Organic green tea has caffeine in it, too. A coke has 39 mg of caffeine, while green tea has 25 mg. Your body sees caffeine as a toxin (because it is), and tries to get it out by excreting adrenaline to move it through the digestive tract. Over time, it can stress out the adrenals and cause problems. Some people it doesn't affect much, and others it does. It affects everyone badly, of course, but it's just a matter of how badly. It affects me worse than it does other people. Well, actually, now that I don't drink it hardly ever, it doesn't affect me much physically when I do drink it (but it does make me hyper-focused). I pretty much drink water all the time, now. I rarely have anything else.
You also have to decide if it's an addiction or not. That's pretty easy to do--just stop drinking caffeine for 6 months. If you find yourself having headaches after a few days and strong impulses to drink it, then you know it's an addiction. In my opinion, it's an easy addiction to break, because you can drink anything to replace it. What's more difficult to break is the sugar addiction. That one's huge. Most people are addicted to it and have no clue. And try to find something you can drink besides water that doesn't have caffeine or sugar. Fruit drinks you say? Nope--loaded with natural fruit sugar. lol It's difficult. But that's what I had to do a while back. When I'm fully off of sugar, I basically will allow myself sugar every once in a while if it just happens to be at a family get-together or something like that. I'm pretty easy going about it. And it becomes an easy, natural choice not to eat it--no impulses anymore. It can easily become an addiction again, though.
I'm not saying you need to do any of that stuff. Just throwing those things out there. We're addicted to tons of things in this life that we don't even think about. It's not easy to get rid of them all, but the more we get rid of, the more emotions that will surface for integration. You might take the book's advice, though, and deal with addictions during the second PP. No need to take on too much right from the beginning. Some people take on an addiction right from the first PP, and sometimes it works great. Just depends on the person.
As for your issues with your mother, you want her acceptance, which her jabs trigger you. But what's more important is that you want her acceptance because you don't accept yourself deep down (subconsciously). Everyone's like that. Takes time to integrate it.
So since acceptance is the issue, you have to accept yourself as you are and learn not to value her opinion in any way. As I said in an earlier post, there's no such thing as self-worth. That's just a judgment we use to make ourselves feel better or worse, because we don't like the way we feel. It's an illusion. We simply exist, and we are children of God--plain and simple. There's no need for valuing ourselves one way or the other if we accept ourselves exactly as we are. There's a saying: "Happy people don't compare theirselves to others." It's very true. When we're happy, we don't need to make ourselves feel better...or worse, depending on our programming. If your mom is very degrading, then you probably have lots of your subconscious parts degrading you, too. It may take quite a while to break through that degradation inside, but you'll get there eventually.
Do you live with your mother? If you do, that's a very difficult situation, because it constantly puts us in child-mode subconsciously, causing lots of triggers. It's a good opportunity for integration, but only if we've learned to not react. And that can take a while to learn to do. Personally, I say get away from parents who are abusive for a while. Learn what it is to be free of them and of the degradation. Learn what it is to really accept yourself.
As for responding to her jabs, you'd want to think about who you really are deep down, and respond with respect and truth. If she says something about your choices, you'd say, "Well, it's a good thing I live my life for me and not you, then. You're impossible to please, but I'm pretty easy to please." However, if there's any animosity in that statement, you can't say it. Just keep it to yourself. If you can legitimately say it with love and respect, then it's fine, as long as it's true. Or you could say something like, "I know you say what you say to me because you believe it helps and it's the only way you know to love me, but it actually does just the opposite of what you think it does. Think about it for a second. If someone tells you something that makes you feel worthless, will that cause you to treat yourself and others better or worse?" If she says "better," then she's either lying or she doesn't really understand the question or she thinks that faking kindness is helpful. You say, "Well, when someone says something like that to me, it's like beating me down. Makes me feel worse about myself, and then I don't want to treat myself or other people very well. In fact, it removes my motivation to improve myself, and instead, causes me to want to punish myself subconsciously. It drains my energy I could be using for positive things to help myself and others. When someone treats me in a kind way, I feel better about myself and I want to treat myself and others better. I have more energy to do more with my life. To make healthier choices. In fact, because you've torn me down all of these years and I've valued your opinion, I'm having to learn how to not value your opinion or anyone else's anymore. I'm having to learn how to love myself unconditionally so that I no longer become depressed or hurt when you disapprove of me. So, I know you're just trying to help, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your comments to yourself. Because in reality, the way you treat me is the way you treat yourself subconsciously, but you just aren't aware of it. So inside, you think very little of yourself deep down. And I don't want you to spread that to me anymore--you're a huge reason I'm not a person you approve of. So if you want to hang out with me, learn to be more kind or keep your judgments to yourself. Those are your problems, not mine. I'll be happy to hang out with you when you learn to be more kind to me." (That's kind of funny, because Love and Logic's child-rearing method says to say to kids things like, "When you've quieted down, I'd be happy to play with you." or "Once you've cleaned up your room, I'd be happy to hang out with you." In other words, positive statements).
