I'm trying to quit soda (coca cola) I've been drinking it heavily for a really long time, and I don't want to damage my body anymore. Its extremely difficult, I literally have withdraws from it.

Am I withdrawing from caffeine? wtf is going on here?

It's possible that you're having withdrawals from the caffeine. My mom has a caffeine addiction and if she misses one morning, she gets excruciating headaches. She even has to have caffeine before surgeries, and gets scared if she can't. This has obviously locked her into the helpless addiction cycle as well. You might have to be brave and suck up the withdrawals for a bit. Keep some excedrin and weed on hand, and stay strong

Basically you are withdrawing from the effects of sugar, caffeine, and dopamine. Kudos on choosing to improve your health. Try nibbling fruit for the sugar, weening off the caffeine on something like green tea, and exercising for the dopamine. Also all the basics; lots of clean water, meditation, good rest, avoid tobacco and other psychoactives, and so on and so forth.

Good for you! Really quit while you are ahead, I was addicted to pepsi until about my senior year in high school. I tried to quit drinking it once when I was a sophomore I think and had really really bad headaches that would melt away with one sip of pepsi. It's no joke, I can't even have one occasionally now or my stomach gets all messed up, I'm pretty sure I had an ulcer that I keep fairly at bay but I still have one coffee a day so it probably won't heal till I knock that off as well.

I second the weed as well as drinking lots of water. If you are going to use pain relievers I'd suggest taking them half an hour before you normally start drinking caffeine because those headaches can get BAD. It's well worth it all in the end! Good luck and may the force be with you.

I second what everyone else has been saying. Just try to be healthy in every area of your life and it will be easier for you. You'll definitely thank yourself for quitting later.

It's interesting, though. Whenever I hear about people addicted to soda its almost always a cola drink, like Coke or Pepsi. I wonder why that is.

I've noticed that as well xemnas..i never got into coca cola or pepsi, always hated the stuff. i was more into sprite/mountain dew or orange soda. haven't had any soda in years though.. (we actually call it "pop" here more than "soda" )

Muskogee, what dreamer042 said was spot on, the others as well. Its a poison you'll feel so good to be finally be clean of. push through and you wont regret it for a second. good luck!

you can do it mate

Definitely what everyone else has covered, lots of ice water or tea. Try to focus on getting into the mental state that it's doing nothing good for you in the long run. That's what helped my away from tobacco several years ago. Addiction is more mental than physical, when your mind is set that you don't need/want this substance anymore the rest is cake.

Good luck!

Start drinking tea, fruit juice and water and after a while you'll realize how much better your body feels Soda always makes me feel like crap. I still drink it from time to time as I'm no health nut. But when I stopped drinking it daily I noticed my body felt way better. If you still crave commercialized/easy to grab drinks, you can start drinking Peace Tea or Arizona tea. They're probably still not as healthy as the real deal, but far better than soda and wayyyyyy cheaper. 23 ounces for $1.05

The people here have good advice. I stopped drinking any pop months ago. I can't remember how I went about it, I think I just stopped one day knowing that it is incredibly unhealthy and fucking pointless. Don't be a slave to the cola! You can do it!!

I'm not sure that regular green tea will be enough of a caffeine supplement to keep you from relapsing, if you're gonna go with water, meditation, all that other good stuff people have recommended then you'd better taper off soda or else you'll get the headaches that will force you back to the bottle.

Caffeine isn't what's really bad for you though, it's the syrups, carbonated water, & coloring that's really doing the toxic damage. So it's not about switching from caffeine to non-caffeine but about switching from caffeine w/ chemicals to w/o chemicals. Think of it like switching from commercial cigs to organic tobacco. You've got the nicotine/caffeine habbit both of which can be beneficial in moderation, but the western commercial administration thru cigs/soda is what's hurting you.

For a real caffeine supplement that is natural, extremely healthy, and high in anti-oxidants then I would look into guayusa. It is used by indigenous Amazon tribes right in the morning like westerners do coffee, but instead of a pick up for work like the gringos, it's a pick up to remember dreams! Not only is it one of the highest caffeine content plants in the world, it also has theobromine which can reduce physical/mental stress. This levels out so it's not a jittery caffeine like soda or coffee and it's amino/anti-oxidant activity (58μM per gram) is higher than green tea (28μM per gram) even!

Also, invest in some organic dark chocolate to control those sugar cravings! They've got a really dope dark chocolate covered goji/rasberry or acai/blueberry from Brookside Foods: http://www.brooksidefoods.com/usa/

Runa is a great company that sustainably harvests guayusa and they sell individual flavored drinks as well as a pound of loose leaf for under 20 bucks!

http://www.runa.org/

Club soda with a little lemon or lime is how I stopped drinking pop.

