And so the cycle begins all over again

[crazymama_Lori]

I'm going to be so thankful when these cycles end.  In the first 5 months it was elation, depression, sadness, anger, isolation, irritation, then calm.  Well, this time it's calm, depression, isolation, anger, irritation.  I seem to be dropping off one or two each time. Still waiting on the elation to come around again. It does help when I'm not up every hour on the hour. I just can't seem to sleep here lately. I don't like taking Benadryl constantly. I'm groggy the next day. I'm not liking that too much.

I'm getting to the point of why do I have to frickin' analyze these damn things just to get over them and then have them cycle back again.  I've had two thoughts today of screw it, buy a pack, have one or two a day and you'll be fine.  Just amazes me how that keeps knocking on my door. The only real emotion today is, I guess, boredom. Seems like everyone has something to do besides me. Having my business slow down lately hasn't helped matters. I'm used to working on things all the time. I always had a job a day every day. Now it's stretched out over several days.

Time to take inventory of my house and figure out what I've been putting off for the last god knows how many years. There's always something to clean around here. With two dogs and one cat, there's always something to get done. I don't have to sit at my kitchen table chain smoking and thinking about doing things and then they never get done. That's been a habit that seems to be reappearing again. Not the smoking part, the thinking about doing things and not doing them. That's a habit that I really, really need to work on. That only pertains to personal tasks, certainly not my working time.

The very strong urges of I have to get to the store and get a pack have shown their ugly head once again. I just have to have that one hit. My daughter stopped over and I was contemplating stealing one from her purse. Ever since yesterday when my husband was cleaning the porch and I saw a butt with a couple hits left on it, it's been haunting me. I remember all the other times when I quit after a few days searching the house for something missed while cleaning. Something dropped from the trashcan and onto the floor under the sink. I used to have a trashcan in my office for years and I'd be digging through there. Just one more hit, just one more and I'll be done. I promise this will be my last time. If you do this for me, I promise this will be the last time. I won't ever ask again. Just let me have a couple hits, drags, puffs, you get my drift.

I have people still around me that still smoke and amazingly enough they think I've changed. You're more crabbier now. You jump off the handle too soon now. You're too sensitive now. It's almost I want to scream at them, then I guess you'd prefer that I go back to smoking and drinking again because I'm more “fun.” News flash, I'm 57 years old. I'm beyond the drinking and chain smoking stage. That's not part of who I am anymore. It's not part of my life anymore. Funny how I said that exact same thing about 30 some odd years ago to drugs. You're just going to have to come to terms with it on your end because, I'm sorry, that relapse is not going to happen. You think by handling me with kid gloves in the first stages of my quit and now handling me by browbeating me into submission, you have another guess coming. I'm not sure where they are coming from in that scenario, but that's their problem to figure out on their time; not mine.

For you newbies, I bet those two last paragraphs really, really hits home right about now. That is you in the first 30 days or was you in the last 30 days. It's amazing the bargaining that goes on. But a very interesting thing is you're experiencing a death, a breakup. You experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance which are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. And you know what, you did lose your best friend. Believe it or not that little white tube cried with us at night, laughed with us, danced with us, kept us company, told us everything was okay. We keep fighting it and fighting it until we finally learn to accept that that part of our life is gone. It's dead. It's not part of who we are anymore. Take a deep breath and shove that smoke boat to shore and wave it goodbye.

I'm one of those people that when I start something, I'll keep at it until it's finished. My job is one that has to do with a time limit. Each job takes 3 to 8 hours. I have a certain amount of time (days) that I have to get it done in. I have to manage my time because I have these jobs come in at all times (well, used to anyway). I am a master of management of small increments of time. Over the 20 or so years, I'm in control constantly of when things get placed in certain time slots to complete the job.

