Addiction

A few years back I wrote an essay regarding my decision to quit smoking. I did it too.....or rather I took a year long pause. I started smoking again and I'm attempting to quit again. Some days are better than others. I have found that with one adult support person I do fine, but with more than that I feel a pressure to smoke. I don't know whether or not that is to give them a reason to continue to support me or to defy them. God only knows my motivation sometimes.


I have been trying to figure out my addiction to addiction. I married and divorced 3 addicted men. Sex, Drugs and/or alcohol. Everyone of them a smoker too.


I finally admit that in my late teens up until my early 30's I was anorexic and often bulimic. Not a pretty way to be pretty. I added an addiction to speed to help it all along. For years I was a size 3 or 4 on my 5'4" frame..... My mother gave me my first pill so I would have enough energy to go to school, and then come home and help take care of my sisters baby and run the house until she could get home from her second shift job. I was the oldest one left at home and said baby-mama had run off somewhere. It was a nice side affect that it helped me lose the baby fat and be model-thin. I guess I started that when I was 12 or 13 and it stayed with me until I was put on those steroidal drugs when I was 39. Even anorexia and bulimia cannot help you lose weight when you are on steroids. One would think that my best friend dieing of a combo drug addiction of speed and downers would have made me stop at 35, but it didn't. I always felt that she took *too much* and I was smarter. Truth is I was just luckier. I didn't like downers.


I became addicted to cigarettes and marijuana (yes, you can so be addicted) in my early teens. I was a bit of a problem drinker then too, but alcohol has never been addictive to me, too many problems with it, it was just a way to fit in with the wild crowd. I am one of those people who fall asleep after 2 beers/glasses of wine, but I can barely cop a good buzz off harder liquor. I loved Marijuana. It just made me really happy and it spurred my imagination. It also took my short term memory and made me act really stupid sometimes. It took some of my pain away (I had it kind of rough then). I was lucky enough to have a couple of teachers who thought my brain was worth saving (they didn't know about the addictions related to thinness) so they dumped every alcoholic drink they could catch me with and generally shadowed me so much that my wilder friends wanted nothing to do with me for fear they too would get busted.

I haven't smoked weed since I was 17. I will be eternally grateful to those teachers for the rest of my life. I would have looked for better stronger highs without their intervention. The crowd I was running with are mostly dead or recovering felons now. Those teachers probably saved my life. It wasn't illegal to smoke cigarettes then, the students even had smoking areas. I had parental approval. It was a different world. Otherwise I am sure they would have made me stop those too.


Which brings me prolifically back to the point of this post. Its time to really quit smoking like I mean it. Its a good time to do it. I plan to move into a different apartment soon (one that doesn't smell of day-old smoke) in a better part of town. My car should be running by then. My job is good, my love life is going well and Cindy finally came and picked up her freaking feline friends (only one cat now). Its Spring!!!! So many stressors are gone or going. That new hopeful phase of my life that I've been concentrating on since January 31 is finally looking like a success, despite a few serious setbacks.


I don't think I am as physically addicted as I am emotionally and psychologically addicted. I smoke the most when I am alone. If I am around non-smokers without any real stressors I can go all day pretty much without one......but the moment stress, boredom or loneliness hits me I find myself reaching for my favorite crutch. This weekend I smoked only 5 cigarettes on Saturday and only 4 on Sunday. Today at work and on my way home I've smoked 8 already.


I need new habits...nervous habits and coping mechanisms. The rubber band around the wrist snapping just annoys me and makes me want a smoke. I need better suggestions....maybe something that reminds me its my choice and a good one or something that is at least neutral.
I don't know how to live life without some addiction or another. Maybe what I need is a *good* addiction.