I am experiencing nicotene addiction withdrawal...it's a bit shocking.

[DDD]

I have been a cigarette smoker since my early teens. The last time I quit was fourteen years ago +or- a few months and I got over the addiction until two or three years ago when I had all the family come for a reunion/birthday party for my husband combined with the annual fund raiser that I have been Chairman of for four or five years. The stress was literally "overwhelming" and I convince myself that "one" cigarette would be therapeutic. As soon as I inhaled that first (suppose to be only) cigarette...my body and my mind relaxed. It was like the release on a pressure valve. I no longer had to struggle with the stress. I had relief.

Now it has been two or three years and I have fourteen days with-o a cigarette. I WANT a cigarette. I WANT to pop one of the nicorette pills to help me. I completely "know" that I need to fight this demon with-o pills. I am drinking Cutty LOL but even though I have mentioned Cutty for ten years or so I am NOT addicted to Cutty in any way. My addiction is nicotene.

Why am I posting? I'm posting because the kid I love more than life itself is an alcoholic who can smoke pot and "chill out" with-o his addiction which is booze. I spend alot of time hoping and praying that he can have a normal life and here I am miserable because I can't have a "legal" cigarette to halp me thru the stresses. I'm not sure what the "message" is tonight. I guess the message is that I do actually admire myself and I admire that I have fought so hard to "save" my difficult child's for almost fifty years and yet.........here I am....fighting the urge to just have "one" cigarette. Very scarey. DDD

 

[Nancy]

Awww DDD, it is hard to stop smoking. I'm proud of you. It will get easier, you already know that. The scary thing was when I was reading your post I thought, this must be how difficult child feels when she gets sober and then has one beer, like a huge relief and then it just goes from there.

Stay strong.

Nancy

 

[buddy]

I know you have been through this before but it is still so hard. You have come such a long long way already, which probably feels way longer than the two weeks it is in real time....

I can see how the comparison to your difficult child can be maddening. Now is time to care for you...to focus on the health and rewards you will enjoy once through all of this (I know, just words...wish I could make it actually better for you).

I'm proud of you. I have told you my mom, who is also my dearest friend, struggles to quit over and over and it is painful to watch her go through. She just spent weeks with a cold that immediately went into pneumonia, and now she needs a nebulizer..each time she gets sicker and sicker and they are telling her it is close to being called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). I wish she would hang in there like you are. I am scared for her. I hope you are successful and dont have to go through any of that.

Hang tough, get mad, go ahead and crab at people,or cry or enjoy your cutty....... feel free to vent away if you need to...several times .....anything that helps keep your mind and hands busy.

 

[DDD]

Nancy, I "think" that is the point. Here I am a fully mature woman with alot of stress and I'm like our difficult children. I "know" that my choice is logical and healthy and supportive of my husband who is having health problems BUT blast it...fourteen days have passed and I want R E L I E F. Just like our precious difficult child's and yet I have to remember that my addiction is LEGAL. That's really scarey.

My much loved former easy child/difficult child texted today and said "Mama are you hanging in there? I love you. I know you can to it". That's bringing tears to my eyes because I love that little brat more than anything (sad but true, lol) and he is reaching out to support me in my sobriety from a legal substance. WTH. I guess booze is legal too. I just so want him to be "healthy" and "substance free". How sick is that?? Sad. DDD

 

[AmericanGirl]

DDD, Congrats...very proud of you.

I understand even though I have never been a "addict" as far as drugs and alcohol go. My issue is sugar. I fought the compulsion to stop and eat every mile from rehab to home yesterday. I just simply wanted to overeat something sweet, not for the taste, but for what you described...the relief afterwards.

 

[Kathy813]

Hang in there, DDD. We are all rooting for you. You can do it.

~Kathy

 

[keista]

I think is some ways it's harder because your substance is legal

 

[DDD]

Even thought I am "messed up" in my "recovery" AG makes a valid point. I have friends who have are chocoholaics. Everyone kinda laughs at the concept. Maybe it really doesn't matter what to heck you "need" to feel "level" or "stable" or "whatever". What a curious concept. I've had friends for years who have to eat chocolate. I've never thought of chocolate as addictive because I really don't five a zip for chocolate. How fine a line is it to draw between chocolate, sugar, nicotene or....booze, pot or whatever?
Tonight I think it's a scarey thought and I'm going to bed right now so I don't try to analyze it to death.
Thanks for the support. I'm just a bit shocked that I am having such a gruesome time after fourteen clean days. YUK. DDD

 

[AmericanGirl]

Hang in there DDD...

