Sometimes it's good to give up

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Before you imagine that I'm suggesting that it's not a bad thing to capitulate, to stop fighting or to give in to life's bad stuff, let me just say that this post REALLY isn't that deep. I'm talking about giving up 'stuff' - not giving 'in'. My husband and I did our third so-called dry January - we gave up alcohol for the whole month. Actually it turned into 5 weeks because we got so used to not drinking that we almost forgot to start again. I've also given up coffee before (I stopped for 7 weeks a year ago) and now and then I quite chocolate - which isn't easy in a job where I'm surrounded by it. The one thing I always thought I couldn't give up was Diet Coke. Coffee, alcohol, chocolate were easy enough but I didn't think I could pack in the fizz. So when January ended, I just stopped the diet coke. I didn't take the advice you'll see on websites that suggests to reduce rather than go cold turkey. I just got stuck in and stopped. I haven't completely quit diet sodas - I still have a couple of small cans of diet tonic water when I fly and I have had some dilutable squash that's got a bit of artificial sweetener in it. I keep a can of diet Coke in my car but it's untouched. There's a bottle in the fridge and that's also not been opened. My husband is doing the same. We switched to mostly drinking fizzy water. For the first week I was waking up feeling almost a bit hung over which was odd because I hadn't drunk alcohol in over a month. I started to realise it was probably the withdrawal from the diet Coke and that bad feeling has passed now. I upped my coffee consumption a bit after reading that I might well be low on caffeine after cutting out the diet Coke, and the initial blergh feelings have passed. It wasn't my intention to stop completely. I figured I'd just cut right back. But after two and a half week, I'm really not missing it at all and - unlike stopping the alcohol - I'm not particularly planning to start again. What have you tried to give up recently and how have you got on?