Funny cat image as a reward for opening the post

6 years ago: messaging a person on reddit. Tomorrow is our wedding
Congratulations!
Thank you!
Congratulations!
I love that! I met someone on Tinder while my ex-fiance and I were breaking up just as someone to fuck while I got over our breakup. Ended up marrying them 8 months later, and been together for over 9 years now.
Haha sameee i was just bored and low key horny and they looked hot. I saved them from homelessness in 2022 due to their dad kicking them out. Helped them integrate and get used to in a new country and now they have a very well paying job :3 I love them so much!!
congrats! That’s awesome. I hope you have decades of happy love together :)
Awww thank youu. Its genuenly funny in a sad way that strangers on the internet are nicer and happier for my marriage than my mother :(
About 15 years ago I decided not to be in a hurry when I’m driving, and also to not get frustrated with any other drivers. I just figured I’m gonna be spending too much time of my life in a car I might as well not be getting upset about it. For aggressive drivers I make up a story about how they have explosive diarrhea or something else urgent to attend to. It has made a profound and permanent improvement to my life. Would recommend to a friend.
I did this too. Amazing how you still end up arriving at almost the same time as when you drove like a maniac hey?
I think it’s made me more flexible with time in general. But yeah stoplights and traffic matter more than how you drive. It’s futile to think you can go any faster, just enjoy the ride.
I’m an Uber driver currently and this approach is vital for sanity/happiness/tips. I drive borderline grandma-style now and have gotten more than one compliment for the smooth trip, etc.
You can add crying kids in the car to your excuses, because that’s the only time I am speeding nowadays.
My cat decided to live at a neighbor’s 3 doors down. One day I thought “I’ll invite her to the barbecue party”. Six years later, we’re married and have a 2 year old boy (and five more cats).
That cat knew what it was doing.
That is delightful. I hope you occassionally call that cat, “wingman”,
Oh, I got a good one. I started leaving earlier and driving slower. It’s way safer and I get great mileage. It’s also more relaxing to not be so worried about making good time.
I don’t drive yet so I don’t really get why mileage is important. Is it because you’re getting money back for fuel or is it just so you feel justified in paying to keep a car? Or is it more healthy for a car to get more driving in?
You’ve already paid for the gas that’s in your tank, best you can do is get the most miles out of it. Long term habits that increase overall average MPG also reduce wear and make parts last longer. Biggest thing is not speeding up when you see a red light ahead.
Ever since I started thinking this way, I started finally seeing all the other cars scurrying past me to get to the same red light that we all stopped at. It compounds the calming effect to see validation through others demonstrating the futility of what I no longer choose to do.
edit: To be clear, I’m not saying I totally drag ass and block traffic. I’m just talking about smoothing out my acceleration curves a bit and the occasional person who zips around everyone else, only to hit a stoplight with the rest of us. I’m not that old yet.
Oh I’m definitely in the slow category, according to the cars behind me.
Don’t get me wrong, I do the speed limit, and heck still sometimes the appropriate “5 over” if there’s cars behind me.
But that’s not enough for most people, they race around me anyway.
But more than just not speeding up when I see the red light, I watch the light from farther away. It’s very flat here, and if you pay attention you can see the light turning from 10 or 20 seconds away, and adjust appropriately. You can even time the light to know it’ll turn red before you get there.
I’m not counting seconds or anything, it’s more of a vibe check. “That light has been green a looong time, it’s definitely turning red before I get there.”
So depending on who’s behind me and ahead of me and how far away I am, I’ll either start coasting down to maybe 5 or 10 under as I approach, that way I can use my brakes even less.
I get pretty good at it with the lights on my way to work. But some lights are un-timable. Their timing is almost purposely designed to waste gas.
And one stretch of lights changes depending on time of day to create a unidirectional flow of traffic. You’ll hit every green going south at 3pm, but every red going north. Stuff like that.
