I’ve been thinking a lot about what an unpleasant person I was thanks to my addiction. I was thoughtless to my husband and mother. I don’t know if it’s thoughtless, as much as I was so addicted, I convinced myself that it was their fault that I smoked around them. I know, it’s hard to imagine I could actually justify my smoking, but I guess that’s just what I did. Now that I’ve quit, I’m realizing just how thoughtless and cruel I was, and yet I always fancied myself a thoughtful caring individual. After all, I’m my mother’s full time caretaker, giving up my life and freedom to take care of her in her final years, yet I was so thoughtless and cruel as to smoke in front of her regardless of the consequences to her.
In my defense, before I sound like a total jerk, my mother was an alcoholic for longer than I smoked, which is pretty bad, considering I started at the age of ten, but her drinking began back when I was just 7. When I was 17, she asked me to quit smoking. I offered to quit, as long as she quit drinking, but she refused. Maybe that was what I used in my twisted addicted mind to justify smoking in front of her all her life, but worst of all, in her declining years. Now that she’s wheelchair bound, stuck in my house with me 24/7. I was having heart and lung problems when I finally convinced myself to give up cigarettes, but I hadn’t realized, my mother’s declining health was hurt in large part due to me. We had taken her to the cardiologist, run all kinds of test, and he was truly worried about her breathing problems, thinking she may be suffering from congestive heart failure again. Well, it may be that her taking a diuretic has helped her breathing, or it may coincidently be my not smoking around her, but she’s better. She’s been better for a couple of weeks. I’ve been quit for 3 weeks today. She’s been on medication for over a month. She finally quit drinking a year and a half ago, although she’d cut back drastically in her declining years.
Whether I was to blame or not, I was certainly a thoughtless jerk to have smoked around her! I’m so glad that I’m not contributing to the decline of her health anymore.
My husband had a triple bypass 3 years ago and thankfully managed to quit smoking after he had smoked for 42 years. I was going to quit using an e-cigarette, but my husband and my mother both hated the smell and told me to go back to cigarettes. I tried to leave the room to smoke in another room, but my husband didn’t like me spending time in a seperate room and asked me to just stay and smoke in front of him, just not leave a dirty ashtray near him. So, I cut down the ashtrays in the house to just a couple, and would empty them often. He always said he didn’t mind my smoking, it didn’t make him want one, he thought it smelled terrible. So smoke I did, regardless of the fact that I wasn’t doing anything to help his quit.
What kind of wife was I??? I could allow my addicted brain to convince me that I was still a loving wife???
Now that I’ve quit, I see the lies my addicted mind allow me to believe - what a crock!!!
I’m so glad I’ve quit, I’m no longer a selfish jerk, being thoughtless in the presence of loved ones. Thank God I’ve seen the light.
Now the above is the only smoking left for me - blowing bubbles!!! 
