Hi*Ball Energy Drink

I stopped drinking Diet Coke about a month ago. As anyone who knows me can attest, this is a pretty radical change in my beverage consumption. I'm not going to make any promises about this being permanent, as those commercials where people drink Diet Coke and bubbles start swirling around their heads and their lives suddenly fall into place pretty accurately describe how that drink makes me feel. The reasons for this change aren't totally clear to me, just that it seemed time and it was a little disturbing how much I needed a Diet Coke around 3 in the afternoon. I'm not sure if I went through aspartame withdrawal, as the first weeks I went without D.C. coincided with hot, humid weather that produces in me the same symptoms--headache, grumpiness, exhaustion. An array of anti-aspartame websites promise radical physical changes once you can get the substance out of your system--blood sugar stabilizes and headaches and stomach aches and muscle and joint aches magically disappear--but I haven't noticed that I feel any different. (Of course a lot of people describing those changes where drinking 8-10 sodas a day, which I (almost) never did.) Anyway, the whole thing has been made much easier by my discovery of something called Hi Ball Energy, which is basically sparkling water with caffeine, ginseng, and a variety of B vitamins. I had often said I would stop drinking Diet Coke if I could just find caffeinated seltzer water, and that is pretty much what Hi*Ball offers. (I need the bubbles in the morning.) It actually has a lot more caffeine than a Diet Coke, which has taken some getting used to, and is a little expensive. But it has a cute bottle, which counts for a lot in my book.