I'm not a fan of sparkling water, but I'm looking at soda sweetened with Stevia, which is okay.

Apparently I'm supposed to drink "water" like some hippie.

As one data point... it only took about a month of no soda before it all started tasting unbearably syrupy to me.

I'm also a fan of fizzy water, flavored with whatever (be it with bitters, or LaCroix or whatever)

Apparently these days if I drink alcohol and don't completely get utterly sober and very very hydrated before I go to sleep, I end up clenching my teeth like CRAZY all night long. So even if I didn't drink enough to be hungover, I end up with a terrible headache.

Thus being able to tell my doctor yesterday that no, I basically never drink more than 2 drinks in a night. Oh, how my younger self would gape.

I'm also being put on Topomax (which I think Betsy hated, so I'm a little leery), and she warned me that one of the side effects is losing words. Like, you're looking at a pen and can't find the word for it.

And, you know, that was already happening, as I am aging and decrepit.

I love fizzy water! DH gave up his massive diet soda habit 6 weeks ago. He just drinks water. A beer once in a while. Me, coffee in the morning, tea and water all day, wine at night. I may have a couple sodas a month if I am somewhere that has them, but I don't buy them.

I've been on topomax before as well, Dana. And yes, I didn't really realize while it was happening, it was less of a "what's that thing called?" but at one point a friend who hadn't known me long teased me about my habit of trailing off sentences assuming someone would get the point (all "yada yada" style) and I realized that was a new habit on topomax.

...that said, it was handy for keeping weight off because it made me not think about wanting to eat?

Alcohol makes me clench my teeth and sleep badly, as well. I had not quite an entire bottle of hard cider the other night and I was miserable. That is the opposite of why I drink alcohol. I don't know if I should give it up entirely or try to retrain my liver.

I had similar experiences on Topamax, which I took for about a year. I was taking it for weight loss, which it didn't really accomplish, but it did unexpectedly lift my depression. The losing words thing was weird, that bothered me more than anything else. I went off of it when it stopped acting as an antidepressant. But for a while it made me feel really good, good enough to be worth not being able to noun.

I seem to not be able to take any pharmaceuticals, but I can drink limited amounts of alcohol! (and smoke pot)

I had issues with finding my words for years to the point where my family got used to just giving me the word I wanted. I hadn't thought about it, but the problem seems to have gone away. These years of proactive stress relief and brain puzzles may have helped. Shiny!

Dana, if you can find Spindrift brand flavored fizzy water near you, it is VERY delicious, and doesn't have added sugar or artificial sweeteners. (It's sparkling water and fruit juice/puree, but somehow tastes fancy and yummy.)

Ugh, just got an email that I have to change desks next week. Perfect timing, since we're being inundated with stuff people are trying to finish up before the holiday shutdown. The new desk is a slightly different configuration, so I have to figure out my stuff, and I have A LOT of stuff, so I should lose at least 2 or 3 hours to this move. Yay.