Freedom from My Diet Coke Addiction

Having Andrew, Lauren and Caroline sharing the back seat of our car.  This is what freedom is!

For about the last 2 years I have noticed that if I don’t have my one daily Diet Coke by 10 am, I start to get a migraine headache.  I sometimes have coffee but don’t like American coffee so much, mostly Cuban coffee.  So, I just have to have a daily Coke.  I have been enjoying one Coke a day for at least 10 years.  Well, one of the things that I wanted to do when I retired was to go off that dependency on the one Diet Coke.  Why does missing one coke affect me so much? 

I wanted to be “independent” so I developed a strategy after researching google and not finding much help out there.  I started by throwing away a little of each can for a few days. Then I bought two dozen small size cans and started drinking that.  I didn’t like that they were so expensive.  After one week I started to wait until I started to feel the headache coming on before I drank it.  It started to come a little later each day.  After I finished the cokes that I had bought I started to have a few dark chocolate chips each morning.  I hoped that would satisfy the caffeine need.  For about 2 weeks more I had to take advil for the headache but not every day.  Finally, I was free! 

This week I had my first Diet Coke since then and it was great!  I am not going to have more than one a week.  

It's been 3 weeks I feel so free!! I have had a Coke some mornings since, but even though I may think about it, I don't feel the urge to have one every day.  I have been drinking more of the Crystal Light decaffeinated green tea.  (And I still have my little bit of chocolate most days…)