Have I Discovered A Miracle Cure Cocktail For Rheumatoid Arthritis Sufferers?  No.  But I have found a relatively guilt free cocktail treat that is relatively healthy for you.

A long time ago I used to be addicted to cigarettes andDr. Pepper–which at that time had the highest caffeine level of any soft drink on the market.  I weighed 95 pounds soaking wet, and generally looked as skeletal as walking death.  I have never been a big eater, and still, in fact would probably survive quite well on a liquid diet overall.

I had tried to quit the cigarettes–off and on–for most of my adult life, but the fact of the matter was I was severely depressed and except for brief periods of light in the darkness–and mostly during my two pregnancies–I had no real long-term success.

It has now been over 15 years since I last smoked a cigarette so I guess that finally qualifies as long-term success.

The final impetus that allowed me to give cigarettes up was the fact that I loved my kids. One day my oldest son came home from elementary school and told me that the DARE officer said I was a dope addict…so I  resolved to change my ways–once and for all–for their sakes.  I continued to smoke for a short while, but I started with a plan and stuck to it until I quit for good. 

I stopped smoking Menthol cigarettes cold turkey that first day.

Then I stopped buying cigarettes by the carton.  I changed brands with every pack, and each of those packs was the nastiest, cheapest, most disgustingly tasting brands on the market.  So for the last few months, I could smoke all that I wanted, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it  at all. 

By this time both of my boys were in elementary school at our local college’s teaching school, so in my quest to provide them with a better life, I had started attending college classes on the same campus, while they were in school during the day.  One day during Thanksgiving week, and coincidentally near the end of my Stop Smoking Plan’s six month’s mark, someone is the student life center asked me to make a pledge to give up something for one day for AmFam,and donate the money I would have spent to feed the world’s hungry. I pledged to give up my Dr Pepper.  However, when the fateful morning came I decided that I could live without my cigarettes easier than I could my Dr. Pepper.  So I quit smoking and to this day I have never again smoked.

A few months later I became deathly ill with the flu and couldn’t eat or drink, or really do anything at all but weakly sip a bit of water for three days.  When I dragged myself out of bed to take a final exam on the fourth day I decided that since I already had the caffeine out of my system, I might as well give up the Dr. Pepper too…and so I did.

After that I drank only caffeine free soft drinks such as Sprite and 7Up.  I was lucky that I inherited by Dad’s high metabolism, and remained more of an eat to live rather than a live to eat person.  I gained up to 125 pounds which was pretty much low-end perfect for my height, and more or less stayed there for years.  The fact that I also finally got a divorce and miraculously cured my depression and my fingernail biting habit in one fell swoop probably also helped with that.

Then I finally got a great job, and hit my mid-forties and suddenly the pounds started to creep up. 

I gave up the Sodas and lost eight pounds in one month and decided I could live without them.  Then I started to date a guy who carried them around in his truck in a cooler because he lived in a resort area and didn’t want to pay resort prices when he was out during the day.  So I started the soft drinks again and the weight started to creep up again, but that was ok, he liked me soft and fluffy, and I was happy and didn’t care. In fact, though, my weight had crept up to the point that I was getting dangerously more voluptuous than thin.

Once again fate stepped in to save me. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but I gotten involved in a wonderful project that was dear to my heart, which unfortunately also opened the door to allowing someone to make my life a living hell for three years.  The depression returned with a vengeance, and I dropped one-third of my body weight over the two year period while this was going on and before it finally ended.

If before, I had looked like walking death, now I looked like the walking dead. I barely ate at all.  I barely slept, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had Rheumatoid Arthritis and can’t drink alcoholic beverages I would probably have discovered the charms of drinking yourself into oblivion. Instead I just went back to drinking water. Everyone watching from the outside either knew what was really going on, or thought I was dying of cancer or some dread disease.

During those same two years I gave up the boyfriend with the soft drinks in the cooler in his car not because he had anything to do with the living hell I was being put through, but more because of the disappointment I felt in him because he couldn’t do anything to help etc. etc. etc….

To save money and help recoup from the financial reverses during this period of my life, I started drinking Kool-aid but then as the pounds started to pile back on I realized that my metabolism would no longer allow me to drink sugary drinks.  So again I went back to water, but that really wasn’t very satisfying,  especially for someone who drinks more than she eats in the first place.

I starting drinking a Dark Grape and Cranberry Juice combination for the antioxidents.  The weight kept creeping up so I starting cutting the juice with water, and then I switched to the lite version of the juice with only 40  calories and cutting it with water.  It all worked out ok, but the consistency really wasn’t very satisfying.

Then one day my Mom wasn’t feeling well and I picked her up a bottle of diet ginger ale at the grocery store to settle her stomach.  Mom is a diabetic and only drinks diet drinks.  I hadn’t had ginger ale in years, and to the best of my knowledge I never in my life had a diet drink before, or if I had I didn’t like it much and avoided them thereafter.

But I liked this 0 calorie, 0 sugar (artificially sweeted with Splenda) glass of diet ginger ale, and thought for a second that I had found the perfect solution to my craving for something to drink.  Then I remembered that I had gone from water to juice because I wanted to add antioxidents to my daily dietary intake.  So I added the lite cranberry grape juice to my diet ginger ale and finally I had the almost perfect drink at an average of only about 15 to 20 calories per glass.  I even drink it out of a crystal wine glass so it looks like I am very sophisticatedly drinking wine.

Why  do I say the almost perfect drink for Rheumatoid Arthritis Sufferers? Because RA is an auto-immune disorder which is creates dangerous and painful inflammation in the body and ginger has natural anti-inflammatory, healing properties. Real ginger has compounds called gingerols, which have been used since ancient times in various concoctions as a remedy for tummy aches, and other aches and pains, but also for its healing anti-inflammatory properties.  And in modern times clinical studies have shown that ginger can provide significant pain relief to people who suffer with degenerative or rheumatoid arthritis and/or chronic pain in their muscles.

So if you mix Diet Ginger ale  (made with Real Ginger) with Lite Dark Grape/Cranberry Juice Cocktail, you get anti-inflammatory and pain relief from the Ginger, antioxidents from the Dark Grapes, Urinary Track Health From The Cranberries, 100% or more of your daily supply of Vitamin C (if you use the right brand ) i.e. an almost perfect cocktail for Rheumatoid Arthritis Sufferers.

My quest now is to find a purple grape/cranberry juice diet ginger ale that are both sweetened with something healthy for Rheumatoid Arthritis suffers and others….

But that is a story for another day.

Smiles and Good Fortune,
Teresa Thomas Bohannon

LadyWeb Health and Beauty - Check Out Our Free Trial Today