“In medical terminology, an addiction is a chronic neurobiologic disorder that has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental dimensions and is characterized by one of the following: the continued use of a substance despite its detrimental effects…”. – Wikipedia. Addiction is often attributed to dangerous abuses such as alcohol, drugs, gambling… even shopping.

Allow me to make a confession of my addiction – diet soda. While some people will not look at drinking soda as an addiction, I still need to get off this stuff for 3 major reasons:

1) My kids – I am not setting a good example for them. We often teach our kids not to drink soft drinks because it’s not good for them. When I drink my diet soda, I am telling them that it’s ok to drink soft drinks. Fathers who smoke cigarettes have a horrible record in preventing their children from smoking. Whether we admit it or not, many of our children’s wrong behaviors were because of us parents and especially us fathers.

2) My health – diet soda or soft drinks are very unhealthy. Caffeine, sugar and sugar substitutes, etc. are clinically proven to be bad for us. Aspartame, the sugar substitute being used in diet sodas can do so much damage to our body. Imagine drinking diet soda for 20 years; it definitely will have some adverse effect on us one way or another. I am 42 now, imagine how many liters of soda I have gulped in my life.

3) My wallet – while a can of soda typically costs us about P20.00 or so (depending on where you take it), the accumulated value of this addiction can be very costly.

Let me try to quantify the 25 year cost of my subtle addiction on diet sodas. Let us assume that the cost of a can of soda today is P25.00 …

Catch part 2 soon!