While at first I thought this article was completely unedited, it turned out I was wrong. The one edit was due to a lack of "professionalism". Honestly, people, if you give Aaron J. Rushton a column in a paper, you just kissed professionalism bye-bye.

The spice of life: An addiction gone too far?

capsaicin
Pronunciation: kap-'sA-&-s&n
: a colorless irritant phenolic amide C18H27NO3 that gives hot peppers their hotness
OK, now, I can’t even begin to tell you what a phenolic amide is. I did absolutely terribly in my Chemistry class in high school. The only time I had any clue at all what was going on was when we burned the chemicals to make all the different colors. OK, well, there was that, and then there was this one time on the final exam where the question had some mysterious chemical compound that was made of sodium, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. I don’t remember any of the subscripts (those little numbers), but I do know that the chemical symbols all next to each other spelled out NaCHO. So of course, in the middle of the final exam, I shouted out “Hey! That spells nacho!”
I tell you that for no good reason, really. I just thought it was funny. But really, I don’t know what a phenolic amide is, but I do know what capsaicin is. Capsaicin is what makes hot peppers hot, and that’s good enough for me.
You see… I’ve got a problem. It’s an addiction, really, and possibly a downright dependence.
What a lot of people don’t know is that capsaicin really does produce pain in the nerves of the mouth, throat, and digestive system. This stuff really hurts. Now, since your body is in pain and is not actually receiving any physical harm, your body doesn’t know how else to react so it starts putting out endorphins. Endorphins are those amazing little happy hormones that keep us all whistling zip-a-dee-doo-dah and skipping along the cobblestones, feelin’ groovy.
Now, since the capsaicin produces pain, and the pain produces endorphins, and the endorphins produce a natural high, if you will.
Now, with all that in mind, I’m telling you what I’m about to tell you as evidence of my addiction. I assure you, none of the following is made up.
I was sitting at the house by myself over the summer, just goofing off at the computer. I live out in the middle of the country, and it was too late to go see a movie, too late to call anybody, too late to do too much of anything, but way too early to go to sleep. After all, when you wake up at 1:30 in the afternoon, how early can you really go to bed?
I was feeling a bit down in the dumps, so I tried to find something to do to cheer myself up. Well, none of my friends were online, so I couldn’t talk to them. I didn’t feel like watching a movie. Reading a comic book didn’t do anything for me. I realized then and there that something was seriously wrong, because if reading a comic book didn’t help, hoo boy was I in trouble.
After some careful consideration, I suddenly came to the conclusion that my capsaicin level was too low. After all, I’d not had hot sauce all day, and I’d been awake for nearly 9 hours. Trembling, I walked into the kitchen and stood at the pantry. I pulled down a box of crackers and a bottle of Garlic Tabasco sauce. I took out one cracker and applied hot sauce liberally. I ate the cracker.
I decided I didn’t need the crackers.
I popped the plastic mouth off of the top of the bottle, turned it up, and drained it dry in about 15 seconds. I then walked to the fridge and washed it all down with a jar of habanero salsa. By this time, my arms were shaking violently and my sight began to swirl and mesh into one big red blur. I leapt to the spice rack, pulled down the chili powder and the ground cayenne and snorted them both clean. I seem to remember at this point that there was a bag of fresh jalapenos lying off to the side of the counter. Well, there had been, at least.
I woke up 3 hours later, on the floor, covered in sweat, shirt torn, scratches all over the cold linoleum floor of the kitchen.
I can see where I’m headed. It’s not a happy place. A few years from now you’re going to see me sitting on the side of the road begging for change just so I can buy a fresh cayenne. I’ll be out behind bars and restaurants, just hoping for the throw away buffalo wing sauce. One day I’ll be walking out of a clinic with an IV drip plugged into my arm and a bottle of Texas Pete Hot Sauce flowing straight into my arteries.
There are witnesses to my addiction. I can go through a half-bottle or more of hot sauce at one meal in the cafeteria. I began eating fresh jalapenos at approximately 18 months. FRESH jalapenos, mind you. Pickled jalapenos, the ones in the jar, yes, they can be hot, but fresh jalapenos have been known to burn the skin. I carried a bottle of Louisiana ‘One Drop Does It’ Hot Sauce to church camp for an entire summer. I had a holster attached to the side of my pants that I carried my hot sauce in. One drop really doesn’t do it, for me.
Am I living a lie? Is all the joy I derive from my life a mere sham? Does existence hold no meaning for me other than my next capsaicin fix? Of all the problems I have with the cafeteria, this one holds out into the forefront: NOT ENOUGH HOT SAUCE! I can’t make it through three meals without running out.
I sit at my table in the cafeteria, fork in one hand, hot sauce bottle in the other, and without fail some guy comes up asking for the hot sauce. I watch him shake his few meager drops onto his chicken sandwich, or maybe throw a little in with his ketchup. Ha. HA, I say! The only reason I ever get French fries is to have something to put hot sauce on. I’d drink it straight from the bottle, but then people would look at me funnier than they already do.
I use crushed red peppers as potpourri. I eat bushels upon bushels of pepperoncini, jalapeno, chipotle, hot wax, cayenne, Mombassa, chiltecpin, Jamaican hot, and habanero, and I am not satisfied. I crave more. I want to feel the burn.
I need help.
But first I need some hot sauce.