Taking an EX Break

[tracy0924]

Hi everyone. I wanted to stop by to tell everyone that I am going to be taking a break from the site for a while. I’ve got some things going on my life that are extremely stressful and may have repercussions for both my smobriety and my sobriety. I don’t want to lose either. No, not long term anyway, but I just don’t know how I feel in the short term. I’ve had some health issues come up recently on top of everything else that have my stress levels way above normal, and although I’ve learned many tools to handle stress on this site, I just don’t know if I can deal with it without relapsing. I already had a one night relapse on my drinking after 45 days, which set me back to day one, and I’m hoping that I don’t have something similar happen to my smoking. I admit that I did buy a cigar, and then I have been taking puffs of it and not inhaling it. Say that what you will, but I do not consider it smoking. I know that neither drinking or smoking are good for me, but over the years I have learned to cope with stress in a certain way and it is just so hard to do it differently.

I know what you were all thinking! That I should stay and post “HELP” and that people will help me get through this hump and go on from here. But for some reason that is just not what I want this time. I need to work through this one by myself. I’ve always been honest with everybody here. Most of you don’t know that back in 2015 I had an outbreak of what was diagnosed as lichen simplex chronicus on my scalp. These were lesions that started as small sores and grew to be large sores which had to be removed by a combination of surgeries, UV light, Steroid shots, tropical applications, and medication finally applied by the wound center at our local hospital. They were finally cleared up in 2018. I went through 3 to 4 years of absolute HELL! These lesions were nasty and painful, and they itched constantly causing me to want to scratch. However scratching only made them worse. The injections and the topical solutions were to try to help the itching and keep the scratching down, along with Vaseline apply to the top of the sores (causing for a very greasy head) so that they would heal and clear up on their own. Unfortunately even with all of the treatments it was just impossible to keep from scratching and I only got them cleared up when I finally went to the hospital wound center who applied medication‘s and covered them completely so they could not be touched while healing.

But we are just at the start of this next episode of the current round. My head is on fire, and with the shots I have received and the topical solutions and Vaseline I am having a hard time not scratching at the sores. The alcohol that I consumed was only to help them the feel numb so that I could get in bed and go to sleep last night. That cigarette that I want to smoke goes with that stress relieving drink that numbs the head pain and makes it nonexistent for a while.(tbh those cigars are gross!)

I know that there are great many of you that are not going to be happy reading this. And I’m not going to say that it’s actually going to even happen. I haven’t bought a pack of cigarettes. I hadn’t b4thought of smoking until this head problem. It’s just some thing my nicotine brain is telling me. I know it really won’t help it get any better or the lesions heal any faster. Hell if anything it’s the alcohol that would at least numb my brain and make me not feel so horrible for a couple of hours. But the cigarettes really don’t do a damn thing! So don’t worry too much. It might not even be a problem. I just wanted to let you all know where I’m going to be gone for a couple days (or wks) and not checking into the daily pledge or last word or any of the blogs that are posted. I just need to take a little bit of a vacation from EX right now. I LOVE YOU ALL & I WILL BE BACK I promise…..💕💕💕💕

Tracy❤️🤗😘