If you haven’t figured it out, I’m a prepper. Yup I admit it, I love preparing for things that might go wrong. I don’t believe in the zombie apocalyptic theory, but I do believe that I would rather be prepared than to be shit out of luck, if something happens. God even says in the bible to prepare and to store food and water for those times it might not be available. I practice what I learn from seed saving, growing food, canning, dehydrating, practice shooting, getting in shape and quitting all addictions. I’m going to focus on why quitting all your addictions is very important as a prepper.
If your addicted to sugar, coffee, soda, or cigarettes you might want to quit! If SHTF and suddenly there is no more stores, are you going to stockpile cigarettes, sugar, soda or coffee? For our house hold, we did for a year. Then realized why do I need to stockpile coffee which is a “luxury” item. It is not needed to survive. When I didn’t drink coffee I would be a real “B” and I wouldn’t want to do anything the rest of the day or at least until I got my coffee. Coffee was my addiction that had me for 15 years. Most people think that its not that bad, and that they can stop anytime. But you don’t know your addicted until you try to stop it. I tried to stop so many times, I would get so sick that I couldn’t leave my couch or bed, Migraine headaches was an understatement. I would want to sleep all day and felt like vomiting by the 3rd day without coffee. That is when I realized, I NEED to stop. It took me several tries and I finally was able to kick that addiction. For most people they have no problems with coffee, but for me it was negatively impacting my overall health. I had no clue that all these years drinking coffee and having partial epilepsy were linked. Just to clarify, I DON’T pass out and have Grand Mal seizures. I get auras and twitching and feel out of it. So, if I forget who you are, sorry, its a side effect of my health condition… You can also see the side effects in my videos when I seem lost for words and scatter brained. It takes a long time to edit those videos where I’m having a hard day finding words. But, back to what I was originally talking about. I do enjoy a decaf cup of coffee a few times a year. Plus now that the kids are teens, I allow them to have decaf once in awhile. But for my husband…. I’m starting that stockpile of coffee! But he does not drink anywhere near the amount I used to drink, so the stockpile will be small.
I don’t smoke, so I don’t have to worry about that. But I do LOVE sugar and my diet soda… I can quit diet soda any time. You will only find maybe a months worth of diet soda in my stockpile. I love to make “rum and coke” but instead of coke I use diet caffeine free A&W root beer. You will find sugar in my stockpile, so I can bake and make other things that need sugar. But you won’t find candy or sugary cereals on my shelves. Not because I don’t like it, but because I have no self control and will need to buy a whole new wardrobe if I did.
I try to stockpile things that we actually use and that can be easily traded, if needed. The 2020 pandemic shut down really showed me the things that I normally don’t use when I was going to work everyday, verses being stuck at home, aka flour and yeast. Yes, I was in that kitchen making bread and home made pies, like all the other moms during that time. lol But my 2020 garden was massive and weed free!
Let me know in the comments, how you are prepping. I love to learn from others.
-Melissa