Using brakes is wasted gas, lost efficiency. I get a whole 5 or 6 more mpg driving my wife’s car, than when she drives it. Maybe more. Every time I drive it I watch the average tick up. For her it hovers around 25/26. I’ve seen over 31 in the same car.
Again I’m not the guy who painfully slowly accelerates, angering everyone. I know how to stand on the pedal when I need to. I just pay attention, and accelerate and brake maybe a little more smoothly.
There’s also the safety aspect. A lot of the habits that help you go farther on a tank of gas also make accidents less likely or less serious
If you accelate hard, drive fast, etc, you get lower gas mileage.
So if you drive 1000 miles per month, and you’re getting 25 miles per gallon, then at $4/gallon you’re paying $160 for gas a month. If you ease up and can average like 32mpg, you’ll only spend $125. Better results may be possible.
Ahhhh I accelerate very quickly because it’s fun, and I brake very slowly because I like not wearing my brake pads down. So I really only accelerate hard if there’s a ton of space in front of me and good side-visibility so I don’t have to risk sudden breaking (obv not only for my brakes, but so I don’t hurt anything!)
But I am soooo accelerating fast at every safe opportunity because it just feels awesome lawl. Then again, in a good month, I’m going 100-200 miles or less (partner and I both gremlins) so the fuel expenditure is maybe 10 bucks a month. Not even that high.
Great scenario for an EV! You’re not losing the efficiency by accelerating hard, can accelerate harder, and you make some of it back by using regen when you slow down
Oh yah. My last car was a hybrid (loved it!) but that was before EVs were very attainable. I got my current car a long while ago when someone smashed my last one to death. I loved seeing the regenerative braking work!
My car now is all gas, but she’s got low mileage and the ultimate “trim” or whatever and I love her and all of her million speakers and subwoofer very much.
I’d love an EV for my next car if I can find one that isn’t a privacy nightmare (my car is from the tail end of when you could get cars that DIDN’T phone home what you talk about in them) but hopefully I’ll have my current car forever and won’t have to worry about that.
I read once a question on whether it’s better to rapidly accelerate to your vehicle’s most efficient speed / gear, or just creep up to it.
In my old wagon, once I hit 60kph (~40mph) it goes into 4th and drops to ~1250rpm. I tend to use moderate acceleration up to that speed then just chill.
I also recall the term ‘pulse and glide’ from hypermiling which might have some relation, but without the gliding bit.
I’m assuming your on the younger side if you don’t drive and as a local youngin myself (early 20s) I don’t understand myself outside of being a vigorous rule follower
-But a lot of cars get better mileage when in the 60-70 mph range (I think that’s roughly 100kph if memory serves, which it usually doesn’t) -It’s also just safer, traveling slower means less distance to stop, meaning you have a bigger window of reaction time before you put that crumple zone to the test -(I feel like a lot of EV owners forget this cus there’s no gas and clearly that’s the only thing in a car) but your car is a bunch of moving parts most importantly the wheels, so your brakes and tires will thank you -As another lemming mentioned seeing that one BMW pass you, then you get to catch up on them at a red light, 1 they used more gas, as motion is energy, and more motion needs more fuel. On top of that since they were driving like they’re doing it “for family” in a summer block buster starring Dwight “the stone” John. Meanwhile you get to glide nicely towards the red light giving your brake disks a light hug
But keep in mind a difference in traffic speed is dangerous both ways. Yes the guy doing 120 in a 70 is a menace but so is the guy doing a 40 as they’re basically and obstacle. I usually do 70 (freeway speed limit for a stretch where I live) or 60 (speed limit for a majority of the freeway past a town) but sometimes everyone’s doing 90+ so I have to raise my speed. It’s why a lot of driving instructors will say that speed limits important but so is flow of traffic (tho flow of traffic outweighing the speed limit when determining your own speed has been very rare for me)
TLDR, less money for gas and maintenance, and more importantly (wish I had more examples of the top of my head) safety
I’ll add since to me it feels like that’s your misunderstanding, that mileage actually means fuel efficiency, not how much distance you actually drive, and so you’d ideally want as high of a mileage as possible.
