I had a long talk with my boyfriend of almost 3 years. I know it hurts him a lot to see me go through my nicotine rages and it hurts him a lot when I ask him for money to get cigarettes because I'm all out of money from buying cigarettes. I decided that I want to quit because I love him and I don't want to hurt him that way anymore. This decision was made after he had done something this past weekend that really upset me. I promised him that this would be my last pack of cigarettes if he promised he would never do what he did again. I told him it meant that much to me to not see him the way he was ever again, that I am willing to face the nicotine rages again in order to stop smoking. I have tried cold turkey quite a few times in the past. I know this website encourages us not to, but I lasted 9 days and on the morning of the 10th day, I didn't even really feel like I needed the cigarette I had. I just smoked it because I was mad because I had been called into work after only an hour of sleep on my day off. I wasn't even really that mad. I felt fine, I wasn't having any really bad withdrawal symptoms. Though at that point I had only been smoking for a year.
Now it's been 5 years and I have been referring to my withdrawals as "nicotine rage" because that's what it feels like. I get very irritable very quickly and it is accompanied by a burning in my chest that makes me want to be physically violent. I verbally lash out at every single person I talk to in those moments and I have no idea how to cope. They say a nicotine fit only lasts about 3 mintues but mine usually last quite a bit longer than that. It doesn't just seem to last longer, I've timed it. 15 minutes of me raging and crying and stomping around my house and slamming things. My poor boyfriend has to put up with this and I don't want to put him through it. I know it'll mean a lot to him if I quit, and I know he knows what to expect. He's seen my rages many times. But I end up crying when it's over because of how emotional I get and how hard I know it is for him to handle it. He puts up with it like a champ though. I love that man.
I feel like cold turkey is my only option. I used to go to college and I was able to talk to a nurse practitioner who could prescribe meds. She had me on Welbutrin for a month but it was too expensive for me at the time. Now that I can afford it, I am no longer in school and can't afford a doctor. I have also tried patches in the past but they're too expensive for me to buy. I wanted to get all the steps I needed at once but that would cost $150 and I don't have that kind of money. When I was using the patches, there were times I would run out of patches and not have enough money to buy the next box that I needed. I was also living with a roommate who was a smoker.
So I feel like the only option I have is just to stop. I'm not living with any smokers. All of my friends who do smoke live about 30 mintues away and don't hang out here too often because of gas prices. My boyfriend has agreed to buy me a giant bag of suckers and I am going to be looking into exercise programs that I can do at home. I hope that this will take care of the aggression. I hope it will also help with the weight gain that's about to happen. I stress eat as well as smoking in the first place AND I work at a convenience store that makes fast food. I work in the kitchen making the food. And I will have extra money from not smoking, so I will definitely be tempted to buy a lot of food from work. And I'm going to end up crying more because I already am very unhappy with my body. Gaining weight will not help at all.
But, it's for the best. I want to live to be 100 or more years old with my other half. I don't want "till death do us part" to only end up meaning, like, 10 years. He does everything for me and I want to show him how much I love and appreciate him.
Think that's a good enough reason to get through the fits?????? Let's hope so. I'm too poor to have any other option.
