Feel Free appears as innocuous as a trendy new Kombucha, and it’s billed as a natural way to get a little boost.
Manufacturer Botanic Tonics advertises the drink as filled with “plant ingredients” and perfect for “whenever you want a mood lift, a caffeine-free energy boost, or a little extra focus.”
But some hapless customers who picked up a little blue bottle at a convenience store or gas station learned the hard way the drinks — which contain kava and kratom extracts — can be severely addictive.
Jasmine Adeoye cut out alcohol in 2022 for a “lifestyle change,” and heard about Feel Free on the Skinny Confidential podcast, where it was billed as a good alternative to social drinking.
“The two hosts were actually taking a hiatus from alcohol and they were talking about Feel Free and how it was a really great alcohol alternative for sober people, and I was looking for something like that,” Adeoye, 30, of Austin, Texas, said.
When she heard about it yet again on Joe Rogan’s show, she decided to try it.
“I wanted to overcome the social anxiety of not having alcohol anymore, and it made me feel really good, but from then on, it was just a slow progression,” she recalled. “I had no idea, going into it, that it was addictive.”
She was able to use it moderately for a year when in social drinking situations, but then a stressful job as an account manager pushed her into addiction in 2023.
“It started to progress to, one a day slowly, and then two to three a day, and then upwards of five or six, and at the absolute worst, like twelve bottles a day,” she admitted. “I was spending easily $3,000 a month.”
Pharmacist Ethan Melillo warns the combination of kava and kratom, both of which are legal ingredients in the US, is highly addictive.
“This combination is something you don’t want to be mixing together,” he told The Post. “I definitely think it should be banned. They’re both regularly available supplements, but what concerns me is the combination of the two of them.”
Kava is a depressant, while Kratom is a stimulant — which means they have opposite effects on the body.
Melillo, who is based in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, explained that kratom and kava each bind to different receptors in the brain, and can be extremely overstimulating in combination.
Kava, which is used to reduce stress and anxiety, binds to the same receptors as benzodiazepine drugs, like Xanax and Valium. Kratom interacts with the same receptors as opioids, which poses a risk of addiction and withdrawal.
“What I’m seeing is people [consuming] like two, three, four [drinks] a day, because once you build that tolerance, your body will want more of it,” he explained.
“I’m not surprised that people are getting addicted to this, and that’s what’s so concerning about supplements. Usually they will only get pulled after people are having side effects.”
Adeoye went to great lengths to hide her dependence: “I would hop around from gas station to gas station because I was so embarrassed about the amount that I was buying. I would even get them on UberEats sometimes so I didn’t have to face anyone.”
She says her addiction took a toll physically and emotionally.
“I was lethargic, depressed, anxious, barely able to get out of bed,” she said. “I was throwing up from the kratom, and the kava can make your skin dry, like alligator skin, literal flakes of skin just like flying off.”
But she finally fessed up to her fiancé and her mom in March of 2024 and cut herself off cold turkey. She went through four days of miserable withdrawal, followed by two weeks of strong cravings, and finally felt fully back to herself after six months.
Although FeelFree is a 21+ age restricted item, kids have been figuring out how to get their hands on them.
Instagram creator Michael Brown posted a video to his followers warning about the drink after he says he was approached by “a child” who was “maybe fourteen years old” at a gas station begging him to purchase a Feel Free for him.
“He comes up to me and he says, ‘Hey can you buy me some Feel Free,’” Brown alleged. When he informed the attendant, he was told she has some customers coming in five to six times a day to purchase it and that “people act like… they have heroin addictions over this little drink.”
Some users of Feel Free start using the product because they think it’s a healthy alternative to other drugs.
Chris Oflyng first started using kratom powder at age 19, as a natural way to ween off of prescribed Adderall. “I was like, ‘Oh, [the Adderall] is not a positive thing in my life, it’s something I should stay away from,” he told The Post.
Five years later, in 2021, Feel Free hit the market — and Oflyng found himself hooked on its combination of kava and kratom.
“Products like Feel Free are really, really awful,” the 28-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin, said. “I developed a codependency of using kava and kratom, due to the introduction of that product, and I don’t think I knew it was as addictive as it could be in that combination.”
He describes the sensation as “something like relaxation, but also stimulation.”
“At first it worked really, really well and gave me what I perceived to be an enhanced focus,” Oflyng, who works in donor development, said. “I was able to accomplish more. But then the effect started to fade, and once you’re addicted to it, it’s just chasing the relief after cravings.”
Oflyng has struggled with addictions to Feel Free “on and off for the past couple years” and has been in and out of treatment for his addiction.
“I would buy Feel Frees every time I would relapse,” he explained. “You could just get them from a smoke shop or a gas station. It’s just so readily accessible.”
Oflyng says Feel Free derailed his life.
“The biggest downside was the depression that came with it for me,” he recalled. “I’ve made a lot of progress, but, looking back and talking about it now, it’s just like, why haven’t I seized a lot of opportunities in my life? And I can point it all back to kratom and kava.”
Oflyng estimates he’s spent “at least $40,000 over the years” between kratom powder and Feel Free drinks.
“A lot of people might be like, ‘Oh, it’s a plant, it’s natural,’ but it will catch up with you,” he warned.
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