Internal combustion engine cars don’t consume gas at a constant rate. You can think of it like as you press the gas pedal you’re making the fireman on a steam engine shovel more coal into the fire. The harder you press on the pedal the faster the fireman is grabbing shovelfuls of coal and tossing it into the fire, and the harder that engine has to work. The more the car can just coast with just a tiny bit of fuel tossed in to maintain speed, the less fuel goes into the fire.
A relaxed driving style where you slowly accelerate, brake gently, and don’t speed/change lanes a lot means a lot less time pressing hard on the gas pedal and a lot less time burning lots of fuel. Also gentler braking will mean less wear on your brakes and tires so they may last a bit longer (tires and brakes are wear items that need to be replaced regularly, but the frequency is impacted by your driving style)
Such a relaxed driving style is also much safer because it gives you and other drivers more time to react and it’s more predictable to all road users
Fuel mileage is a very tangible cost. There’s a general balance between high fuel cost/short average commute and vice versa. Filling a tank might be equal to a couple dining out. The monthly total might resemble the grocery bill. They need to be filled every 1-2 weeks typically. You sit there and watch the total continue ticking up. Driving feels free until you watch the pump, so it’s almost like a penalty in feeling, as if you’re being charged extra. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s a feeling, because your choices while driving don’t necessarily get connected to your upcoming gas bill. And I’ll say while newer cars are considerably more efficient and reduce the number of fillups, they’re more in-your-face with on board MPG displays. Mash the gas and the number dives,. But, keep it high, and you pat yourself on the back, knowing you did your best.
So, it became important because at this point, in most of the world, cars are all easily meeting acceptable safety ratings, power (acceleration), easily reach highway speed, carry 4.5 passengers, and have Bluetooth. So what’s left? Superiority through mileage.
There’s some irony in that the most efficient versions tend to be more expensive. The jump from regular hybrid to plug in hybrid often takes a decade to recoup in gas costs, at least with new cars.
The there’s the irony that it’s not a big deal. I chose the smallest engine of a used ~2010 vehicle. That saved me maybe $2k USD on its own. I get 25mpg. The other engine would get 18, maybe. I’ve spent under $1000 in fuel over the last year of ownership across 7500 miles. A 28% drop in mileage, a 28% increase in consumption, would cost me an extra $350/year. $30/month.
I swear, it’s all a farce, likely pushed by some lobby groups to make citizens feel responsible for the climate and for being poor. Just like how we feel guilty not recycling bottles as exxon burns gas for fun and dumps it in the ocean.
I was bored as hell, sitting in a hotel room with literally nothingbto do for three days (waiting to get my passport back from visa processing), so I looked up the phone number of someone I used to know before we moved to opposite ends of the country years ago. I ended up getting an invite to a discord, and we now have two nights per week set aside for gaming together. Not just him, but the others on the discord too, so I’m not as socially isolated anymore.
And when there’s no gaming going on, just hanging out in VoIP is still nice. I might be baking stuff in blender or perl, while someone else is painting minifigs or planning a D&D campaign. It’s not easy having a social life when I’m a family man with four kids, living in the middle of nowhere with no shared interests with anyone nearby. This is my remedy.
looked up the phone number of someone I used to know before we moved to opposite ends of the country
Your comment reminds of… like… I just realized I haven’t really directly talked to my aunts or cousins in China for…
well the entire time I’ve been in the US… like nearly 2 decades
idk why, I never really felt an attachment… don’t have much memories of them, I was only 8 when my family left…
Now it feels too awkward to suddenly call them…
Call them. Yes, it’s probably gonna be awkward, but well worth it.
For that I’m gonna need to make a WeChat account…
Might need to use a separate phone for opsec purposes 👀 (you know why)
Feels like too much of a hassle… and like its not like I feel safe to just speak freely…
Mom and older brother is going back to visit (like right now), and mom told me to not send her any political stuff or she’ll block me…
Like I’m just so used to how things work in the west, I’m gonna have to run every sentence through my brain like can I actually say this and not get them in trouble
At some point my struggle with the bible culminated in me making my own conclusion away from anyone else: I am done with this god.
