to be addicted to Coke

[tryingtobemarypoppins2]

the diet soft drink variety,

AIBU to be drinking 2/3 glasses a day?? I really am addicted. Anyone else??

The aspartame 'scare' is little more than an internet hoax. Of course if you google 'aspartame danger' you will get LOADs of sites pop up!

Stick to science ... avoid news media and hearsay.

OK, so Wiki isn't too scientific but there are loads of links at the bottom of this entry if anyone wants to check it out further.

DH drank the last of the coke last night. I am NOT buying anymore.

Going to try supplementing with Lemonade in the short term.

YABU to be addicted to DIET coke - yuck.
Has to be full sugar or nothing ;-). I have osteopaenia so am trying hard to cut down.
I only buy it occasionally now for a treat.
Do you know that triathletes drink Coke because they swim in lakes and rivers.
So although it's probably a bit mad i drink Coke when there's any outbreaks of norovirus, flu or colds at work.
It has worked so far.
Also flat Coke (full sugar) is good for nausea.

Another coke addict here. Still, it's got to be cheaper better for me than my previous addiction of red bull.

Dh has banned coke from our house. He was covering a clinic in a hospital outside of his usual area and there was a very interesting poster about the damage that coke does to the body in his clinic room. Which he came home and recounted in graphic detail... really put me off!

I know of someone who was treated for coke addiction through hypnosis. She found that she would "decide" to drink water instead whenever she thought about a drink of coke. It was as if she thought, "Hm I'd like to drink coke. Hang on, I could have water instead. Yes, that's a better/healthier option. I think I'll have the water."

It wasn't that coke was banned, it was that water was somehow installed in her mind as an valid option that also came with healthy benefits. Weird, but it worked.

So, what I want to know is what the actual fuck is in it that makes it soooo addictive? Because there must be something?

Personally, I cannot stand diet coke, but am hooked on the proper stuff.

I will get up and go out just for coke. Yet ive had addictions that I have kicked. Without it I just feel ill. So I was thinking its the sugar, or the caffiene, but drinking tea / coffee tablets with the same amount of sugar or caffiene does not stop you feeling ill.

Do you reckon they just lied and never took the cocaine out of it?! There must be something in it. Else why the fuck would we pay 2 quid for brown water that costs them 2p to make.

Me tooo....pepsi max, cant get enough of it!!!

At work I drink between 1 and 2 500 ml bottles a day

A girls gotta have one bad habit surely! :)

I am addicted to Coke. I get through shitloads (not saying how much!)

I have given up

Smoking
Alcohol
Coffee gives me the jitters
Don't like tea

Need to have something!

I did cut right back once and my weight didn't change at all BTW. As a comparison to those who have given up diet coke.

caffeine is highly addictive, so yeah its probably addiction - I once read that caffeine is more addictive than some illegal drugs in the way it reacts to your body and makes you NEED it, caffeine withdrawl headaches and the like.

Its the caffeine that can also make you gain weight as it causes your body to release adrenaline and cortesol (natural steroid). Plus aspartamine is evil.

All that said, I have a bit of a problem. I make sure that I only buy cans and no more than 3 caffeinated drinks (coke, coffee) a day, I find the cans make me realise what im drinking - its SO easy to finish a big bottle IYKWIM

Well I have lost loads of weight lately through diet and exercise - my pepsi max addiction has done me no harm!

Ooh fellow addicts- hurrah. I used to be on 5 cans of Diet Coke a day. At one stage people at work said a can of Diet coke was my handbag as I always had one on me!

I'm down to 3 a day now and really do want to give up but I love it. I have my first one at 7:30 after a sensible breakfast.

If I'm off to someone's house at eg 10am I'll have another one. At first when I met lots of new mums I felt uncomfortable when they'd ask if I wanted a coffee and I'd say no thanks then whip out a diet coke. Over time though they've come to accept this addiction.

Interestingly enough DS age 5 was a party recently where coke was served and he was the only child to refuse it: think he's seen the extent of his mum's addiction.

I know it's foul stuff but I get a real buzz from it. It's my absolute treat. I should stop it though but nothing else (well, almost nothing) makes me feel so good!

Just re-reading this thread has made me see just how addictive the stuff is - if you didn't know the subject matter you'd think we were all a bunch of drug addicts .

I've remembered a guy who was in the room opposite me in the halls of residence at university back in the mid 90's. He was addicted to Coke but would only buy cans because he said if he bought the 2ltr bottles he'd drink the whole lot straight down. He was known to walk the mile to the 24 hour shop in the middle of the night just to buy one can . Madness.

Which makes me think it can't be caffeine - because you don't get people behaving this way over teabags... sure if you're out of tea you're irritated, but you'd just do without until the next morning, you wouldn't walk to a service station in the middle of the night...

Add my name to the role call. I drink maybe 3 glasses when I come home from work - not a lot, but I have to have it. I've switched recently from full fat to pepsi max thinking it was better....

I gave up Pepsi Max overnight (2 L per day) and could not believe that I then suffered for a couple of weeks with terrible withdrawal symptoms.

I mentioned it to my GP and she was horrified - gave me a lecture on how powerful and addictive caffeine is, and that if I had asked her first she would have said no way give up overnight, you must do it gradually to avoid shocking your body.

Most shocking of all is that having been, ahem, clean for a month my mum came to stay and bought some whilse she was here and I had a drink at 6.45 am one day when I got up because I could not resist. The rest of the time she was staying I found it a really major battle not to give in!

Gosh yes, I'm seriously addicted.

For the past few years I've been on 3-6 cans a day (apart from my 2 'cold turkey' periods where I gave up for 10 months and 6 months at a time).