Now, what I said was pretty heavy right there. It may not be the way to address something like this. But maybe it is. It's important to put up firm boundaries for parents. They need to know that you have boundaries and you'll keep them. If your mom says something insulting to you, you can say, "Alright, well, I'm gonna get going. We'll hang out another time when you're in a better mood and not insulting me." If she calls you to hang out after a week or two and she sounds like she's going to be more compliant, then you can go hang out with her again. You have to be able to say all of these things in a very loving way, not with anger or judgment. Also, you can't be too attached to her. It sounds like you hang out with your mom a lot, and that's probably not healthy, especially if you have effeminate qualities. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it does mean you need a good, solid father-figure in your life and friends who are good examples of that. Otherwise, your testosterone levels will likely end up low and you'll have some major issues emotionally. That's not a for sure, thing, but it does happen a lot, depending on the situation with the father growing up.
There's an easier way to narrow these statements down to more quick, simple statements, too. Just depends on the situation. And for you, it might just be a matter of using that last statement of, "I'm gonna get going. When you're ready to treat me with more respect, I'd be happy to hang out with you." You'll have to feel it out. For some people, they can take the insults in the moment, contain the feelings, and deal with them later in a healthy way. For others, that doesn't work too well, so they need to remove theirselves from the situation. I'd say removing yourself from the situation for a while is probably a smart thing to do, but you'll have to feel that out for yourself. Think about it like this--the little children inside of you (your ego, your hard heart) are being abused by her, and you're exposing them to that abuse every time you hang out with her. That doesn't sound very loving or considerate of them, does it? You may want to prove to them that you'll protect them and love them by staying away for a while and showing them some good, solid acceptance. Might have to stay away for quite a while, or you may have to just very rarely see her. When you're feeling better and have had lots of integrations, you might hang out with her a little bit to see if some new things get triggered for integration when you're around her. Feel it out--see what you think is best. You'll figure it out. I don't want to complicate it too much for you. I can't tell you what to do, of course. I'm just throwing out some ideas for you. Boundaries are really important to understand and stay firm on. Once you throw up a boundary for your mother, you'll need to keep it by removing yourself from the situation when she's not respecting you. A boundary is only as good as the effort that's put out to enforce it.
Good luck, man! That's a tough one. You'll get through it eventually. And once you integrate this stuff, she won't affect you at all emotionally, or she'll stop taking jabs at you altogether. With the boundaries, remember that you're not avoiding the behavior to be happy. You're being kind to yourself. You'll be okay with the situation with your mother once you've integrated enough of the root causes. Anger is not easy to deal with. I just figure out who the little kid(s) inside of me are upset with, and I let them go off on that person in my imagination. It expends a lot of energy psychically, getting the anger out of the way. Heck, if they're mad at me, I let them harm or even kill me. I know that sounds strange and morbid, but it really moves them through the anger so they can get to grief. Then I can work with them and correct the beliefs that are keeping them from integrating--the beliefs that they're no good and don't deserve to be happy, etc. No one deserves anything or doesn't deserve anything. It's not about deserving. It's about the situation we're in right now, and it is what it is--a chance to learn, not a chance to judge yourselves some more. If we're judging, we're not learning.
