Post by Ann on Dec 12, 2008 8:28:09 GMT -5
I Am A Junkie.
This was a hard concept for me to grasp? Me, a junkie?
My goodness, I am a good woman, great grandmother, and devoted Christian.
Just because I smoked for 49 years, wasn’t that by choice?
My life revolved around each cigarette. I started smoking before breakfast,
smoked up to lunch, smoked in my car, on the phone, on the computer, when visiting,
in bed, before sex, after sex. I always knew where my cigarettes were!
I smoked outside when the wind chill was 30 below zero.
I hovered in a corner when the wind blew and the rains poured.
Every 20 minutes, no matter what I was doing, no matter where I was at,
I listened to the “nicotine voice” that called me to smoke.
I planned car trips, family reunions, plane trips around my cigarettes.
I passed up religious seminars, career opportunities, and
family car trips because of “no smoking” rules.
No matter how poor I was, I always found money for cigarettes.
I put my babies in harms way by smoking when I was pregnant.
Cigarettes were my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night.
They were the coma for a pause between activities.
They were the period at the end of the day.
I felt frantic in the car when the lighter didn’t work.
I felt panic when it was evening and I had only one cigarette in the pack.
I got anxious when I went into a “No Smoking” restaurant.
I resented negative comments about “smokers.”
I got angry at commercials that encouraged smokers to be treated like social“lepers.”
One day I realized that cigarettes “totally” consumed my life.
Like a trained monkey, I fed my addiction every twenty minutes,
whether I felt like it or not.
I was not smoking for pleasure.
I was smoking out of necessity.
When confronted with the words, “Addict” and “Junkie” on the Q,
it was totally a new thought. How could I have smoked for 49 years and not admitted to myself I am an Addict? I am addicted to the drug nicotine.
Admitting I am addicted to nicotine and confessing that I want to be free of this addiction, was the beginning of my journey to freedom! I went through withdrawal.
Hell Week, Heck Week, Weak Week.
I was in agony as I wrestled free from the mental and physical hold nicotine
had on me. The junkie voice tormented me night and day.
“You can’t do this. You may as well give up now. You know you will smoke again. Yes. No. Yes. No………………..”
I finally won back my life.
This was the hardest thing I have ever done but the most rewarding.
It is my glorious moment!
I relearned how to live life without a cigarette as my crutch.
I can now call myself an ex-smoker!
BUT I always know that I am one puff away from two packs a day!
I must never, never, take one puff!
Can YOU relate?
Found on Quitnet
This was a hard concept for me to grasp? Me, a junkie?
My goodness, I am a good woman, great grandmother, and devoted Christian.
Just because I smoked for 49 years, wasn’t that by choice?
My life revolved around each cigarette. I started smoking before breakfast,
smoked up to lunch, smoked in my car, on the phone, on the computer, when visiting,
in bed, before sex, after sex. I always knew where my cigarettes were!
I smoked outside when the wind chill was 30 below zero.
I hovered in a corner when the wind blew and the rains poured.
Every 20 minutes, no matter what I was doing, no matter where I was at,
I listened to the “nicotine voice” that called me to smoke.
I planned car trips, family reunions, plane trips around my cigarettes.
I passed up religious seminars, career opportunities, and
family car trips because of “no smoking” rules.
No matter how poor I was, I always found money for cigarettes.
I put my babies in harms way by smoking when I was pregnant.
Cigarettes were my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night.
They were the coma for a pause between activities.
They were the period at the end of the day.
I felt frantic in the car when the lighter didn’t work.
I felt panic when it was evening and I had only one cigarette in the pack.
I got anxious when I went into a “No Smoking” restaurant.
I resented negative comments about “smokers.”
I got angry at commercials that encouraged smokers to be treated like social“lepers.”
One day I realized that cigarettes “totally” consumed my life.
Like a trained monkey, I fed my addiction every twenty minutes,
whether I felt like it or not.
I was not smoking for pleasure.
I was smoking out of necessity.
When confronted with the words, “Addict” and “Junkie” on the Q,
it was totally a new thought. How could I have smoked for 49 years and not admitted to myself I am an Addict? I am addicted to the drug nicotine.
Admitting I am addicted to nicotine and confessing that I want to be free of this addiction, was the beginning of my journey to freedom! I went through withdrawal.
Hell Week, Heck Week, Weak Week.
I was in agony as I wrestled free from the mental and physical hold nicotine
had on me. The junkie voice tormented me night and day.
“You can’t do this. You may as well give up now. You know you will smoke again. Yes. No. Yes. No………………..”
I finally won back my life.
This was the hardest thing I have ever done but the most rewarding.
It is my glorious moment!
I relearned how to live life without a cigarette as my crutch.
I can now call myself an ex-smoker!
BUT I always know that I am one puff away from two packs a day!
I must never, never, take one puff!
Can YOU relate?
Found on Quitnet