It all started my Freshman year of High School when the next town over finally got a Starbucks. Now, I knew what Starbucks was and went a few times before when I was on vacation or shopping in downtown Atlanta, but besides that, I wasn't a crazy Starbuck fanatic. Their coffee was okay and the atmosphere that every Starbucks I went to was pretty chill. Honestly, I wasn't even a big coffee drinker so, when Starbucks came to my little town, I didn't really understand all the hype that surrounded it.

September turned into October and everyone from my HIgh School started hanging out at Starbucks after school. Student Council meetings would end in a trip to Starbucks, study groups moved from the library to Starbucks, and most importantly, I started hanging out at Starbucks. That's when my addiction really began.

First, it started with limiting myself to one or two PSLs per week. I went there with my friends three or four times a week after school and I was enjoying the fall season with my giant sweaters and pumpkin flavored everything. I figured limiting myself from drinking PSLs everytime I went would stop me from getting addicted to caffeine and honestly, it did work. For a little bit.

As it started getting closer to Halloween, I went from a casual PSL drinker to a full-on addict. I craved PSLs from the time I got up to the time I went to bed. To help feed my addiction, I started eating everything pumpkin flavored. I even got my mom to make a Pumpkin Spice Cake for Halloween. To say I was a woman obsessed would be putting it lightly. My two PSLs a week turned into having one at least once a day and my caffeine addiction was at an all-time high. And as soon as it started, my addiction came crashing down.

Starbucks had stopped selling PSLs and my world came crashing down. It seemed as if overnight everything turned from pumpkin to peppermint flavored. There weren't any more cute Halloween decorations, falling leaves, and rotting pumpkins were thrown off people's porches. My recovery from this crisis was pretty brutal and I fell into this PSL cycle of addiction from that year on.

Four years later, as a freshman in college, the PSL season is rolling back around and I've finally decided to take the first steps towards ending my PSL addiction. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem so I'm considering this my first step towards a PSL-free life.