By Shavaughn Moss, Features Editor

When you intentionally skip breakfast every morning to ensure that you can stop to Starbucks for a latte then you know you've got a problem.

Yes, I have a dilemma that I'm trying to hide from my husband — I am addicted to Starbucks! I'm trying to hide this delicious secret, but I think it's starting to come out, because he's questioning why I no longer eat breakfast at home. Mind you, I always prepare his morning meal, but somehow or other I always have an excuse about why I was unable to prepare anything for myself.

Pssst a little secret — we eat two different meals. He likes stuff like grits, eggs, bacon, pancakes, while I can make do with oatmeal. So I'll make his breakfast and head out to work with thoughts of stopping to Starbucks on my mind.

They say the first step to recovery is owning up to your addiction, and I have finally come to the realization that I am indeed a Starbucks junkie.

I hooted with laughter in February, about the people in the United States who went through withdrawal symptoms when the coffee chain closed all 7,100 of its stores for three-and-a-half hours so that its' 135,000 baristas could undergo training to "perfect the art of espresso". It was reported that people went into a panic because they couldn't get their favorite "cup of joe". You see, U.S. citizens hadn't really known life without Starbucks since the first store opened in Seattle in 1971.

Well, I can't exactly recall when I was initially introduced to the Starbucks chain, but it was of course through traveling to the U.S., and falling in love with the Caramel Frappucino.

It was with delight when Starbucks opened its inaugural store in Aug. 2000 in the Marina Village at Atlantis, and my mom and I, my two sisters and niece, would make the trek across the bridge most Saturdays on a Starbucks outing.

On evenings like those we paid the bridge toll, paid for parking, and then the $20-plus tab for drinks for five, which we sipped as we strolled. Sometimes we even opted for Starbucks drinks for dessert after eating out.

Then Starbucks opened a location in Palmdale, and of course I had to drive from work in the middle of the day to that location for lunch some days, and I became a regular face on Saturdays, on my way to my hairdresser's saloon.

Sometimes I would hit the downtown, waterfront branch for lunch, when I didn't fight the Palmdale traffic, and wanted to take a chance on parking. I just needed a drink! By that time I had graduated to vanilla lattes. Not quite a junkie yet ... I don't think ... but getting there. Then I moved on to hitting the Crystal Palace Casino kiosk on the odd morning or two.

The day Starbucks opened a location on Thompson Blvd. — a stone's throw away from The Nassau Guardian I was able to feed my growing desires at will. I didn't even have to get into a car. I could walk there! By that time, I had moved on to drinking Soy Chai Tea no water lattes, heated extra hot, which is still my libation of choice.

I didn't notice how bad things had gotten until I thought about the amount of money I was spending weekly on Starbucks, and one day decided to go without, with intentions of trying to cut back, to may two to three times a week instead of daily, but by 3:00 o'clock that afternoon, I was like a zombie and needed my cup, so off to Starbucks I went.

Writer Jill Tucker painted a picture of caffeine-deprived patrons with their faces pressed up against the glass as their servers practiced foam, no foam, decaf, mocha frap, cappucino, vanilla soy latte half caf with extra foam and a sprinkle of cinnamon during the 210 minutes of closing in the U.S. in February, and I thought the description was a hoot. But after not surviving a one-day hold out, I know exactly how they felt. Just "gotta" have my Starbucks.