Well hello everyone , when I first quit drinking my smoking picked up, I was never a sober smoker in my life, in my drinking days I would often wake up finding a pack of smokes that I bought over the course of the night and now was just a foggy memory.
However when I quit drinking I found my self smoking. Then I found my self smoking a lot! Well I didn't want to worry to much about it because I was so focused on becoming sober, I figured I would rather be smoking then drinking ( I gotta kill myself someway)
Well its been about two years now sober and I decided well if i can quit drinking now I can kick smoking! So its been three weeks now ,, the first 3 days where hard, especially since my wife smokes. But here I am 3 weeks later a non smoker!
for the first time in my life I'm free of all addictions!
Now All i need to do is quit coffee! then move into a temple and become a Monk!
The mind is a powerful tool if you can learn to control it.
Yeah, I smoked heavily for the first year or so. I guess it took about two years before I quit altogether. I had an episode one night that really drove the idea home. I had awoken early the next morning with a tightness in my chest. 2 or three minutes later and I could barely breathe. I was trying frantically to catch my breath -I eventually did- but not until I spent the previous 5 minutes in complete agony. After that, smoking seemed so insignificant. I quickly through my stash away and never smoked again. It's now been 12 years, 12 wonderful years to be exact. I still remember that day, though. Talk about an ordeal.
-- Edited by Mr_David on Sunday 1st of March 2015 04:57:44 PM
LOL...right on post. Clarity abounds mandm and its a verifier that I'll always need the program whereas the seminary might cause "other" problems. We are after all progressive and not perfects. I laugh also because my mother thought that me joining a Trappist Monk community would be best and then the 12 step programs of Al-Anon and AA gave her the son she always wanted. LOL Are you on the wrong board? I'd like to hear you answer that one. Mahalo for the post.
Yeah it seems to hand and hand drinkers are smokers.
I told a friend of mine that I quit smoking and he goes its just like drinking. You didn't quit, you just haven't had one for awhile. An Alcoholic is an Alcoholic and a Smoker is a smoker.
I also started stealing and smoking when I started using drugs(alcohol,pills,narcotics) when I was 11..It seemed to be part of the whole endeavor of destruction for me..When I enlisted in the ARMED FORCES in '65(was kind of hoping would change me up somewhat)and was out to Sea for weeks at a time,cigarettes were a dollar a carton,We would buy many cartons,smoke and gamble with them and trade american cigarettes for alcohol in different ports.Iwas burning,smoking 3 packs per day when I got out of service in 72....When I finally surrendered and accepted my addiction in '84, I cold turkeyed everything at once..It was a difficult first year for the smokes and even more difficult for the drugs..I am now so sensitive to cigarette smoking that it makes me ill when im around them...You can do it...I will lift you in support and prayer....Funny I also drink probably too much coffee,but I never found myself in a jam,or in jail or losing everything I had,2 wives,kids ,and most material things from my coffee use!!! :) WE for the most part are obsessive/compulsive people,,if you find it is taking you somewhere you don't want to be ,you know what to do....Good hearing from ya...Have a blessed and productive day.. you are in the place you are supposed to be..
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
My smoking went up triple what it was during my first year sober. I was over 2 packs a day. I quit a year and a half into sobriety. Every time you break a negative habit or behavior it is one more level of removing yourself from the bondage of self. I used to also think "Well, gotta croak somehow." Now I am more concerned with how I live.
I used The Program (12 Steps) to quit a 50 yr smoking habit in 2005. I found the solution in the last paragraph of Step 7 in the 12&12:
"The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God.The whole emphasis of Step Seven is on humility. It is really saying to us that we now ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings just aswe did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. If that degree of humility could enable us to find the grace by which such a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same result respecting any other problem we could possibly have."
Yeah it intersting, I found myself going through the same habit loop. For me smoking was easy to kick, after 5 days or so I forgot I ever smoked and I was at around a pack a day.
