I have sought many support groups in my life for many other obstacles I have been challenged to face & try to overcome. I have Bipolar – PTSD & grand mal or generalized tonic clonic seizures as the doctors call it.

I am a survivor of sexual child abuse and religious Ritual Abuse trauma. I have had not had an easy life. But I am a positive and optimistic person, most of the time, even with my medical conditions. I have been married for almost 20 years and we have a beautiful daughter who is almost 17 years old now.

Of all the bad things that have happened to me and the years of therapy & recovery & healing I have had to overcome my abuse. There is still more I need to accept & do about my life.

I am addict of coffee and cigarrette smoking. I have never been an alcoholic as it never set well for me to compulsively drink with my seizure condition. I have never taken pills or illegal drug abuse for pleasure or to cope with my pain as my mother was addicted to the harsh effects of prescription abuse my entire life. My logic has always been why making something bad even worse if you can prevent it or stop it & take the time to find another healthier way.

But the thing is, accepting I have Bipolar – PTSD & my seizures has been the hardest. It's hard to realize you are a legal addict or at least it was for me. But even harder to research, read and understand my own medical symptoms too. Knowing that caffeine & smoking go hand in hand for me – is a hard daily stressor for me to break. For all the reasons I use to do it & did it – I figured there were always worse addictions but I know better now & my conscience has been eating me for awhile to quit both of these. Which I have never done before.

I am scared. Not because of the outcome but because of those harsh withdrawal symptoms. I don't want to feel miserable to quit but I want to quit to feel good. Something I do not know how great it will be when I do until I do it. I do not know the medical effects that will help my Bipolar or even my PTSD until I am quit for good & this is day one.

I have never quit drinking coffee & I have been daily consumed in it since I was 14 years old. That is alot of years of caffeine in my blood. With hypomania Bipolar, I do not need any additional daily stressors to complicate my condition like caffeine does daily. I have cut back about two months ago. It has not helped my PTSD sleep deprivation nor has it stopped the escalation of my Bipolar hypomania either.

I use coffee to help my PTSD when I am sleep deprived to function through the day. Then it increases my hypomania Bipolar because I am not resting well because it's a no win battle. Can't sleep – drink more coffee. Can't rest – eat tylenol for the pain in the body 'cause it is not resting. It's not a pleasure addiction anymore & not like it was really other than a socially accepted practice that's all. Any dailyaddiction is not a wise choice nor healthy for my PTSD nor my Bipolar & who knows what it will do for my seizures either.

Smoking – I have quit before. Several times successfully & even one time for 3.5 years duration & started this habit at 14 years old. Mom would let me & I thought it was cool back then so I did. Even back then, I felt if smoking & coffee were my worst addictions & I was ok & would be.

Wrong. The diagnosis of my seizures came at 19 years old. I didn't get diagnosed with Bipolar until 2010 & PTSD in 2009. Learning to understand and get effective treatment for these conditions without being on a pill regimen has been hard. Prescription therapy is what they want to give when sometimes all you need is new skills of coping, new skills of helping your own emotions & understanding & someone to listen once in a while.

I have never been instutionalized nor in a psychological hospital nor even tried to commit suicide. I respect myself far too much for that & keep believing as long as I am willing to try that I will find the healthy coping skills to help through the lows of my life & finding a better more positive way to overcome whatever I face from surviving my past to living my present life and looking forward to the future.

I have never quit smoking & coffee together ever. I have never been a soda addict cause coffee did it for me.I hate carbonated drinks anyways including beer. I burp too much & that was not no fun. If I drink it, I at least want it to stay down~ I eat healthy. I exercise regularly. Water is my favorite refreshment to drink. I am fairly healthy other than my mental health diagnoses and the sleep deprivation PTSD does to me, the halt of my life when a seizure occurs & Bipolar high & low roller coaster days. My emotions are my enemy & I want to learn to change that & stop my daily stressors I can control. Being an addict, creates my own daily stressors that I can control & stop them.

I choose to quit this deadly duo upon me to stop the daily stressors I can control. I don't want to view time as: it's time for another cup of coffee or time for a cigarette anymore. I don't want coffee or even smoking to stand in my way anymore of my Bipolar -PTSD & seizure recovery.

I am doing my own Dialectial Behavior Therapy online. It's mostly for people who are Borderline Personality Disorder. But for me, this therapy offers me greater understanding than any therapist has ever given me & I have been going to therapy from my earliest childhood even now before getting properly diagnosed in my early 30s for my conditions that just make sense to me now.

So I figure between addiction support for what I am enduring & using the healthy aspects of the DBT for myself; I can do this & never look back. The coffee will not taint me wanting a cigarrette & the cigarrette can not taint me 'cause I will not have coffee.

I will use my mornings for physical exercise to allevaite my need to smoke & drink coffee. I will use the morning hour I commit to my BDT therapy to help me change my own internal thoughts, emotions, feelings, lies, myths and all negatives of my life to help me conquer this. I am looking forward to it.

I have used the patches to quit with success. I have quit cold turkey before with smoking & I will use only cold turkey now to quit both of these addictions together. I will focus more on the benefits of my immediate daily health that I will gain & not look at the loss of these habits as the grief I have known to do before when I relapse but keep focusing on what I am gaining each day I stay in recovery, healing and therapy for myself.

The financial costs of smoking has been horrible on me & for my daughter and husband. I want to live long enough in my life so that I can see my grandchildren, see my daughter graduate high school, see our lives as husband and wife in retirement. I want this. For me, this is about taking my life in a new chapter now that I have all the cards to play with of all my medical conditions and do feel confident in these diagnosis because it does explain many years of my undiagnosed symptoms.

The best person I can ever hope to be is the person that can help myself & help others in the process of my mayhem of surviving & a life worth living is sharing. Simply sharing the journey.

My heart goes out to all addicts 'cause if I have learned nothing about life & empathy is that somehow…we all have common bonds to share & words of wisdom to share & exchange & for every obstacle we face to try to conquer…someone is trying too.

I wish everyone strength, support and resourceful skills to help you conquer your addiction too. I am on night one of no smoking & no coffee. Every day I am in recovery. Forever missing an addiction I once had but never look back on the life it held me daily stressed too but anticipating every day I am free from my own bondage of soothing that I do not want nor need anymore including the lies I told myself to keep them. Coffee & cigarrettes goodbye. You are not welcome nor needed anymore in my life ever again~ May you never addict another soul either.