I am a sodaholic....are you?

The bubbly fizz of dark, carbonated liquid known as Diet Pepsi has been my poison.  Literally, I know that soda is bad for me, but it tastes SOOOOO good.  It's my anxiety go-to.  I started drinking it almost obsessively at my first desk job and ever since then it has become my constant companion.   It makes me bloated and gain weight.  I've been told by several people that if I gave up the fizzy,  I could easily drop 20 pounds.  Wow!  That would be amazing.  Why don't I do it?  Well, I've tried a couple of times.  But, I've never been able to find a substitute that would make me kick the craving.  Yes, it's probably the caffeine that I like and not so much the fizz.  The closest I came to kicking my soda addiction was back in 2006, I was able to wean myself down to one 20 fl oz bottle of Diet Pepsi per week for about a month.  But, then I started a new job and the soda intake increased again.  I have tried a few substitutes like water, juice, and flavored drinks.  It could be that I'm addicted to the sugar or whatever ingredient it is that makes me crave Diet Pepsi.  Aspartame, anyone?

We live in a society that demands availability and convenience.  Maybe if modern life allowed for more peace and less stress, people wouldn't have so many addictions. I sometimes think the balance that we want to achieve with eating healthy and drinking healthy is tied in to availability and convenience.  I used to be a huge vending machine junkie...I would hit it up on almost every break whether it was a cookie, candy bar, or chips to snack on and then a soda to guzzle between bites.  If vending machines didn't exist...would I really want to eat or drink something? If I were truly hungry couldn't I just bring something from home?  In theory yes.  But, maybe I just wouldn't feel like I needed to eat or drink anything.  I mean, where did this food/drink dependency come from?  I didn't do this in high school or even college.  So, why now?  I don't know.  It could be that the availability and convenience of vending machines has made me fat???  Oooooh, that seems too easy to blame.  Maybe it's my compulsive, emotional eating that triggers me to get comfort food at any given opportunity.  Ahhh, perhaps I have an unhealthy relationship with how I view food.  Food and drink are my emotional consolers.  Chocolate or salty snacks only promise a 10 second enjoyment and then the pangs for something to satisfy are still there.  I think I just need to address the fact I'm just not dealing appropriately with my emotional hang-ups. 

Addiction.  Everyone has one;  a compulsive urge to eat, drink, smoke, squeeze, or whatever something.  Mine is soda.  And yet with this post I'm not trying to say it's good or bad...I'm just saying what I know to be true:  I'm addicted to soda, because I can't give it up cold turkey.  I WISH it were as easy as saying NO or just stopping. It's not, it is hard.   I think giving up indulgences takes a diligent, conscious effort to say to ourselves: I DON'T NEED it (name the addiction) to feel good.  I CAN be functional.  It's hard to change bad habits.  They die hard.  It's like a smudge; an addiction is really hard to remove and once removed, the surface is never the same again--- sometimes ruined or damaged, but not the same as before.  So, if I'm addicted to soda...the temptation will always be there.  But, I can fight it.  I feel I have to.  I owe to my FUTURE self to kick the soda habit. 

The lineup of drinks I choose from these days:  uncaffeinated Diet Pepsi, bottled water, flavored drink, and wheatgrass aloe juice.  Now, this is my effort to wean off soda.  It's maybe not the best line of attack, but I think it's best to at least keep hydrated (drink H20) and consume some vitamins & antioxidants (wheatgrass aloe drink & flavored drink).  And at the same time cut out the caffeine by drinking the uncaffeinated version of my favorite drink, Diet Pepsi.   It's my strategy at the moment.  But, obviously not a cure-all.  Good luck to you on overcoming your own addiction.  We owe it to ourselves to becoming healthy especially as we get older.  No one ever said it was easy being healthy.