I am desperately addicted to Diet Coke, despite the fact that it goes against everything I believe in.Yup, I’m one of those obnoxious hippies who fills his Nalgene bottles up at water fountains and rails against the evils of the bottled-water industry. That’s not the worst of it: I bring my own bags to my local natural-foods co-op. I once went 10 years without eating at McDonald’s. And yet I spend $30 to $50 a month supporting a company I loathe.I trained myself in college to ignore the soda’s aspartame aftertaste, and now I drink at least one can or 20-ounce bottle a day, sometimes two. The taste is clean and complex enough to accompany every meal without giving me a sugar crash. Diet Coke is the ideal accompaniment to a lunchtime sandwich. Nothing else can dissolve the fatty meats I consume almost daily. No other beverage revs me up (but not too much) for a late night out.

Last week, my dentist told me that Diet Coke has so much one of her dental-school classmates had dissolved a tooth in a bottle of Coke in two days. Plus, there’s the whole Coca-Cola boycott over allegedly murderous activities in Colombia. Rumors! All rumors (OK, maybe not). Oh, Diet Coke, how I love you. None of the natural tea colas or diet lemon-lime sodas I’ve stepped out with can ever replace you. But we have to stop seeing so much of each other.Which is why I’ve decided to replicate my annual January-is-no-alcohol-month ritual with something even harder to give up. The only reason I’m posting about this is because if I don’t, I won’t go through with it.We’ll see each other again someday, Diet Coke. In July. And preferably at a soda fountain. I’ll bring the Nalgene bottle. You bring the fizz.