But when I was at university I was drining 15-20 cans a day at my worst. I used it as a food substitute and artificial energy booster. Not only did I drink all that coke but I dissolved pro plus into it too! I gave myself caffeine poisoning twice and had a minor heart attack due to a combination of caffeine and no food.

My teeth are thin at the front and I have ostopenia.

Coke is bad! But so good.

I'm way to partial to the other kind of coke too ...!

Addictive personality I guess.

Re. Aspartame: From the Food Standards Agency website:

'In 1988, the European Commission's former Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) also gave a positive opinion on aspartame. This was later reaffirmed in 1992 when the COT (UK's Committee on Toxicity, Consumer Products and the Environment) considered new literature on aspartame and confirmed its original findings that aspartame was acceptable for use in food.

Following the publication of a number of anecdotal reports, which cast doubt on the safety of this sweetener, the Food Standards Agency pressed the European Commission in 2001 to revisit its previous safety assessment of aspartame (1988) at the earliest opportunity; and provided assistance in preparing a summary report for consideration by the former Scientific Committee on Food (SCF).

The SCF reviewed more than 500 papers published in the scientific literature between 1988 and 2001 on the safety of aspartame, including studies supporting the safety of aspartame and others pointing to potential adverse effects. Included as an annexe to the summary report presented to the SCF was the outcome of a review of the safety of aspartame by the French Agency for Food Health and Safety (AFSSA). The AFSSA review focused primarily on the possible link between aspartame and brain tumours.

Following this extensive review, the SCF published a revised opinion in 2002, which concluded that there was no evidence to suggest a need to revise the outcome of their earlier risk assessment or the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) previously established for aspartame of 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (40 mg/kg bw/day).

For many years, I drank nothing but diet coke. Nothing else. No tea, no coffee, no milk, little alcohol. Felt very well on it. Then I listened to everyone's dire warnings about what it would do to my (perfect) teeth and how bad it was in general. So I switched to diet lemonade instead. No withdrawal symptoms, never drank it again for about 3 years. I started to get decay in the enamel of my teeth...

So now I am supposed to be only drinking water. I find it doesn't really quench my thirst that well so have some diet coke during the day too although the caffeine free version.

Really, what am I meant to drink if water doesn't refresh me enough? I hate tea and coffee, fruit juice is just as sweet and bad for your teeth and I don't like it that much, don't want to drink gallons of milk. I am thinking low calorie Robinsons Barley water concentrate in water?

DP drinks diet coke like it's going out of fashion. Five to six cans a day, I have the odd one.

I've just worked out that since last Friday, I've spent £20 on cans of DC. 72 cans. In nine days we've got through probably 50+ cans, me probably eight of those.

Just told him about this thread and he's sworn off DC again and says he'll drink water instead. To be fair, he doesn't drink alcohol whereas I get through several bottles of wine a week, I'm sure he's healthier than I am!

He does drink coffee too though and once (before we met) went to the dr as he was having palpitations. It was down to caffeine, four very large mugs of coffee a day and then six cans of coke. He now uses smaller mugs, has only two mugs in the morning (if he has more, he feels ill) and on and off he tries to limit his DC.

It does taste lovely though. Some days (if I'm not drinking wine in the evening) I'll have a can and always want another. It's best v v v cold, sometimes ours has ice crystals in it and it's amazing, I admit.

I bought a mini can of full fat coke and sacrificed popped one of my wisdom teeth in a glass of it.
Within 24 hours the enamel was beigey and felt chalky.

BTW I didn't do this for a laugh,it was to demonstrate to DCs.They don't have Coke but this has given them a lesson if they are tempted.
(My wisdom teeth had been removed when I was 28 and they were lovely )

I'm pg now, but before that was a diet coke addict on at least three cans a day. I still haven't read anything from a reputable site that has convinced me to try and give it up, and when I asked my dentist he said it's no worse than an orange for your teeth and fine if you drink it with food. Over the years I've heard it all about how evil it is, but still haven't heard anything from a reputable, credible source apart from reactionary ideas about how it must be bad for you and loads of anectodal evidence. For me it's something I enjoy, it's helped me maintain my weight as I'd drink a diet coke instead of eating chocolate, I haven't needed a filling in 8 years (which is about as long as I've been drinking Diet Coke) and I have no intention of giving up! I can't find the link but read a study that said it's bad for your bones not because anything in itself, but simply because people who drink a lot of soft drink don't drink enough milk.

Having said that though, I used to be addicted to full fat coke, and when I gave up 8 years ago and made the switch my weight dropped loads and I felt much better.

I wouldn't be worried about drinking 2/3 glasses, that would be an achievement to restrict myself to that amount! I'm addicted to the diet cherry variety, think of myself as a Connoisseur on the subject and it has to be in a can though wish I could drink it out of a glass all sophisticated like, but I think I'm not only addicted to the caffeine, but I think it's the aluminium in the can too!
I'm very addicted, it worries me! But I defend my addiction by stating it's my only vice, [ angelic emoticon needed ] but I think my body could well do with out it! I'm always anaemic, and when I was last pregnant, I was hospitalised it got so bad, although I did give it up, eventually as soon as dd2 was born, can in hand! The withdrawal symptoms are bad, headaches, shakes and mood swings. Think it should be treated the same as any other addiction! we need a support group!

Well my teeth are a mess and discoloured. I've been drinking diet coke since I was 13, in the days when it was foul. I'm 39 now and overweight.

I've heard it said a few times that it's always overweight people popping the cans of diet drinks and my 'studies' in the office over the years has borne this out.

I've got 6 cans left. Can't wait to be rid of them.

I thought my OH was bad with his (full fat) Coke habit, I object to him getting through 2x2 litre bottles a week but this is nothing compared to what's listed here!

Comments about it cleaning toilet bowls and think what it does to your insides are just rubbish though - gastric acid in your stomach is far stronger than coca cola.