hesteralumni23

sorry fot the confusion. Last time I set a quit date was July 3 2019 whoa that was two years ago

I was smoking four or five cigarettes a day in May, then got sick of it, feeling nauseous after a few drags and threw out the pack. Haven't smoked since then but now I am craving bad, have been for two days. Heart pounding. Hands shaking. I feel like i do when I've been smoking every hour and my addiction is screaming FEED ME except I haven't had a cigarette since May 7. When this happens before, I always end up buying a pack, smoking for a few days and then throwing out the pack and not smoking again for a few months. This is the first time on my cycle that I've posted an SOS before buying a pack

i smoked my four a day for another week and then I got bored with smoking and stopped feeling the heart thumping crave or sweet pleasure of feeding it. It was just smoke in smoke out. i wasn’t into it and then my girlfriend caught me holding my pack and said she couldn’t be with a SMOKER and it wasn’t worth it for me to keep doing something I wasn’t enjoying once I had rebuilt my nicotine tolerance i overate mad for a week and then got my diet under control i haven’t smoked since September , but I dunno what it means because I’m only stopping for someone else to stay with me. Started smoking casually at 13. Totally addicted at 15 on half a pack a day. And from 17 -24, I have been smoking 4 a day for a week, stopping for a few months, then repeating once my nicotine tolerance is down. It’s like I dont quit cigarettes, I take tolerance breaks to revisit how it felt when I first started playing with a deadly poison ugh so stupid

Really appreciate everyone's bluntness. I know I'm addicted, but my smoker friends insisted I was t and I wanted to hear it from people who aren't in denial about addiction. I don't want to be in denial either about who and what I am thanks. It's really kind of everyone

All my smoker friends tell me that four cigs a day is basically a quit. I dunno, though. I feel like an addict. I've been sneaking out of bed at 11 pm to wander the streets and smoke two cigarettes. In the morning, I wake up at 6 am, race outside and smoke two cigs. Don't smoke again until 11 pm. I need to stop because it's messing up my sleeping patterns and I'm becoming a mess at work and a zombie at home. But my friends insist that this isn't an addiction at four cigs daily. Even when I point out I have been smoking since I was 13 and am smoking at 24, they say it's not addiction. Are they right? It sounds suspiciously like the lies of junkie thinking and I'm talking to my doctor this week about anti depressants to beat the morning crave and stop.

Im sorry. I need to get off this board, I totally don’t belong here and i am scared that describing what im going through and what ive decided will throw you guys off your own journeys. but thank you to everyone for your support. ill come back if its right for me but its not right for me right now I love you all soooo much and im going into therapy for my childhood shit and going to be okay on that