The following years I reclaimed my life.
I was raised Hindu and it was a physiological terror. Karma can fuck a little kid up. I was scared that any little thing i did wrong would lead to disastrous consequences for me or someone close to me. I eventually left the religion after learning more about human rights violations around the world. My whole construct of karma fell apart. Nothing made sense except the fact that man made religion to control people. That became very evident when I revisited my old faith in a college class
I can only say well done and I hope you are happier and more at peace now.
As an agnostic, the bible is a great guide. It’s not a rule book. So much in there has been so misinterpreted by religion that it completely guts the actual words themselves.
I spent decades taking it seriously. The occasional bit with ‘‘yeah don’t be an asshole’’ isn’t worth anything next to the pro slavery, pro genocide, hateful parts. Even Jesus called Samaritans dogs compared to so called pure blooded Jews, none of this is morally OK when you hold it accountable to itself as a text.
Dogs are the best though
he said he wouldn’t teach or accept Samaritan disciples because that would be like feeding the dogs before feeding the children. He wasn’t being nice.
Problem is that even in their original context/translations/… it’s still pretty messed up and unnecessarily evil. Or just flat out pointless.
Once you look at it for what it is besides it’s supposed “divine nature” you’re left with an amalgamation of borrowed stories, propaganda and a whole bunch of “I will now declare a thing of great importance, it’s exactly the opposite of what you thought it was…jazzhands “ kind of malarkey.
Love thy neighbour, don’t kill, don’t steal. <= you don’t need that much mystical convoluted text to convey that message. Mister Rogers will do that just fine.
Offtopic, but in case you haven’t seen biblically accurate angels yet, you should.
I made the conscious decision to mask my autism less in private and stand up for my needs more openly.
6 months later my wife left me, telling me she can’t take it anymore.After she had moved out and I realized this was final, a great wave of relief washed over me.
Now I have to pay the rent alone, pay her $1k/month in alimony on top, and somehow still have more money left over than during the marriage, lol.
And I got to keep the cats!Why do you have to pay her?
She called in sick for weeks at her new job after the separation, got fired, and now has no income.
The state doesn’t pay her any unemployment support because we’re still married.
(Divorce is only possible after 1 year of separation.)
As her husband, I’m legally forced to give her 3/7 of the difference between our net incomes.
And since she doesn’t have any income, that’s 3/7 of my total net income.That’s fascinating. Hope she’s doing okay and grows from the experience, and I’m glad you can live without masking now
Out of interest (because I’m neurodivergent) what kind of things bothered her when you unmasked? Or was the seperation just not related to unmasking?
It was related, but that wasn’t the main reason.
Divorce is only possible after 1 year of separation.
Oof. If I may ask, in what kind of backwards country do you live in?
Germany.
That rule prevents a lot of abuse of marriage laws (like “marrying” before a large windfall income to save taxes, then immediately “divorcing” again).
It gives couples time to fix their marriage if possible, before all of the legal ramifications take effect.
Or to separate their goods, get legal council, plan moving out, etc. if it isn’t fixable.
And the mandatory alimony payments allow the partner who cared for the household to leave their (possibly abusive) spouse without becoming destitute.
I wonder what makes you think it’s backwards?I stand corrected and must admit that is has its uses
I wonder what makes you think it’s backwards?
in the case of spousal abuse it’s terrible. it’s a policy that protects the abuser and denies the victim the emancipation they need to get away as quickly as possible. something you’re experiencing right now it seems.
Just wait until the divorce finally finalizes. New wave of relief and freedom incoming. Been there. Good luck, hang in there, and congrats!
She thought she could “fix” you and then it didn’t work?
I’d say we had opposing neurodivergencies and our masks met in the middle.
