As I stood mesmerized in front of the magazine stand at the bookstore on Saturday I realized that I could no longer be in denial.

I am truly addicted.

The January issue of National Geographic features an article on “Why we love caffeine,” and the cup of joe on the cover stood out from every other magazine on the stand. I imagined the taste of a hot cup of coffee and practically smelled its aroma.

Many coffee lovers have argued that their desire for the precious, centuries-old drink is its taste; others say it is the socializing environment in which we can consume the liquid — many coffee shopsÿopen daily around the world. Others will admit that the alertness felt after a cup of coffee is their drive for consuming it.

Sound like a drug addiction? Well … it is. Caffeine is the most popular psychoactive drug and the only one which we are comfortable serving to children — think about all the chocolate bars you ate as a child and the number of children who drink Mountain Dew.

Caffeine is the solution to long hours of work (or party) and short hours of sleep. According to the National Geographic article, coffee and tea gained popularity in Europe during the Industrial Revolution, when the drug helped humans adapt from a sunrise to sundown work schedule to an indoor job scheduled by a clock.

Today caffeine is gaining more popularity than ever not because of how many Starbucks you can find in one block of one city, but because energy drinks like Red Bull exist.

The new cool drink at the party scene is Red Bull — served with vodka or J„germeister or champagne, or even tequila. Its advertisements claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” and extreme sports have become their main advertising venue, but according to CNN.com, athletic experts do not encourage energy drinks during exercise. In 2000, an 18-year-old basketball player died after ingesting four cans of the drink before a game.

You might be safe drinking the 80 milligrams of caffeine found in a Red Bull can every day, but it’s still easy to exceed onÿyour daily dose of caffeine.

Think about it — 25 milligrams of caffeine in a Hershey’s almond bar, 50 milligrams in a brewed tea, 57 milligrams more when you drink a 20-ounce Coca-Cola, 200 milligrams in a 12-ounce cup of coffee, and 294 milligrams in a 64-ounce Mountain Dew — you can do the math. And if you are used to consuming around 600 milligrams or more of caffeine a day, your visual and auditory activity will not be the same without your daily dose.

Now that the semester is starting, it might be a good time to moderate our daily caffeine intake. I realize my love for caffeine; the thought of eating chocolate bars or drinking coffee and tea makes me smile.

I never liked Red Bull, and my curiosity would rather have me try the Thai beverage, Krating Daeng, from which it was adapted.

But before replacing sleep for caffeine and going on a hunt for Krating Daeng, it might be a better idea to start on the right foot — manage time to get enough sleep.

I broke the caffeine habit during winter break. Now it’s time to control the caffeine flow in my body.