got it thanks again

im sorry, but I have to use my own words right now for what im going through. I just don’t relate to the words some of you prefer and i dont think they're true for me. if my addiction doesnt resemble your addiction, i dont have to make it the same as yours. my addiction manifests as a separate personality. i experience something i call The Haze. and ive seen lots of people in this community use "relapse." im not going to follow the word police here because i dont want to lie to myself and say that smoking is over for me. i am a smoker. i have been a smoker since i was 13. i have never quit smoking, i just run out of cigarettes and dont smoke for awhile and pass for a non-smoker. i am out of cigs today. i decdied not to buy any today. tomorrow ill have to decide again that even though i cant deny that i am a smoker, i can decide not to buy any. thank youuuuu ankush. but if i go into The Haze i need ot admit it to myself and then up the ante on exercise and socializing without smoking to salve loneliness and disappointment. i wonder if this is too much for a quit smoking support forum, but kylie helped me a lot too. after my mother died, i lived with my uncle for a year and he was crazy homphobic and hated women, constantly screaming at me that i'd better not be a d--- and that i probably just got home from sucking ---- and that his wife had left him for antoher woman because she was gay (as opposed to leaving because he was crazy violent). he beat me. he didnt rape me, but he made me feel like my body wasn't my own. my dad came back from cambodia and got me out of there, but at 12, i couldnt stand to be touched, not even a hug. i couldnt trust anyone to come near me. and in sex ed, i was disgusted at the thought of anything physical kylie took all that away. she didnt do anything i didnt ask her to do and shed stop if i said stop and start again if i said i felt ready. she kept asking me what i liked and didn't like, if it was good, if it was bad. she made me feel like my body was for me and that i should be shameless about liking girls and having as much or as little sex as i wanted. and she was so sweet to me saying wed probably never see each other again and itd be cruel to keep in touch but we should make the most of it. she made me feel really good about myself. i knowwwww she shouldnt have given me a cig when i asked her what smoking was like. i think she felt like she was so excited to be the person introducing me to new stuff and didnt think about the consequences. but its gotten really weird b/c for so long, smoking a cigarette was my way of saying to myself in the world that i am without shame, f-you, uncle jeff, its my body. but now smoking makes me so ashamed that i had my last cig yesterday hiding in the bushes. i guess i hang onto smoking b/c it feels like i'm hanging onto that weekend after having everything pounded out of me, she made me feel strong, sex positive, out and proud. but i also know it is my disease co-opting my memory of her to use it against me. also, i know that i may have taken my body back from uncle jeff, but im just giving it over to Big Tobacco. i know ppl want me to say ive had my quit day, i am done with smoking but ive said that lots of times only to buy a pack 12 weeks later. im only going to say whats true and whats true is: i am good facing physical withdrawal symptoms and cravings, but not good at dealing emotioanl triggers months later. i have been a smoker since i was 13. 1 pack every 3 months is still smoking. but i am not smoking today. i am going through a non smoking period. and tomorrow, i'll say it all over again and see where im at in 3 months. if i go through The Haze again but dont smoke by posting here asking for support and refusing to buy cigs, then i can say that i have quit smoking. that i am smoke free. but if i say it now, well, ive said it before and it just makes me vulnerable to another relapse b/c im not acknowledging my addiction and not working to prevent The Haze from making me do what i dont want to do. also, i think my sense of withdrawal is different b/c of the damage to my sense of pleasure and pain. i was craving a cig all day today, jittery and shaky. i loved it; i loved the sense of nervous energy and put it into all my admin work at the office. i also loved not smelling like ash and tar. i loved coughing out all the gunk in my chest. i loved wanting a charcoal filter tip in my mouth and knowing i wouldnt do it. my situation might not be yours. my body isnt yours. its mine.

i knowwwwww. im trying to look on the bright side. my disease is trying to dig up whatever it can to get me to keep smoking and the best it can do is use what are probably inaccurate memories of a girl from 10 years ago i went out to the park just now to smoke because its usually empty and no one has to see me doing something im ashamed of, but it was filled with parents and babies and little kids and i didnt want anyone to see me smoke, so i was in the bushes feeding my habit. then when i was walking home, i saw these girls under a bridge with a crack pipe. i climbed down to them and gave them my pack with my last five cigs. they asked me if i wanted to get high with them and i just turned and ran before i could think about it. this is how i quit all other drugs; any time i ran into someone who would want to get high with me, i just turned the other way and ran. it really says something about how smoking even 15 cigs has hit my lungs b/c i usually have no problem running all the way home but i was out of breath like a minute later. but it was good b/c i was next to a trash can and i threw out my lighter. i usually keep it in anticipation of the next relapse but not this time. so the non-smoking period has begun a day later than i hoped but it has begun and i know whats coming. tomorrow, i will long for a cig but have none to smoke. i will be taking double doses of expetorants for two days to make it easier to cough it all out. i will be in teh gym a lot b/c i have totally fallen off my regime with this relapse. but instead of forgetting about my addiction after a week as usual, im going to keep working on it to make sure that in 90 days time i wont get caught off guard. the next time my girlfriend and family cancel on me and i go into The Haze, i will find some even a random thing on meetup.com to do to be around people who wouldn't be okay with me smoking around them even if they're strangers i promise to post an sos if i feel tempted to buy another pack im also going to find a trek con to go to with sarah. nad maybe she'll cosplay as a vulcan for me and we can spend the weekend in a motel and i can replace my memories of hooking up with a sexy goth vulcan who got me into smoking cigarettes and weed. i will try to make new memories of a happy weekend with my vegan yoga teacher girlfriend who introduced me to vegan cheese and plant based meat and cardio and weight lifting and kombucha and how to make myself look like a superhero girl with diet and exercise im sorry for upsetting anyone. youve all been really good to me and ill stick around even after im through the immediate post-relapse days