You did the right thing.
joined an “adult band program” at a music school.
after being vaguely musically inclined since early childhood, 24 years of playing bass, 20 years guitar, six years seriously on keyboards, I’ve only ever really played by myself along to music that I like.
after a few months rehearsing with the group weekly and taking weekly keyboard lessons, I played four songs on keyboard on stage at a bar with the group. Feels like a monumental leap forward for me. I’m still basically just covering other peoples’ music, but now with others and having a blast doing it. This next round I’m also doing a few songs on bass on top of doing some songs on keys.
And now one of the folks from that group invited me to join his band outside of the music school.
Lines up so well with losing my job and having a lot more free time. Keeps me feeling good about myself, gives me stuff to look forward to. And helps me not just wallow in grief and avoidance after our beloved dog of 12 years died late last year (been almost six months and I still cry almost every night thinking about him).
Can’t recommend this “adult band program” sorta thing enough if you got some ability with a guitar, bass, synth, drums, or vocals! I’m doing it through a local School Of Rock franchise but there’s other places that do the same sorta thing
Started putting powdered fiber in my morning coffee and now I have fantastic poops. I also bought a bidet which is nice too.
This person’s butt is living a life of luxury
Real talk, do you get hella gassy and if so how do you deal with it? I’ve been making an effort to eat more fiber and it’s created levels of gas that has me concerned that the US might bring me democracy soon.
As a vegan who mostly eats fruit and raw veg, I am EXTREMELY gassy. Holy shit, I fart all day.
First off, if you make a change to a higher fiber diet, you’re likely to have increased flatulence while your gut microbiota acclimates. Second, there are different fiber sources that each person may respond differently to. Personally, some legumes will make me gassy no matter how I cook them, but when I throw a serving of psyllium husk in whatever I’m eating, I have no problem.
You may have an intolerance to certain foods. Look up low FODMAP diet. Certain types of food can fermented in the gut and make tou gassy/bloated. Ive found that I dont have an issue with wheat, but switching to lactose-free dairy and avoiding onions has helped me immensely.
I’ll check that out, I already do dairy-free except cheese and butter but I will be damned if I avoid onions.
Your body gets used to it after a while, although you may still be a bit more gassy than people who shit once a week.
Not particularly to the point that I’ve noticed any difference though I’ve heard that can happen. I’m typically only doing 1-2 servings a day despite the bottle suggesting 3-5 servings, so maybe that’s the difference.
Why not just eat some more fresh fruits and vegetables…?
Because Agrocorp Phibre ® was only $10 a bucket at the big box store. I don’t care that it’s derived from blended chicken anuses melted in rainwater from Chernobyl, it’s cheap!
Fr who needs micronutrients when you’re hitting your macro goals?
I also do fiber every morning, but I don’t know if I’d ruin my coffee with it. I mix it up in a tiny glass with water and basically shoot it so I can enjoy the taste of everything else
Its flavorless and dissolves completely so I don’t notice it at all.
What do you use? I use psyllium husk and it’s gritty
The Costco brand of Benefiber
I just learned about the difference between psyllium and dextrin, and think I’ll stick with psyllium due to its insulin modulation and LDL-reducing properties. Both will give you great poops though
Crazy, I literally made both those changes this year as well. I highly recommend both
Did a sleep study. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about a month ago because of it and got a machine. Now even if I have a short sleep, I feel more rested that I ever did sleeping a full 8 or even 9 hours.
damn, does it really make that much of a difference? how does it feel now with the machine?
my doctor and i suspect i have sleep apnea. I’ll lose up to like 2 hours of sleep per night from micro-awakenings (so out of 8 hours “slept” ill get only 6 hours of actual sleep), but ive been putting off a proper sleep study for a few months now. ive been starting to wonder how it feels to actually be rested for once
For me it did. After doing the sleep study I found out I have a moderate case, around 18 awakenings per hour. After using the machine it’s down to one an hour.
The day I got the machine I was pretty tired so I decided to take a nap. Not unusual for me and normally when I nap it lasts about an hour. I put the mask on and slept for four hours immediately and my partner at the time said that she couldn’t even wake me up. I couldn’t remember having such an amazing sleep before.