Now, this whole quit, I've had that same mind-set. I was scrambling to find a precise time slot to put this in. This takes so many days. I only have this many days to go before I move on to the next stage. I have only three more days until this passes. It isn't that way. And I actually believe that's why some people lose their quits because there is such a vague time line. Nothing precise as each person is different and goes through the stages at different times and some skip stages and go on to the next. I can't seem to take my time, spread it out, and parse it into smaller pieces and eventually get it done. It will get done, just not right away. I think that's the problem that I'm having as of late and during the course of this quit. Take each section at a time and just have the patience to wait it out. I know it will pass. I know it's just a stage in my recovery, my renewal, my healing. I think I'm finally getting that. Now that I'm into my second cycle (that just helps me view this better), I know this time I just have to ride it out and WAIT until it passes. And it does pass. It seems that each cycle is getting less and less timewise and I do seem to drop off one stage each time. But all good things come to those that wait.

The first cycle was intense. The elation was after the first 30 days was over and that lasted for about three weeks. The anger for me lasted for about a week right after my elation phase. I was screaming at those poor dogs if they looked at me a certain way. They survived and I worked my way through it. Then set in the sadness/depression. Again that lasted for another three weeks. Then came the isolation/irritation. That kind of waxed and waned here for the last five months. I've dropped off the anger. I must have came to terms with that and just learned to remove myself from the situation and calm myself down and return to it again. The main emotion that sticks with me is the isolation and irritation. I must have used smoking for those two mainly because I can't seem to shake those. I've avoided quite a few situations where I was irritated beyond belief and just simply grabbed a stick of gum and chewed my way throught it until it passed. I look forward to that feeling when it passes. It's such a relief. We'll see what I come up with in this next cycle. The first one was every 30 days. I've noticed that they resurface now every 45 days. Blogging really helps me to understand where I'm at because now I'm beginning to see a pattern. Now, four to five days later, I'm back to calm. This has been quite the adventure, that's for sure. Maybe being a micromanager has helped in this process, huh?

Oh, I'm sure when you first started reading this you were thinking, oh, no, she relapsed. She went back to the dark side. Well, I didn't. I just wanted to reassure those that are faltering, wavering, teeter-tottering to know that strength grows in numbers. If you don't have the support at home, you have support here. You scream help, or type these crazy blogs and work yourself through a thought, a moment, a panic, confusion, a WTH place, you come here. Open your tablet, your computer, your word processing program like I did over the past few days. Type out your feelings, your thoughts. Throw out that lifeline. Save the blog and read it over later in the day or the next day.

You know no one on this site, but everyone wants to help you. BUT they can't help you if you don't let them know WHAT to help you with. You may not even know what it is. But by expressing it in words to this public forum where no one is judging you in the least bit, you're giving someone like myself or thousands of others to help you see what you're going through or hold your hand while you're going through a really, really rough patch. I sat on this computer all day one day helping someone through a really, really rough day. I don't know her. Never met her. Probably never will, but she needed someone. I became that someone. You have to let these people become your someone.

You may think, oh, they don't care, this sounds stupid, I'm not going to bother. Try it sometime. I think you'll be shocked how many responses you'll get and how many similarities you'll see and how many reassurances that this is just part of it. Something you have to find your way through, but we'll be there with you. Some have a fleeting thought of I've whined too much, I'm complaining too much, why even bother. I've noticed that a lot of the failed quits I've seen is by people who do not become engaged, who do not participate, who do not just type out the words THIS IS TOO HARD and then just hit publish. If that's what it takes to get started, then by all means do it. All these responses will come filtering in. Encouraging you, cheering for you, telling you it's all normal, but hang in there. Try the next day but then expand on it or just start a blog of your own on your computer/tablet/phone. But publish the darn thing after you're done, share what you are going through. It's going to help you and also help others behind you and also ahead of you. This is a support group. We can't support you if you don't share, even if it's those four words.

You'll see how this writing has evolved from frustration to revelation. This thing they call addiction, it's a tricky soul, a sneaky little monkey. Always remember that you have the tools, you have the strength, you have the control. You are in the driver's seat. You can have smooth sailing and enjoy the sights or you can crash and burn. Always remember YOU ARE IN CONTROL !!!!!!!!!!