I guess this is my "dissertation." This is actually from a book I am writing about Kava....
From "Introduction"
I came across Kava kava the same way many other do – by searching for a healthy answer to the problem of stress.
It was the second half of my first year in Junior College and I had just stumbled upon the infamous academic “road not taken” that is the discipline of anthropology. It was a marriage between discipline and heart – not between discipline and mind. There were signs and declarations everywhere that this was a bad decision: “You’ll never get a job;” “That is a useless liberal arts degree that will get you nowhere;” “Look at all of your friends going into business and making money.” I was working full-time and going to school beyond full-time, trying to knock out all of my prerequisites and build up the basic foundations of my knowledge in anthropology. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and, on the weekends, would throw back beers with my friends and take on the night with a vengeance.
But ultimately, this strategy found me strung out and wild-eyed. I would blast through classes fueled by coffee and *gag* cigarettes. I would devour horrible greasy caricatures of “food” to get me through the day and to pump some dopamine through my weary brain. Bad habits started popping up everywhere. Food, coffee, beer, cigarettes, and a joint here and there to dumb down the stress. But there is a limit to how much excessiveness you can throw at your stress - even when you are 20 years old.
I remember driving my car down the freeway on the morning of some random weekday in October. I was on my way to school and was creeping through a traffic jam. Suddenly, I became overwhelmed with my surroundings. The clacking engines, the blaring radios surrounding me, the stifling heat, the music on my radio sounding like a dismal cacophony – I felt like my mental stability was literally falling apart. I suddenly felt crushed, overwhelmed, and utterly helpless in this swamp of metal and heat. I gripped on to the steering wheel of my car and became washed over with negative, shivering thoughts.
I was having an anxiety attack.
Now, one has some choices in a situation like this. One can do the “advisable thing” and go and see a doctor. I did that. I remember the 40-something-year-old man behind the desk talking down to me on his awkward plastic-textured sofa. “You have a lot of bottled up stuff from your childhood surfacing. Let me prescribe some anti-anxiety medication to you.” I looked at the chump in his big leather chair, with his Pfizer-sponsored calendar hanging lopsidedly on the wall behind him and the Xanax-sponsored business card holder standing prominently at the front of his desk. I took the prescription note from him, thanked him, and walked out of the hospitable. On the way out the front door, I crumpled the prescription up into a small ball and lobbed it into a trash can.
Now thankfully, my full-time job was as a cashier at a health food store in my home town. It was a job that I truly loved and look back upon very fondly. It was a kind a place of peace for me. Even though I worked full-time (sometimes having full-blown anxiety attacks on the job), it helped that it was in a “comfort zone” that was free of condescending management or conflicted ethics.
In the heart of the store was a “natural pharmacy.” I felt very conflicted about it, but I wanted to take the risk and “come out” about my history with anxiety and see if there were any “natural” solutions. One of the women who worked at the pharmacy walked me over to the herbal section and pulled a bottle of Valerian root off the shelf. She told me that if I took one of these at night, I would get restful sleep and wake up relaxed in the morning. She also advised me to brew chamomile tea throughout the day and sip it out of a travel mug. Thrilled, I bought all of these items and gave them a test drive.
The results were subtle, but not nearly effective enough for me to feel like I had driven the wolves away from the door. I was still having crippling panic attacks. I even started dropping classes at school that had a “presentation” component. I had to find universities that didn’t require public speaking classes for transfer students. My life was still being driven by anxiety, and I was determined to push it out of the driver’s seat. I was committed to doing this without synthetic drugs and without the help of alcohol.
Marijuana was not an option for me, because I could only tolerate it when I was already several drinks deep. If I smoked a joint while I was sober I would become incredibly nervous and paranoid. I always hated the stuff and only smoked it to “fit in” with the crowd I moved with. To this day, I don’t go near the stuff. Additionally, it killed my energy levels – even when I wasn’t high – and made me feel spaced out and uncreative.
And then I found Kava kava.
I was back at the natural pharmacy section of the health food store, rummaging through bottles of herbal capsules, when I came across a squarish tin can that had a tiki figure on the front. In big South Pacific-esque script, the words “Kava King” were laid out on the front of the can. I turned it over and read the details of the content. It was pure, fresh Kava kava that was morphed into an instant beverage. The drink promised to help with stress relief and sore muscles. It promised to fight anxiety without any side effects or next-day hangovers. It required nothing but water, a cup, and a spoon. And it cost – oh dear – $20 for a quarter of a kilogram! I went back to the woman who had advised me to try Valerian root and Chamomile tea and asked her if the description on the can was accurate. She responded that it was very controversial and she didn’t know if she felt comfortable recommending it.
“Why not?” I asked.
“There have been reports that it messes up your liver.”
(And there you go. Within five minutes of me even hearing about the stuff for the first time, the misinformation campaign against Kava kava entered the discourse).
“Does it work?” I responded.
“The short answer is a resolute ‘yes,’” she responded. “Again, I don’t want to recommend it because there are conflicting reports on its safety. The FDA is even thinking of banning it.”
“Well, I think I’m going to give it a try.”
“Go for it.” She responded. “Try it while you can.”
When I got home that night, I opened the can and sniffed the grayish-green contents inside. It smelled like a mixture of cement and pond water. I shrugged and dumped a tablespoon in a glass, vigorously stirring the contents until a thick greenish sludge came to fruition. I quickly threw back the Kava kava and stared out the kitchen window at my black lab frolicking around in the moonlight. I kept watching the dog, thinking how carefree and wonderful it was must be to exist as a sentient being with a less complex mind and less complex problems. My mouth became overwhelmed with numbness and I laughed a bit, wondering what the hell was going on.
I walked over to my college text books and sat down to read up for an Art History test I had the following day. I was making flash cards to memorize artists and their well-known works with the dates and general significance of their works. I felt incredibly relaxed and focused. As the minutes passed, I started to recognize a feeling of pleasure and relaxation I had never known before. My mind was sharp, my curiosity was booming, but my spirit was calm and rested. My entire body was at ease and I worked through the flash cards. I realized that about 45 minutes had passed, so I went to make another glass of Kava kava.
After repeating this cycle about three times, I came to realize two important things.
The first was that Kava kava was the solution to my problems with anxiety. In fact, it is a perfect solution for anyone who regularly experiences stress or anxiety. 15 years later, I still accept this as an indisputable fact. I have done extensive research on the side effects of Kava kava and how it compares to pharmaceutical drugs. There is no argument here – Kava kava is safe and effective. Pharmaceutical drugs are not safe or effective. You can wander around the world as a drugged-up zombie who depends on chemical solutions to natural problems, or you can free yourself from such as lifestyle with a root from the south Pacific. I think the decision is obvious.
The second thing I realized was that Kava kava can be very, very expensive. This is no trifling matter. You are not going to get your health insurance company to fork over money for kilo after kilo of Kava kava (even though they probably should!). The stuff can set you back $75 a month if you use it on a semi-regular basis. Is that price tag worth tackling anxiety and reducing stress? Probably. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on Kava kava. But how can I complain when it got me through college; when it held my hand and walked me through perilous times of my life; when it was there to immediately and effectively address a horrible mood or stressful situation; when it allowed me to have a deeper appreciation for the arts; when it boosted my creative abilities and helped me sculpt my Master’s thesis; when I had to give presentations in front of 1,000 people and dipped into some Honey Lemon extract from Paradise Kava to get through comfortably – without a hitch?