Thanks for the support and responses! I had my first day without and I had a wretched headache but I fought the cravings and stayed off the soda.
I wanna try guayusa, I like that it can help remember dreams and reduce stress!
I know I can beat this!

I stumbled upon some very intresting information about coca cola
http://www.naturalnews.c...8_Coca-Cola_cocaine.html

The Stepan Company is the only company allowed to import coca leaves, they extract the cocaine sell it to a pharmaceutical company called Mallinckrodt (who is a company allowed to import Opium, and sell THC)
and sell the left over of the coca leaves to the coca cola company who uses it in their drinks.

Good for you brutha man! I hope you keep it going. Can't wait for you to notice the difference in a water/tea lifestyle compared to soda.

Edit:

Coca leaves are not bad for you. It's just as stimulating as caffeine and has a long history of use in the Andes for altitude sickness. Like I said before, the real problem is the syrups, colorings, artificial sweetener, carbonated water etc.

So you see, all these different natural alkaloids like coca, caffeine, nicotine, are okay to use if you have self control. They are not harmful and actually can be beneficial. The problem is western administration additives of carcinogenic chemicals.

A friend of mine recently developed some serious psychosomatic problems that included fainting for no obvious reason (while driving), having really scary hallucinations resembling some horror LSD flashbacks almost every day, all of this without any apparent reason.

For a while she thought she had developed some sort of mental ilness, or some serious HPPD from her previous drug use, but she hadn´t been using too much hallucinogens lately. Finally, after a few sessions with her friend-psychiatrist, they had a suspicion that her psycho-somatic problems might have something to do with her addiction to caffeine, and that she might have developed a little known, but quite serious disorder called something like "caffeine pseudo-psychosis".

The friend immediately stopped ingesting any caffeine. Within few days her horrible hallucinations + fainting episodes subsided. Before that, she would drink at least 2-3 caffees every day + at least 2 cans of Coke every day for the past 10 years or so. She told me that about 4-6 days after she gave up on caffeine she experienced some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms like strong headaches, irritability etc), but quite soon she started to feel much better.

Let me tell you that this "pseudo-psychosis" induced by excessive use of caffeine was a very scary experience for everyone around. I realized I should be more careful with such "innocent" substances as coffee...

Yep, caffeine psychosis is a very real phenomena. Just like anything else, you can become addicted and that's when the brain starts fucking up functioning. I believe it's easier to happen when drinking coffee and soda b/c of tolerance build up caused from the rush and covering up the crash with more coffee/soda. I know MANY people who are drinking liters upon liters of cola a day, or 2-3 cups of coffee in the morning. Not because they want to, but b/c they have to! I used to pick on my boss mimicking a coke snort when she announced how many shots of espresso she got that day...

We abuse caffeine from the start in western world b/c we use it as a pick up for work... You're working 8-12 hrs a day then that one cup of coffee or one soda will be giving you a crash within the first 2 hrs and what are you gonna do next? It's a loosing battle from the beginning... Very sad. I'm glad your friend is doing better, abuse and it's effects are very scary.

Good for you for quitting! I have tried quitting it myself numerous times, but the headaches render me useless. I've managed to cut back a great deal since I no longer audit numbers all day.

I can definitely relate to caffeine induced psychosis, although it could have been a number of things combined (like medications) that caused mental side effects. For instance, when I was drinking nothing but Diet Coke a few years back I used to get really OCD about bugs and parasites, thinking that anything like crumbs, dirt, dust, stuff in the carpet etc. we're bugs and I would sit there and try to discern if anything was crawling or moving. Since cutting back my caffeine intake this hasn't happened, so I'm sure it contributed.

I had headaches for a few days after quitting sodas and coffee, I'm sure I was physically addicted to caffeine.

It's been three weeks almost since I've had caffeine or soda, and I feel great. I'm not sure if quitting influenced my mind in a positive way and therefore made me feel better, or if I truly feel better physically because the stuff is terrible for you, but I think it could be a combination of both.

Soda is bad news, the hardest part is wanting to stop so good for you.

Like everything go off slow to reduce withdrawal, unless you think you're the kind of person that can do it cold turkey..which IMO everyone is that person

Mind over matter.

step 1 - get beer funnel
step 2 - rig into a high but reachable place
step 3 - when you feel the urge to drink soda CHUG water
step 4 - enjoy healthier urine