After serial quitting many years, I finally stopped smoking, for 2 1/2 years, just shy of my 900 days then I fell.
I went out and bought a package of smokes and smoked 4 over a 2 day period. I lost it all, all that time and hard work!! Yeah, even after 2 1/2 years, the demon is still there, lurking, waiting to take you back down the road, to smoking. I gave away my cigarettes the next day and I'm resetting my quit date.
What triggered it, was the smell of smoke coming through my adjoining basement wall with the two neighbours next door. Both are heavy smokers. Then I was witnessing a younger woman, smoking in the AA group I was attending. Then I got snowed in, and feeling all the isolation of the holidays and being physically sick, and being alone Christmas and New Year's. Ahhh, you say what a pity party? Yup, depression and wondering what and who it was all for. Then suddenly the craving for drinks and cigarettes came back to me.
I needed that reward cigarette!! Well, it was my folly - it was NOT a reward!! Cigarettes are cunning, baffling and powerful, drugs. Yeah it's a shame that I have to start over, it took me 15 years to get to the point, where I had a solid quit, and I quite literally blew it away with four cigarettes!! Was it worth it? NOT A BIT. Izn fact I knew I was literally playing with fire.
I have to forgive myself tho, now, and stop beating myself up. What's done can't be undone, but it is a mistake, and I can learn from it. So far I still have my sobriety. Most of you know I quit both addictions cold turkey the day I fell and almost had to have my ankle amputated. I honestly thought I was done for life!
I don't normally have time in my day to come here anymore but I think it's important that perhaps you can learn from my mistake. I was hungry, angry, lonely and tired. I was restless, irritable and discontent.
One is too many and a thousand not enough! I did reach out for help, but either I wasn't listening, or my mind was made up and I just said screw it and did what I wanted to do. I was romancing the cigarettes and alcohol, that always got me into this jamb before, and it did again.
Christine13
