Diabetes and Addiction: Diet Soda Addiction

This is my first Sunday in a long time where the only things two drink in my room are water and milk.
And for the first time in about four years, I’ve gone a whole week without drinking a Diet Pepsi.

That might sound weak to some—like why couldn’t I do this sooner?
But honestly, I’m only now starting to understand what diet soda was really doing to me. The chemical cocktail I used to sip constantly… It was hitting my kidneys with no immediate symptoms… but when I stopped, something shifted beautifully.
Drinking only water this week has been weirdly incredible. My mouth feels naturally hydrated, my stomach feels calmer, and my muscles (though sore) feel real again. I’m not just floating in a numb trauma state. I didn’t even get the brutal caffeine withdrawal headache I expected. I was tired all week, sure, but my sleep didn’t really change. That’s a challenge I’ll face in a few weeks.

For now, I want to share a little more backstory on how I (a diabetic) got caught in a heavy diet soda addiction.

Let me be clear: I don’t blame my parents at all. They were amazing and made sure my siblings and I stayed healthy. Soda was a rare treat, maybe once every couple of months. Most of the time I was drinking water, milk, juice, or tea. But as a young diabetic, those drinks weren’t stable. Juice sent me high. Milk and tea varied. Water? Always boring. So when I hit my rebellious streak and my parents pushed water again and again, I pushed back. Hard.

Then I grew up. I got my first job, and stress hit me like a truck. That’s when it started. The runs to Circle K when they had those 97-cent Polar Pops—huge cups of diet soda for less than the cost of a water bottle. I was broke, overwhelmed, and desperate for comfort. So began my little experiment: finding the best-tasting sugar-free drink with the least chemical aftertaste. This was around 2015.

In my opinion back then:

• Gatorade Zero tasted like detergent.
• Artificially sweetened teas? Like herbal nonsense and weird fake sugar.
• But diet soda? That hit just right.

Of all the ones I tried:

• Diet Coke had the worst aftertaste.
• Diet Mug Root Beer? Best taste and consistency—almost too much.
• My go-to for years? Diet Dr. Pepper. I’d down a 12-pack a week, easily.

Here’s how I ranked diet sodas back in 2015 (least “diet” tasting to most):

1. Diet Mug Root Beer
2. Diet Dr. Pepper
3. Coke Zero
4. Diet Sprite
5. Diet Coke
6. Diet Pepsi
7. Diet Mountain Dew
8. Fresca
9. Diet Orange Crush
10. Anything grape-flavored and diet (why does it always taste like medicine?)

But in 2021, Diet Pepsi changed the game. They removed aspartame (one of the most controversial artificial sweeteners) and suddenly it tasted amazing. My mom, who’s a lifelong regular Pepsi drinker, once asked me to grab her a Polar Pop. I got one Diet for myself, and one Regular for her, but, I forgot to label them. We passed the cups back and forth… and neither of us could tell which was which.

From that moment on, Diet Pepsi became my ride-or-die. I started drinking it daily. No—obsessively. I was drinking almost a 12-pack a day. The taste, the feel, even the illusion of fullness and hydration… it hooked me.

But here’s the reality: it was coating my mouth in chemicals. It was lying to my body. I was dehydrated. My muscles were weak. My thoughts were scattered. I just couldn’t feel it… not until I stopped.

So how did I quit?

I started facing the anxiety that kept me reaching for comfort. I practiced actual grounding techniques. I took inventory of what was driving me to poison myself. And after months of trying and failing, this week I made the choice.
The key change? I replaced the habit of sipping Diet Pepsi with the habit of sipping water. All day. Only water.

Sure, I lost some taste from my daily routine—but I found something else: the flavor of actual food. And water as a follow-up? It’s immaculate.

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Diabetes can rob you of control over your own body. You become the captain of a ship whose engine might backfire at any moment. You try to control everything—and in doing so, lose control in other ways. Throwing you into a paradox, thoughts of having to control and never reaching it can lead to addictions.

But Addiction isn’t always about drugs. Sometimes, it’s soda. Sometimes, it’s routine.
And sometimes, it’s the illusion of control that keeps us trapped.

When I brought this paradox to the front of my mind (acknowledged it, forgave myself, and stopped trying to out-control it) I finally found peace.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with another update on this journey.