind the steering wheel because I couldn’t find a Pizza
Hut.

My body had been overworked. It was so tired that it
couldn’t make sense of anything. My brain was no longer able
to evoke the proper emotions associated with certain stimuli.
Strange thoughts rushed through my head, and I started getting
depressed for no reason.

At the same time, I couldn’t go to sleep and get rest. My
heart was still pounding hard.

The rest of my drive back was hell. At one point, one of my
buddies called me on my cell phone and asked where I was. When I
scanned the area to see, I panicked and screamed, “What the
hell am I doing in the middle of the desert?!”

Later that weekend, I came down with a really nasty fever. Devil
Juice probably wasn’t directly responsible, but not sleeping
for 48 hours couldn’t have helped.

The lesson to be learned here is a simple one that you probably
knew before you read this column: use workout supplements to work
out, not to make up for a lack of sleep.

Unless you really have to, that is…

Guess what I’m drinking right now?