I created a group many years ago (Relapse Traps) which some of you know about, but the newbies don't. I was just reading in The Stress Trap, mine and other's words and thought, ya know - that was a damn good group.. And there's a lot of wisdom from people in there in their responses. And just maybe it will help someone. So I'm passing on both those links and regurgitating a response I wrote back in '08 below.
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We all go through stress all the time. Sad to say, but I don't know that there is a day that passes when I don't experience some kind of stress. It could be a child coming home late, a husband who is overbearing, a pet that didn't come in the night before, a friend in the hospital, a relative coming over that you don't much care for, a promise you've made that you'd rather not keep, a boss that wants 150% NOW, a too demanding wife, a perfection that we know we can achieve that we're not reaching. The list goes on and on and on. And on.
And the depression of failing to meet not only our own expectations of ourselves (perhaps mostly our own expectations), but the expectations of others. A parent whom we can never please, or a child whom we think we have failed, or a friend that we could have been better to or a spouse that we treat worse than a stranger, a child that we have alienated because we didn't know how to simply say 'I love you.' Essentially our depression I think is a feeling of a lack of the worthiness of the grace of our Savior. We know what we can do, and we don't do it.
This is life. This is our lives going on, day by day. It is not unique to the human species. But smoking is - for many of us. Many people go through these same experiences and don't light up under these same circumstances that compel us to do so. And it is simply because their brains have not be re-arranged, re-wired (due to the drugs in this little rolled up weed). They deal with life's stresses and depressions without smoking.
Bottom line...butt kicking....there are no excuses for lighting up. Stress or depression - don't matter. Millions go through those emotional realities and don't reach for a cigarette. When you've said NO to smoking. You mean NO. No matter what.
