I'm at the point where I'm walking into No Man's Land. I know I've just barely walked through the door but so far so good. I'm still having the occasional craving but that is nothing new. I'm nervous about getting a strong craving out of no where and succumbing to it. But NML is not my main concern right now. My main concern is this: I'm going to be put in a very stressful situation in just a few short weeks. My boyfriend's workplace is having their company party and we are planning to attend. I barely know anyone that will be there but that's not the main worry. The main worry with the party is that a lot of them are smokers so I wont' be able to avoid it at all. I can't ask people I barely know not to smoke around me...that is just not right. I'm not sure how I'll handle it. If I can't handle it, leaving the party isn't really an option either. It's a 4 hour trip from where we live to where the party is at. I'd hate to drive all that way to "just leave". To up the stress level a bit, the party is in our hometown. Neither of us enjoy going back to where we grew up. We've had some trips back there to visit people and those trips have turned out badly. At one point we both vowed never to return. Since then we've only been back twice. We went back last year in July for the company party (but only the other employees knew we were in town) and then again in December to see my mother at Christmas (only a select few of my family members knew we were in town). Those trips didn't go horribly but that is because barely anyone knew we were there. If anyone in his family knows we are in town the whole trip will just go to shit. The always have something negative to point out to him and dwell on. It's hard making a trip that has to be such a secret so the stress induced by such plans can be overwhelming. I fear that I might slip up at the party. I've never been a person who can be around 2nd hand smoke without having a cigarette myself. I don't want to spend the whole night coughing or not being able to breathe comfortably because of the smoke in the are but I also don't want to be weak and light up myself. I'm not sure how I'll get through this. Does anyone have any suggestions? I turn to you, my EX friends, for your help and support, you have not failed me in the past and I don't see you failing me now.
