My parents met in 1975 when my dad was an area manager for Pepsi-Cola in Houston, Texas and my mom was an administrative assistant. My dad was so successful at Pepsi that he was recruited by Coca-Cola Bottling and was moved to Augusta, Georgia where I was born in 1980. Thirty years ago, inevitably, my love affair with soft drinks began.

For my entire childhood, our loyalty to Coke and Coke products was paramount. All of our vacations were made possible through my father meeting sales goals and earning trips to Disneyland and Hawaii. We had the best seats to every professional sporting event and concert. Our family acquired our first big screen TV and the biggest VCR known to man after a Coke-sponsored golf tournament. I participated in Hands Across America, an event of which Coca-Cola was a national sponsor, and where I got to hold hands with then-Miss Ohio, Halle Berry.

Soft drinks fueled our social standing, our bank accounts, my college education and my caffeine addiction from a very young age. There were times where I had up to a six-pack of Coke a day at nine and ten years old…and nothing was thought of it. Of course, at the time, my metabolism could handle the sugar a lot more efficiently than it would later in life, so any future effects were back-burnered.

Eventually, my entrepreneurial dad went into business for himself and left the soft drink industry behind. I grew up, moved out and decided to make some healthier steps in life. Through gym memberships and testing the waters of vegetarianism, there was still one element that I could not overcome; my addiction to Coke. I make a joke of it, but I am all too ashamed that I have exhibited all the behaviors of a junkie.

I’ve rationalized late night trips to the gas station for Coke, I have hidden my drinking by sneaking them at work. I told myself for years that it was the fact that I enjoyed the taste of soft drinks with certain foods. I convinced myself if I could just wean myself off of caffeine, I’d be headache free for good. I became a master of excuses regarding my addiction…but I still couldn’t master the two-liter of fizz in my fridge?

Through my detoxifying process and learning even more about high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, I have managed to go whole months without caffeine, sodas and packages of Splenda. For those swaths of time, I have felt healthier, lighter and more alive, aware and awake than I have in years. I made the stark realization that when I deprive myself of these things, my body goes into a pretty heavy detox mode, leaving me grumpy and achy. These substances have been the norm in my body for years!

It disgusts me that I have had to put unnatural, scientifically-manipulated chemicals in my body in order to wake up…or to keep me from having a debilitating headache. What have I been doing to myself on a daily basis? What did all this mean for the long run?

If I am honest with myself, I know that I have been making a conscious decision to make myself sicker, fatter, and dependent — and that angers me. I know that a choice to go “No Fizz” is a healthy one that I need to stick with. I’m the first to admit that I haven’t stayed on the wagon as well as I could have, but momentous steps have been made considering my unique and sordid history with Coke and I plan to try even harder. It’s a decision I must make meal to meal, snack to snack, but I have made the decision to make this healthy change and I will achieve it.