uhm. im sorry everyone. i went out to throw out my pack of 10 cigs, but then i started hearing kylie in my head and i went into The HAze. kylies voice was saying to me: you are a smoker, girlfriend. you just go for longer periods than most people between packs, so its not like youre turning your back on quitting b/c you never quit in the first place. you might as well enjoy and its not like you smoke that much anyway and don't you want to look older and cooler by smoking a cigarette? i got really dizzy and disoriented and smoked two cigs and didnt throw out the pack. im sorry. i know that's the voice of my disease using kylies voice to convince me to feed my addiction. its crazy i still think about a girl i knew for a weekend when i was 13. i think if i didn't smoke, i would never think about her at all. ugh so dumb. i have eight left and im worried that if i throw them out, i wont go through my usual cycle of being out of cigs and not necessarily being able to stop myself from smoking but always capable of refusing to spend money on them (for 90 days). im scared kylie's voice will be in my head and ill just buy another pack. i think its better to let kylies voice fade out like it did last time but then really work hard at forgetting her and forgetting cigarettes. im a bit worried that this is thinking like a junkie, but i have never had trouble stopping my smoking (for three months) once the pack is empty. i feel really bad about disappointing all of you but i want to be honest about my addiction. i also want to be honest with myself that its stupid to smoke to try to feel 13 again. my 13 year old self was naive and gullible and kylie was older and took advantage of me and taught me to do something horrible and i dont want to be thirteen again. i also dont want to let addiction control me even for four weeks of a year because even four weeks is four weeks too many to be so completely self destructive. and im 23 and shouldn't be trying to look older or worry about being cool. my priorities should be my health and fitness and profession. im so sorry.

I've decided to end my relapse earlier then usual and throw out my pack and the 10 cigs still inside. ughh. this has to be the end

thank you, d28b8. I definitely got triggered bad this weekend over something small. (it's always small) my girlfriend and I had plans but she got swept up in her sister urgently needing computer help to start a new job search and we didn't have much time together and I said I understood and it was fine. I don't think it was fine because I went into a sad haze and day dreamily walked to a tobacconist and bought a pack and started smoking again. except I now see I never actually stopped smoking at all and have been a smoker for 10 years -- just with longer periods between packs than most smokers when i tried to quit in high school at 15, I threw out my id and avoided anyone who might give me a spare cig and didn't smoke again until I was 19 and old enough to buy them legally and since then, I've been relapsing four times a year. after each relapse, id be out of cigs and just decide daily that today, I would not buy cigarettes and then forget about smoking after a few weeks my trigger is always the same. I look forward to spending time with someone close. my dad or my aunt or my girlfriend or a platonic pal. but if they have to cancel, I feel lonely and sad. during the first few months, im consciously thinking every day that I am done buying packs. but eventually, I forget to consciously make that choice. then I feel sad over a situation that not only disappoints me but means that someone in my life who would be horrified if they ever saw me smoking is not going to be around for a few days and The Haze takes over and I smoke because I can get away with it. I smoke until it makes me sick (after three days of relapsing, by the 15th cigarette) when I was 14, I thought I could never get addicted because more than 5 cigs a day made me throw up. it was only combining smoking with other drugs that would have me smoking two or three in a row and about half a pack a day at 21, I thought smoking one pack every three months was not horrible and not really an addiction. but now im 23. This morning, I woke up, had my first smoke of the day and caught myself thinking if my cigs make me sick, maybe I could try a different brand, get the Belmont silvers instead of blues. I know that is just my disease talking and this needs to stop after my last relapse three months ago, I got really into diet and exercise. Today im on the third day of my new relapse, smoking my third cigarette today and noticing that on my day off, I've usually hit the gym and done 10,000 steps by 8 am. but today, because I have relapsed, my only exercise is wandering the park smoking and I am at three thousand steps and feeling tired at noon when due to my new diet and exercise, I usually feel super awake and sharp by 5 am. smoking is taking me away from the body I've been working to earn. Johnny5 is right. The cycle of relapse and thinking I do not have a problem is bullshit. I don't want to relapse anymore. I need to work out what to do when friends and family cancel and anti smokers aren't around and I need to cope with sometimes feeling a little lonely without smoking thanks again