 

[InsaneCdn]

DDD...

You are NOT experiencing nicotine addiction... you already WERE doing that.
This is "just" withdrawal.
Not that withdrawal is easy.
It ain't. Ever.
But... addiction is on-going. Withdrawal is NOT.
No matter HOW it feels right now!

You're an old warrior Mom. You CAN do this.

But feel free to pop over here and yell and scream and vent and cry and anything else that helps... we're all here for you...

 

[pinevalley]

DDD: I am proud of you for being free of your addiction for 14 days so far. Great job, and I am sending you good wishes for many more nicotine free days ahead. HUGS...

 

[DammitJanet]

Being addicted to cigarettes is far harder than other drugs. I can give up just about anything except my cigs. Probably cigs and sugar. I may even be able to give up the sugar easier. I did quit for 6 years one time and then blew it with one stinking cig in 1996. One was all it took to put me back on a 2 pack a day habit within 3 weeks. I never dreamed I could fall that far that fast. I swore I would just have one here or there. Yeah right. I have tried to stop a few times here and there since then but nothing has worked. Giving them up the first time was a cake walk compared to trying to quit this second time. I simply cant do it or maybe I just dont want to. One doctor told me that they would kill me. I told him oh goody, I will increase to 3 packs a day to speed the process up.

 

[lovemysons]

DDD,
Another here rooting for you! I know it's hard to give up cigs...I did it a couple of times the past 30 yrs. It used to be my "hidden vice". Was the only "bad girl" thing I did, LOL. I would have cigs in the backyard...away from the kids as much as possible. I would NEVER smoke in public, G-d forbid anyone who "knew me" smile would see me smoking!
I have come a long way from those "got to be perfect" days...I smoke all the time in public now. But I know it's not healthy nor is it socially acceptable these days (unless you're at the casino, lol).

Oh, by the way, I remember now...When I did "quit" in the past I chewed alot of bubble gum! That seemed to help...maybe it will help you too.

I know what you mean about our difficult child's struggles with addiction and then to experience our own! I think you are being a good example to your easy child/difficult child right now and it is sweet that he is also rooting for you. He knows you're miserable and he also knows you can do this.

Thinking of you,
Love,
LMS

 

[AnnieO]

OK, you all know why I quit. Jan 20 was my quit date - last smoke was about 10 PM on Jan 19. That's... 67 days? And even this morning I was thinking about smoking. About how much I want a cigarette. I dream about it occasionally. Including dreaming about catching Jett smoking!

Oddly, seeing husband smoke doesn't make me want to. And it smells HORRIBLE. And every now and then I'll be on the freeway at 65 mph and if someone in a car in front of me blows smoke out the window I'll catch a whiff and it's disgusting! But OMG, sometimes I just wanna sit down and chain smoke. Makes no sense.

When I quit last time - April 20 - I made it to June 7. Had ONE. Then not another one till June 10, and then I was right back to where I was before I quit. Before that, I could not make it ONE SINGLE DAY. (This incentive's pretty powerful, for me.)

I know I won't start again "right" after Bean is born or even for months. Hopefully that will be never. But it's very, very hard.

Hang in there... If I can do it, you can!!!

 

[DDD]

Thanks for the support. Obviously alot of you know exactly how difficult it can be. Like Janet I still can't believe that I could convince myself that "just one" would be fine a few years back....weird the games an addict plays. LMS I used bubble gum when I quit thirty years ago or so. I smacked so loud that the kids and the employees were all happy to see me go back to smoking, lol. Plus the Dentist got rich from the fillings that loosened. Step, Bean doesn't need secondhand smoke from his Daddy either. Better choose a spot for husband that Bean doesn't visit and get the habit in place before birth.
by the way, I'm glad the smell is gross to you now. When I was in my thirties and quit for a month the whole blankin' house and the car smelled awful. I couldn't believe it. The curtains, the pillows etc. etc. I turned into a Heloise for a week or two trying to get rid of the stench. Never again have I regained that sensitivity. (Oh yeah, that time I responded to a crying friends phone call. She had been diagnosis'd with cancer. I spent three hours with her and didn't realize until I was on the way home that I had been sharing cigarettes with her as we cried together.)

