I love Diet Coke so much that I’ll ask Hayley to pick me up an “emotional support Diet Coke” on the way home sometimes
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And I only drink one cup of coffee a day. Though the calorie deficit of the PSMF is finally hitting me today on Day 5 and I may have to have an afternoon espresso before lifting.
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I’d believe you. I used to not drink coffee. Got my caffeine from Diet Coke in the morning. Stopped that many moons ago and went without caffeine. But my drink of choice to replace the DC was a seltzer. Still drink a lot of seltzer.
My Dad has a similar aversion to carbonated drinks. Won’t touch soda or seltzer. Will have an occasional beer though.
Funny story about how I came to enjoy coffee. Literally never touched it until I was about 45-46 years old. Was sitting on the couch watching sports and nodding off. My wife and kids were out shopping but my wife had given me a list of things to do around the house before she got back. I could barely keep my eyes open and had a huge list and only an hour to get through it. Rummaged through the fridge and found a can of cold brew coffee. Drank it and felt like I was shot out of a cannon. Got through the to do list with time to spare and still watch some football. Been a coffee drinker ever since although I only drink cold brew or iced coffee. Never hot.
I eliminated caffeine for awhile last year, and it was fine and was maybe good as a sort of reset. I have extremely high tolerance to caffeine but now sort of shoot for ~440 mg a day or so before 10-11 am, which gives me plenty of energy but also allows excellent sleep. Can always make some improvements but I’m pretty happy with this.
Not to mention the cost. Which is the reason restaurants love them. But there is very little value-added for me, unless they are extremely high quality. Of course one could say the same thing for so many beverages!
100%! I drive to VT to ski often. My dinner bills are so much cheaper in January than other months. It makes it much easier to justify eating at the more expensive places when you cut out the booze (or booze imitators).
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Sarah, I used to have so much respect for you! 
I am an inveterate Coke-aholic. A fountain soda is one of the simplest joys in my life. (Excellent recovery tool for the occasional hangover too!)
I even started a thread on WB about Coca Cola. I have been inside the vault where the “secret recipe” is kept in Atlanta.
But for Lenten January, I’m cutting back to one Coke a week — just on Friday.
Ugh - I’ve let you down! 
It’s very funny my loathing for cola. I am fine with almost every other flavor that is considered palateable. Not talking rotting meat, or bleach, or soil, but all the flavors that appear in food. I eat everything, though certainly I enjoy some foods more than others. But I hate cola.
Diet Coke with a dash or two of black walnut bitters is pretty dang good.
Interesting
Not sure about the rest of the country, but Wyoming has been seeing very dry months to end 2025 and so far January 2026 seems to be continuing that trend.
Wait, what?
Never mind . . . . 
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I wish I still had the appetite to make this necessary. The desire to overindulge is a wonderful thing. Meanwhile my favourite non-alcoholic drink is ultra-carbonated water with a lot of ice and a slice of orange, superb.
Just order the Ghia discovery pack, since it was on sale. Spun the wheel and got another 10%, these got great reviewed from Serious Eats (The 6 Best Nonalcoholic Drinks of 2025, Tested & Reviewed)
Respectfully, not everyone who does Dry January does it because they overindulge at other times. Some do - I certainly do sometimes - but many who decide to go entirely without never drank that much in the first place.
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You hate something you have never drank??
As a kid growing up, I hated all things carbonated. My older brothers and parents thought I was nuts (well, which probably reflected insight on their part, but I don’t think not liking carbonated drinks is considered a diagnostic symptom under the DSM ). On rare occasion I would open a Squirt (“grapefruit” carbonated flavor) and let it sit on the kitchen counter for a couple of days and then drink some of it.
So, as a teen, being introduced to beer by and with my friends, it took me many months to finally get around to being fine with drinking some shitty American beer, but it was a struggle.
Although I am fine with carbonated drinks today (and have been for decades) it takes being sick (flu, whatever) before I’ll crack open a Sprite or 7-Up, and ale tends to be a phase I go through from time to time, enjoying a nice IPA along the way.
As a kid I also hated chocolate . . . but that likely only started at around age four or so when I was busted for having stolen a 5 cent chocolate bar at the grocery store (the older/middle brother, rat-bastard he was and always has been, snitched me out to the parents when I refused to share) and my mom made me get a nickel out of my piggy bank and took me right back to the store to confess my crime to the very same checkout lady and give her my nickel. 
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I have tasted soda. I have never drunk a soda. I am confident that what I wrote was generally understood. And that my past participle was correct.
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I think some of the beers are OK. I had one Saturday with Thai.