sorry, i dpnt understand. how does an exercise junkie think? i understand The Haze now. i think Boo really nailed it. The Haze it is my disease controlling me and catching me off guard because i think i am not a smoker anymore and thinking htat makes me vulnerable to my addiction. it takes control of me and is taking away my choice to be done with smoking. it is using my memories of sex and romance and love and closeness and socializing to get me to poison myself

its hard to make quitting drugs my priority #1 when i haven't gotten high or drunk since i was 15 and the only bad thing ive been doing to my body for the last eight years is smoke 80 cigarettes a year? i dont think my teenage drug addiction is a factor except to say i gave up a LOT of bad habits very quickly and before i even finished high school. so it feels kind of ridiculous that i have been unable to stop smoking cigs even with long periods of being smoke free. this board helped me realize that being smoke free for awhile did not free me from smoking and i was still a smoker, just one who hadnt smoked for three months.

thanks everyone for all your kind advice. i think my problem is i never REALLY quit smoking and drugs. i just quit the people. ellie broke up with me because she didn't want a cokehead/tweaker gf around her family and her baby brother. i didnt want to be someone who could only be friends with other addicts. i didnt want people to ashamed of me. when ellie was gone, i realized the only people around me were people who made me feel okay to feed my bad habits. and it was all about getting high. the people were just filler for the drugs. getting away from the people and throwing out my fake id let me get some distance from my addictions. i still avoid or leave situations where i could score. i never go to nightclubs or bars or concerts. but cigs are legal so once i turned 19 i could buy them again. i thought smoking a pack of 20 every 3 months was not an addiction. then i thought that b/c i didnt smoke for 90 days, i was smoke free. ellie used to have this joke and say: "i quit smoking. that just means i didnt smoke for a week and dont want to admit ive started again." i now see that i cant say i quit smoking just because i didnt smoke for 90 days. i didn't quit smoking. im still smoking eighty cigarettes a year. i am still addicted. but because i didnt admit that i was still addicted to smoking, i didnt admit that i still need a quit plan for the 90 day mark. so then The Haze hits me and im not ready to face it and i smoke. you all make me realize i didnt quit smoking. i didnt want to quit smoking. i just wanted to cut down to the point where i can pass for a non smoker and thats all i really cared about. i am still a slave to my addiction. a part of my brain is saying thats good enough, as long as you can pass for being a non smoker. but i dont think it is. i hate who i am as a smoker. i hate being someone who is putting cancer into the air when parents are walking around me with their children. i hate walking out to distant parks to be alone to do something im ashamed to do. i hate feeling like my body tells me to smoke so i have to do it whether i actually want to or not. i hate knowing that my girlfriend sarah would never kiss me again if she knew i put 80 cigarettes a year into my body. i was smoking earlier today at the park (im so sorry) and sarah (my girlfriend) walked past me on her way to my apartment, i guess she got off work early. i had some distance and hid behind a tree and took a shortcut to get home and jump in the shower so she wouldn't smell it on me. when we were hanging out later, i was so nervous that she would notice i forgot to take my pack and my lighter out of my pocket. i dont want to live like this anymore. i think i need to get rid of my memories of kylie and ellie. Boo is right. my first cigarette was right after my first time having sex and every time i smoke a cig, its because i want to feel 13 and feel my first kiss again. i should tell myself that kylie was a girl who made me realize i like girls and intro'd me to sex and pleasure, but she was also a creepy older woman and a first year college student who seduced a kid in junior high and gave me a deadly and addictive poison and told me it was cool. i should tell myself that yeah, ellie made me realize how hard drugs were taking over my life. but she also enabled my addiction by giving me a fake id and easy access to cigarettes and made me feel like poisoning myself was a way for a socially awkward girl to not be alone. and i need to start seeing all those glowing memories of smoking for what they were: a circle of shitty addiction that i want to escape.i should make new, smoke free memories im going to try. thank you.