I can second this. I have my CPAP for about a year now. I had 66(!) sleep interruptions per hour. Yes, the mask can be awkward especially in the beginning. But the result is absolutely worth it. When I woke up after my first night it was such an enormous difference!
Mind you, not everyone may feel such a difference immediately. It may take a few nights or even weeks.
I started doing a tiny little injection of estrogen once a week and it totally changed my life. My productivity is through the roof, my confidence has skyrocketed, I’m grinding like there’s no tomorrow and I’ve never felt better. All the techbros should try it if they want to level up their game. Just 5mg/week, it’s basically nothing bro. Try it bro you’ll never regret taking estrogen once a week. Took me from 0.5x to 10x overnight.
Is this a joke?
The effects match my results, and yeah it’s just that dysphoria manifests as pretty bad depression for a lot of people.
Well yeah I didn’t think estrogen was used except for dysphoria or other HRT, but applebusch is sayign all techbros should take it
Ah yes, that part is the joke
Maybe he grew breasts and became a sex worker & got really wealthy with it
Of course not. What would be the punchline?
Went sober.
For me it was a small change. I was having a drink here and there, maximum 3 beers a night. I just found that it made me feel like shit the next morning even after having one, and I no longer enjoyed the feeling of even a mild buzz. There was also a huge relief at not having to figure out which situation to drink in or not. Do I have a drink at this birthday party? After a hard day? While barbecuing? If I am just sober the answer is always no, so it eliminates one choice.
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I got hacked on Facebook (2018), stopped using Instagram (2019), quit Reddit (2023) & Xitter (2025).
Now I have only books (lots of audiobooks), Google Keep (own thoughts and pics), Lemmy (random thoughts), and Bluesky (microblog).
My input and output are much healthier, the people I interact with (when actually people) are nicer, and I generally don’t feel doomed.
Well, yes, I realize the world is fucked, fucked up, and fucking crazy. I’ve reduced by orders of magnitude how toxic it is to my headspace because I’m cutting out the worst of the dreck and engaging with more objectively real information. I’m not in screaming echo chambers populated in the millions. I’m happy if I get 10 responses to a post. Updoots are incidental.
Its like leaving L.A. to settle down in Schitt’s Creek.
Stopped drinking soda. The weight just fell off
This is my biggest thing I need to change in my life currently. I’ve been told so many times now that the weight I’m holding on to is most likely still due to the soft drinks and sugary energy drinks I consume way too much of
I went cold turkey and just started drinking only water. But if thats not an option for you, you could also just switch to sugar free.
sparkling water, i mostly drink that or unsweetened teas.
Try to replace it with black coffee or tea of some sort. There’s a nice bulk store near me that sells really cheap but delicious instant coffee by the gram. IIRC sodas have caffeine in them which makes them ab it addictive, withdrawals only last a few days though.
I was able to stop sodas a number of years ago, and now the thought of drinking one makes me nauseous. A helpful crutch are those Ciao San Pellegrino’s, they have a tiny bit of sugar that makes them immensely more satisfying than other flavored sparkling waters. I keep my fridge stocked with the cherry and blood orange
same here with soda, just the sickly sweet taste of soda is overpowering.
I’m always jealous of these people who were mindlessly drinking gallons of highly calorific soda, as they all had such a quick and obvious fix for their weight problem!
Meanwhile I’m sitting here on My Fitness Pal trying to eek out the calories to compensate for my general greed for literally everything.
Tbf, it wasn’t just that. I just think it was the biggest single factor. I also started exercising, started avoiding added sugars, cooked more food myself at home and cooked from base ingredients rather than packaged meals, and in general did my best to avoid processed food. I largely stopped playing video games and watching tv, and spent a lot more time having fun outside, meeting new people, and hanging out with friends. And in general, I adopted a mindset that I was a happy, healthy person, and so it was only natural I would do the things a happy, healthy person would do, and would spend time with other happy, healthy people
I will also say that I don’t think your current mindset/strategies are serving you very well. Personally, I just don’t think counting calories is a great strategy for almost anyone. But more broadly, you describe yourself as “greedy”, which is a sin, which implies some level of self-hatred - and this sort of motivation tends to result in binge-purge (or binge-binge) cycles. I think a better strategy is to find some kind of exercise you find fun and do it with other people, and make very tasty food that is still healthy
I just crave the carbonation. Zero sugar or even just sparkling water is good by me.
