Although it wasn't a New Year's resolution by design, I stopped drinking soda-type beverages on January 1st of this year.  I woke up sleepy and groggy from the previous night's Cake-filled festivities and slammed down two Diet Coke's in less than 15 minutes without even thinking about it.  A few minutes later I realized what I had done and determined that I needed to reduce my dependancy on soda.  Those were the last two sodas that I've had.

However, like any great addiction, I replaced it with something else.  Diet Lipton Iced Green Tea (Citrus) has been my go-to drink since then.  Most days I drink 6 bottles of that beautiful, tasty beverage.  I do my fair share of water during the week, but not on the weekend.  A weekend day is made up of less water and more green tea.  The new addiction was firmly in place.

Imagine the withdrawal I've been suffering this week as I've had to give up my new addiction, too.

I've had a pretty vicious cough for the past two weeks.  I had been treating the cough with occasional blasts of cough medicine and a never-ending supply of cough drops.  At one point, paths4byzantium told me that the green tea was drying out her throat and making her own lingering cough worse.  I laughed it off as coincidence and continued downing the green tea.  Monday morning on my drive to work, I noticed that my throat was doing better until I took my first swig of green tea.  My throat clenched up and the coughing fit began.  Was the tea really that instrumental in delaying the return of health to my throat?

That was the last green tea I've had.  Since Monday, I've gone to strictly water and milk and ramped up the amount of cough medicine I'm taking.  Each day my cough has improved more and more.  It's still there, but it's not as dehabilitating as it was on Monday.  I hope to have it completely conquered and my throat back to normal by Monday.

Which is good, because I could really go for some green tea right now.