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[Truean]

So, I'm looking to drastically limit my intake of soda pop. I'm actually rather proud of myself for cutting down on drinking quite a bit, maybe once every month or two on a weekend.

Soda just seems like a readily available thing to me and I'm becoming aware that it is not healthy for me. I would like to cut the amount I drink, perhaps not to zero, but severely reduced. I believe a soda addiction is much healthier than an alcohol addiction. That said, I'd like to look into being as healthy as possible. I have some need to drink a lot of things, but for some reason, just plain old water doesn't seem to do it. I've tried to drink an excessive amount of tea (which again I say is better than booze or soda).

I don't know. I need to be drinking something it seems, and I'm trying to increase the amount of plain old water I drink, but as I said it's hard. I'm replacing one addiction with another. Booze to soda to . It's a slow process of getting better, or at least I imagine it being that. Additionally it's got an emotional component as well I imagine. Booze is a form of self medication (for good or for ill). I imagine caffeine and sugar are similar things.

I am far from perfect, but I suppose I'm trying. Has anyone else reduced their intake of alcohol and soda out there? What worked for you?

Thankfully, I am not in any sort of trouble from any of these addictions, but I am, all the same, trying to better myself. Any help is appreciated.

[Vector]

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[ChairmanPoo]

I favor rooibos because it lacks caffeine. Hence I can down litres of the stuff (which I cool previously) without ill effects.

[DJ]

Herbal teas can be tasty when cool (mint is my favorite), and many of them are good for you in some way.

[martinuzz]

Or you could give 'Yogi Tea' a try. It's an Indian tea mix (also called chai) made from spicey herbs, like cardamon, cinnamon, cloves and some more, without any tea. Best served with milk and sugar, or if you prefer the traditional mountain variant, butter instead of milk.

[hector13]

I have a similar problem in terms of drinking too much soda. I tend to drink it straight from the bottle (2L only) for whatever reason, and have also tried replacing that by drinking water out of a 2L bottle. Like you, that didn't work.

I haven't figured out a way to change it, but I do believe it's a 'relationship' kind of thing with the way I drink, so you may be on the right track with the emotional component. I didn't like the water because it wasn't sweet enough, equally so it could have been the lack of caffeine. I do get reasonably bad withdrawals if I don't drink for a day (basically like a mild cold, but with a big headache).

Anyway, perhaps you should consider the things that are missing when you drink water instead of soda. Is it the sweetness of it? Is it the manner in which you drink it? (cup, glass, bottle etc.) Would you even be happy with slightly less bad for you soda, like sugar-free options? Perhaps fruit juice might be an idea, though that comes with the teeth destroying acid that you'd have to look out for, too.

[Jopax]

Have you tried juices?

You know, the stuff that you mix with water and then you drink that. They're usually not that healthy (unless you can find some homemade ones which are usually just the fruit in question and a bunch of sugar) but atleast they're healthier than soda and taste better than water.

[gimlet]

If you have trouble stopping, here's how to do it - don't buy soda.  Don't keep any in the house.  Ideally, don't buy any when you're eating out - at least get unsweetened iced tea or green tea or something.   If it's not in the house, then it's not an option to drink.  How did I stop eating too many potato chips?  I stopped buying them - it's not rocket science.   You may slip a few times, but just go right back to avoidance, you'll be able to do it for longer and longer periods.  Eventually it won't even be a struggle.

"Gee, this tasty thing I crave is sitting 15 feet away but I must not think about consuming it, must not think about savoring the delicious forbidden flavors and satisfying sweetness that will transport me to ecstatic bliss" - that works for like 5 minutes even if you have an iron will.  Why torture yourself?

And look, a few days or a week isn't long enough to change the perception of taste.  Give it a fair trial of a month or even 2.  The alternatives are almost equally awful - artificial sweeteners  (keep the craving strong)  and even juice (I too used to think fruit juice was healthy, oops).   10 cups of tea a day is probably the least harmful, but man even if you drink green tea that's kind of a lot of caffeine.

And yea if you had caffeine addiction, it can easily take a week or even more of ass-dragging, feeling like crap to get over it.  I've been through it a fair number of times, going from multiple cups of STRONG coffee per day to cold turkey - not pleasant.   Gut it out, then you're done...

[Truean]

Well I'm down to about one glass of soda pop a day, so ... good things I suppose?

I've been drinking a lot of tea and eating apples. The right kind of apple is sweet and makes a passable substitute for soda.
I figure I'm taking in less calories by not drinking booze and pop, so that's leaving a nice big hole both calorically and psychologically.
Apples seem to fill said holes. Plus I hear one of those a day keeps the doctor away, and at this rate I'll be repelling the hell out of those.

I think the issues are, at least partially, as follows:
1.) Low cost of soda pop. It's cheap and more readily available than most other drinks in the US excluding alcohol. Nearly every place you go out to eat has it, and has it for a lower price comparatively than other options, especially with fountain colas on free refill.
2.) Physical addition to caffeine. This is rather widespread, coffee, even tea, etc. Don't ask me to function before I've had any coffee, is a rather common phrase.
3.)  Psychological and Dietary Habits: Just as smokers have said they miss having something between their fingers and up to their lips, the same or similar applies with alcohol and soda pop. This doesn't even touch the massive marketing campaigns for smokes, booze and soda pop and the effects that has.
4.) Other? I'm sure I'm forgetting many things and I don't care.

So far decent.... Lowering intake by quite a bit and I hope doing so in a more healthy manner. I figure that much of it couldn't hurt.

[XXSockXX]

Since you mentioned apples:
My preferred non-alcoholic beverage besides coffee and carbonated water is Apfelschorle (I use max. 20% juice though). That makes a good substitute for soda and tastes like apple, so might fit your taste. But then carbonated water and apple juice are very cheap and widely available here, that might be different in the US.

[SanDiego]

I favor rooibos because it lacks caffeine. Hence I can down litres of the stuff (which I cool previously) without ill effects.

You sure it's rooibos? Because a mug of rooibos transforms my sister into something akin a ferret on meth.

On topic - To reduce soda consupmtion I recommend simply drinking water. I'm not entirely familiar with the situation in the USA, but tap water should be good enough, so you even save some money. Then establish a time of day, when it's okay for you to have a drink of soda - but drink it mixed with water. As for the alcohol part, I don't know your current intake, but a mild intake of alcohol (say 0,7 l bottle of wine with your significant other during a evening or equivalent) is actually better for your health than complete abstinence.

[sjm9876]

Try cordial perhaps. It ain't brilliantly healthy, but it's better than soda, and fairly cheap so long as you have free drinkable water.
It also fills the same sugar itch, just to a lesser extent.

[Bauglir]

Tea is a fine choice. Highly recommend chai or something similarly sweet, but consider that it's probably going to be as sugary as juice or soda. It makes a good strategy for ramping down, though - I started with chai, and a couple of months of gradual reduction in sugar later I'm drinking nothing but unsweetened tea and water (and, well, there's some milk until I get over my breakfast cereal habit again). Weaning yourself off of beverages with calories is a good plan, and I also endorse the apples - just the fact that they're solid will help you subconsciously manage intake.

Just be wary of recommendations of fruit juice - nothing against it, it's just that it's basically soda without carbonation or caffeine, and with vitamin C.

[Zangi]

Flavoured juices you get from supermarket.  More convenient then the actual juices in the freezer section.  I don't know about healthy, but I assume they are better then soda.

From a person who primarily drinks water: I need some other flavour at times... 

[ggamer]

I actually started drinking less soda and started drinking more booze this summer. The wonders of college life.