OK, I'm thru whining for now. Have to get to work. Thanks guys. DDD

 

[klmno]

DDD, I am one who believes addiction is deeper rooted than just a physical desire and it is rooted in genetic makeup and patterns that every person in the family is involved in. That being said, everyone I know says cigs are the worst addiction to have, EVER. I have a cousin who, after 10 years, was able to overcome PTSD from a war, an addiction to drugs/alcohol, and put his life back together. However, according to him "he will gave up his drugs and alcohol and went to work but if they think he's giving up his sex, coffee, and cigarettes, they have another thing coming". LOL! I'm too scared to even try quitting smoking completely just because I always hear that no matter how long a person is off of cigs, they always want one. It's the addiction you never get over. I did get down to 1-3 cigs a day when I was pregnant because the dr told me that was better than making it a zero or nothing then failing at it and smoking liike usual. Still, I think it's the addiction one never really gets over. Just going 14 days is admirable so good luck on your continued journey. by the way, I use the nicotine gum when I can't smoke and find it much better than any pill or patch because I can chomp harder when I feel the craving for nicotine the most.

 

[AnnieO]

Step, Bean doesn't need secondhand smoke from his Daddy either. Better choose a spot for husband that Bean doesn't visit and get the habit in place before birth.

Bean doesn't get that... We have never smoked in the house, only outside or in the old one-car garage between the house and actual garage that we call the "smoking room". I can smell it when I walk through to my car, lingering, and it's horrible. When he goes outside to smoke and comes in I can smell it on him and it's nasty. He doesn't understand because his sinuses are messed up to begin with, he can barely smell at all unless it is REALLY STRONG. But I have told him he HAS to stop before Bean is born, too many studies have linked parents smoking NOT around the child to SIDS.

I could never chew any kind of gum... Sugarless/sugarfree makes me nauseous (fake sugar); regular I chew 5-6 chomps and swallow (I used to have braces, and tooth issues, and couldn't for so long...); and the nicotine gum made me throw up too.

I have also heard that it is the hardest addiction to recover from. And I do believe it.

 

[Tiredof33]

Dear DDD,
Thia is one time I can honestly say, 'been there' and know exactly how hard it is to quit!!! I worked with 3 women and was in the 'marriage from hell' and was stressed. All 3 women smoked and knew what I was going through. For about a week they would offer me a cigarette on breaks and then I started buying my own. The first few times I smoked one I didn't care for it at all. I've heard other people say the same thing!!

We are all different, but I became highly addicted easily. For about 2 years I tried the gum, accupuncture, hypnosis, meditation and nothing worked. I smoked a cigarette first thing in the morning, before doing anything.

I woke up on January 1 about 15 years ago and was out of cigarettes. I decided this was the day and I quit cold turkey. My blood pressure went dangerously high and I was nauseated the first week and very nervous. I made a doctor's apppointment and that was the first time I was told that stopping smoking was as hard as stopping herion addiction, for some, not all. My hubbie's daughter had allergies and he stopped with no problems at all.

I gained at least 20 pounds and it seemed like over night, I ate hard candies and chewed gum constantly. I also dreamed about smoking! I think I crocheted an afghan in 2 weeks lol. I can honestly say it was a full year before I could say that I no longer smoked and mean it.

Today, smoke fumes bother me and I am not tempted at all to start again.! I have known people to start back after 10 years. It did give me compassion for my difficult child's problems, but that lead to my enabling!

Stay strong, it's not easy, but you can do it one day at a time!

 

[DDD]

Thanks for the support. Each experience is different even for the same person. I know one thing I am not doing right. I am not forcing myself to drink alot of water. I'm also easily chapped off which is not my normal personality. Dealing with more than usual stress isn't helping and this time, lol, I have no difficult child's to blame...well, accept Ace. If I can hang on until mid April things should be a little easier around here....lots of medical unknowns etc. hovering. One day at a time! DDD

 

[InsaneCdn]

Try drinking herbal tea instead of water. I get waterlogged on plain water, if I'm stressed out - but when stressed out, NEED to drink. Chamomile and/or peppermint teas are good, a bit of honey is optional.