Yeah, sparkling water with a dash of lemon juice is great for me. Very refreshing and basically no sugar or calories.
i buy different flavored ones from different brands. alot of the times they have sales on most of them
What if you put fiber in your soda?
Same, but with beer. Lost nearly 15kg+ in a year without even trying.
beer has sugar in it, im not surprised. also it does something wierd with your liver and insulin as well(the alcohol.)
Not only sugar, alcohol itself has significant amounts of calories.
I have tried that a few times, but can never make it last. Sparkling water doesn’t do it for me and sugar-free gives me gastro issues. I think I accidently made cokes my emotional support food. Does anyone have any tips?
Coffee or tea? For me the caffeine addiction was a big part of it and I couldn’t kick both the caffeine and sugar at the same time. Coffee or tea are less problematic, as long as you don’t put too much cream or sugar.
Never buy soda bottles even though they’re much cheaper. Cans are smaller, pre-portioned. If I buy a bottle, I’m going to finish it, but if I buy a can then finishing it is a moderate amount.
Now I’m in a better spot where my caffeine comes from coffee, black, and my soda is one can of diet (except recently I’m discovering all these interesting sodas from other places.)
For me the caffeine addiction was a big part of it and I couldn’t kick both the caffeine and sugar at the same time
I never was a soda drinker but I did pick up a nasty caffeine addition via overdrinking coffee when I was a young adult that I spent several years architecting my quit.
I spent about 2 years reducing how much coffee I drank each day until I was down to about 8oz of coffee a day, then I got a nasty stomach bug and went 3 days without drinking coffee because I wasn’t confident I could keep water down, and on the 4th day I decided “I’m already 3 days into quitting, so I’m already halfway through the week that the internet says it takes, so let’s just power through the last 4 days” it took more like 2-3 weeks to fully feel like I’d kicked the habit (and some of that time might have simply been relearning how to wake up in the morning rather than actual withdrawal symptoms)
Now I only drink really good coffees on rare occasions as a treat and struggle to drink more than a couple of ounces, but most importantly, I can get up, take a big gulp of water and get on with my day without having to spend 10 minutes with the coffee maker each morning (which with the amount of chaos kids introduce into just getting out the door in the morning is a ton of time saved and added flexibility!)
I like the other suggestions people are making. Another tip is to keep the sodas not always easily accessible. So if you tend to drink them at work, keep them at home, or if at home, at work.
But I think more importantly, I suggest making a habit of taking 10 breaths each time before you open a can. This isn’t an exercise in willpower, where you try to wrestle the can out of your hand. Instead, you are simply taking ten breaths, and noticing whatever feelings or emotions are present around the desire to drink a soda or the anticipation of drinking it, or whatever else comes into your awareness. If you want to drink the soda after 10 breaths, drink it. If you no longer feel the need, then don’t. And if you discovered a really interesting feeling, you can take another 10 breaths before deciding. It is all about noticing and becoming familiar with and accepting the feelings and emotions that are creating the impulse to drink soda. You noted that coke is your emotional support food, and I totally get that - so the way to improve is probably going to be by becoming deeply familiar with the emotions driving you to seek cokes, which will release their power over you.
Another suggestion I would make is to use ✨The Power of Friendship✨. Talk to friends, family, or partners about your goal of quitting sodas. They might have even better tips than we do. But more importantly, they can help you in ways we can’t. For example, if you struggle with having soda at home, you will need a partner’s agreement to remove it from home (assuming they also drink soda). They can be a sounding board for both your practical ideas and emotional struggles through the process. And they can act as accountability partners - one of the most powerful things you can do to break bad habits is to have a friend on speed dial so you can call them and say “hey, I’m really craving that third soda right now. Can we talk?”
