I quit soda this year, and it's been very difficult. Sometimes I just want to wash down a great meal with a tall, ice cold Coke. Hoping after being away from it long term I start to not want it anymore.
Add a splash of juice to plain seltzer. It gives you that nice fizzy feeling perfect for washing down food, but with a fraction of the sugar of a coke.
I stopped drinking soda in early high school, based on those stupid chain emails about them dissolving teeth and cleaning pennies. It was some years later that it became de rigeur to talk about sugar being The Great Satan, so I pretty much got lucky by completely losing the taste for it pretty early.
I stopped drinking sugared sodas years ago. It's just not part of my diet, and I hate the residue it leaves on the teeth. But I'd have the same feeling if I couldn't have around one beer a week.