J R asked:
I have a very serious diet soda addiction.
It is to the point where I keep a 2 liter bottle on the night stand at night. I will seek out diet soda even when I’m not thirsty. My boyfriend knows that the way to win my affection is a bottle of diet coke on Valentines.
I grew up in an unhealthy diabetic household. All I drank growing up was diet coke, and I feel like I am now, at the age of twenty, hard-wired for drinking the stuff.
I don’t even enjoy the taste to be perfectly honest. I don’t understand why I continue to consume it in such great quantities.
I have tried countless times to quit, but every time I feel like I go through withdraws, to the point that I am shaking, with throbbing headaches, and every other thought revolves around getting a diet coke.
I dunno, I feel like something is wrong with me. How to can quit once and for all? Where do I get the willpower?
I poured all the diet down the drain. I have a stock pile of tea ready to go too.
8 replies on “Please help me. Diet soda addiction. How to stop?”
Don’t have it around for one. Don’t buy it at the store. Don’t get it at the drink machine as much. Drink plenty of water and other healthy drinks. I had the same problem with regular soda for a bit. It’s literally like a remission, but now I drink barely any.
You may have to keep drinking some of it. I’m not sure if it really is addictive, but you need to slow it to a crawl. You may have some trouble sleeping for a few nights, but it’s better to do it now than to have health problems later.
You may have tried to stop in the past but YOU MUST MAKE THE DECISION to stop. You can say you want to stop all you want, but you have to just do it. Write up a schedule, create checkpoints. (Only —-oz per day) I know you can do it!!! Good luck!
I have the same problem. Anyway my advice: Dont stop drinking just drink less.
Willpower ? In my opinion everyone has willpower and it`s based how much you want to do something and i do not believe that you try enough to cut this crap. If you really want something to be done then you have to do it no matter what it happens , what if you have a headache or not , everything is on our minds (EVERYTHING). Instead of driking soda try water or if you want something to taste , make a squash. Nothing every comes as we expect it and i personally always have to go to the difficult way so you should do , pick up the difficult way once and you might get surprise of what u succeed.
I drink tons of Diet Coke, too. It has caffeine and that may be what you’re withdrawing from. Try to wean yourself off it by switching to caffeine-free Diet Coke first. The headaches will eventually subside. You can also try flavored seltzer water. It’s cheaper, healthier, and comes in lots of flavors. I think I’m more “addicted” to the carbonation than anything else.
Here’s hoping you can kick the habit and start getting decent Valentine’s Day gifts for a change. Tell your boyfriend you’ve become addicted to jewelry.
You have a caffeine addiction. I used to get the same headaches. Don’t go cold turkey. You need to gradually decrease your intake (drink, say, 1/5 less each day), and in about two weeks, you will be perfectly fine.
It’s probably because aspartame mimics the taste of sugar (doesn’t fool me tho, and gives me a headache) and your body thinks your giving it sugar but your not so it keeps telling you to drink diet coke , Drink regular coke, if your diabetic try something with a different artificial sugar sucralose i think its called. Or drink some sweet juice for christs sake.
Totally forgot about caffeine, if your drinking 2 liters of diet coke a day it’s equivalent to having about 3/4th a liter of coffee daily.
So every two liter bottle of diet coke is about 4 or5 cups of coffees worth of caffeine. Most likely this is a caffeine addiction and your body’s associating it with diet coke, try drinking coffee instead of diet coke and see if the cravings for it go away. Then you will know for sure if it is caffeine or something else with the diet coke.
I can’t imagine what this is doing to your intestines and stomach.
You have to quit for your health ! Soda eats the lining of your stomach and then on top of that you are loaded with saccharin . Just like a heavy coffee drinker it should take 3 to 4 days for the headaches to go away.
Try some caffeinated tea’s to get you through. I bet if you quit your body will thank you with a good healthy feeling about yourself.
Do it for your digestive health if nothing else.
The with drawls are probably caffeine with drawls and not just a response to the lack of diet coke. You need to replace it with something that is better for you and still has caffeine. I too had an addiction to a caffeinated drink. It was an energy drink and I swear it would have been cheaper to have been a smoker. I finally beat it by switching to real green tea. I actually brew it and keep it as iced tea in a gallon pitcher and drink it through out the day (up to a gallon a day). I get the caffeine I need and an amazing amount of anti oxidants. i feel better on a daily basis too. It’s important to know that green tea can be bitter so you need to mix it with something you like. I personally mix it with generic crystal light in whatever flavor I feel like (really good with lemonade, grape and berry flavors). Remove every ounce of diet coke from your house today and go get yourself some green tea.