Another suggestion - this may sound a bit dickish, but it would probably help if you just improved your life in general. Coke is your emotional support food - so it would be easier to give up if you needed less emotional support. What are the things in your life which are driving you to drink coke? Stressful job? Find ways to make it less stressful, or find a less stressful job. Hate commuting? Move closer to work. Financial trouble? Find a way to make more or spend less. I’m rattling these off like they are nothing, and they aren’t - these could be some big hairy beasts of goals in your life. But you eat an elephant one bite at a time, and if these problems are causing you to be more stressed and drink more coke, it is worth getting started on them now, so that your life will be better later - even if later is a few years from now.
One final thought - I don’t think giving up vices should ever be the top most important goal in your life. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard about kicking bad habits was to try your best to fill your life up with good habits instead. If you are spending your time chasing after goals that inspire you, hanging out with good friends and meeting new people, having fun doing things you enjoy, then you will may find that the impulse you had to drink coke simply evaporates since you were always focused on something else that was more fun or interesting.
Thanks for the elaborate response. I’m finishing up my doctoral thesis at the moment and hopefully when that is done the main stressor in my life is gone. I’ve tried many of your tips about including others and keeping them out of the house, but somehow I always find an excuse to get them again.
I started alternating between coke and water. Now on 2 glasses of water for each glass of coke. Hoping to get that down to 1 glass a day, then nothing, but it still seems I’m far off :)
I’m stuck on two cans a day, with bad days going up to 4 cans. I do drink loads of water in between.
Ahh stuck. I can understand that. I’m having trouble picturing skipping that first glass in the morning, as it clears the awful sleep-taste out of my mouth, something which water cannot seem to do. Probably just a mental thing (I hope).
I’ll assume you brush your teeth at night, that helps a lot. If you also brush your teeth first thing in the morning, the taste will be gone. A mouthwash might also do the trick if you don’t want to brush immediately.
Or eat a fruit or something.
Indeed, coke comes between waking up and brushing teeth, I wake up slowly so this will need some training on my part. Good advice, thanks!
When I was reducing my coffee intake with the intent to quit one of the things I’d do is put a nice bottle of ice cold water right next to the coffee mug. Every time I’d go to reach for the coffee, I’d first redirect my hand to the water and drink that, then if I still really needed that coffee then I’d drink it.
This method alone was extremely effective at reducing my coffee intake, and I went from about 24oz of coffee a day down to about 8-10oz per day just with doing this. I also had the added bonus of drinking less sugary creamer and therefore getting my body used to a lot less sugar, so when I quit coffee completely I was already so used to water and drank so little sugar I basically switched to only drinking water
The important part is ice cold water. That sensational shock of the ice cold water makes it an easier transition
Oof, I hate ice cold water. I always drink room temp or slightly cooled… but I like your idea. Perhaps I’ll give sparkling water another try.
Yep. Did away with sweetened beverages, junk/fried foods, and feel better for it, too.
I’ve blocked any YouTube video recommendations (after a video is done, the sidebar, etc), and switched to RSS (RSS Guard is my go-to, after testing about 6 RSS readers). I used Enhancer for YouTube™ to block the bullshit.
Now, I only have 319 videos left to view, in order, from all the channels that I follow. It is now me that has a tight grip on what I watch, and not YT. No more doomscrolling on YT Shorts! No more watching the newest thing (old videos are still solid, but won’t be likely recommended)! Use Youtube-shorts block to turn any short into a normal video, in case someone sends you a shorts link.
I can now have a sense of being done watching videos, instead of YT feeding me unending garbage.
RSS feed locations for YT are hidden:
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_idThe channel id you can find on a channel, under
...morenear the top, thenShare Channel->Get Channel ID.Awesome. I might consider this myself





















