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Share your quitting journey

A lot of people are forgetting this.

Treehugger85
Member
1 10 172

Name something that isn't caused by our nicotine addiction?  I see EVERYTHING blamed here on nicotine addiction but did you know some stuff NOT caused by nicotine can cause the same reactions as someone in nicotine withdrawal like act crazy? Even have cigarette cravings too!

1. When you are STARVING! Yep when you are not eating due to either self infliction or medical reasons you will get irritable, sleep a lot, hungry, mentally foggy, mood swings, the runs or constipation, dry skin you name it. Even with nicotine patches it feels like day 1 all over again or even day 3.

2. Finances! I've heard of married couples getting divorced because of many things but 1 thing just as stressful FINANCES! Lack of sleep, irritability, cravings for a cigarette, etc. etc. etc. all there.

3. Family problems! We've all had them, if not by a spouse or kid. Especially if they are in trouble. You can't sleep because you love them. Some people don't want to eat. Some people want to over eat. Some people get irritable.

I am facing ALL 3 of those right now. ALL 3

1. Everyone knows!

2. I have to come up with 3,000 USD for mom's cremation and service because she never could afford life insurance. She only worked as waitresses and factory worker.  Great to make your way in the world, as long as you work hard! It's not great when you're dyeing and have no more job. She's actively dyeing.  12 days and counting so she's fighting it. They have her on ativan for the irritation and morphine to keep her comfortable but they discontinued all the other medication including the one for her slow thyroid. This would be easy if I was one of those CEO's in some big company but I'm not!

3. Due to the increase in stress my husband and I are fighting almost every other day and it's driving us apart! I don't want to do this of course but I feel like I'm to blame even though I am still working as much as I can.  I feel like a failure to mom to even not be able to afford a service unless I work 10 hour days. My siblings of course can't help! Now why wouldn't that surprise me? Oh yes they've never helped! So it all falls on me. It irritates me, like when my husband wants to order out, but of course he's broke. He knows I have money so he asks. I say no we can't afford it! He doesn't understand why I'm tightening the purse strings and that starts a fight and it just ends me crying and wanting to throw up again!

I am going on a small vacation on mon - wed. A friend of mine is coming to see me, he doesn't smoke. He does drink alcohol on occasion.  I hope that helps and I know he'll try to keep me distracted from smoking and what's at home but still. It's a very heavy weight. I'm still 12 days down from smoking but I know nobody would blame me to smoke.  There are a few that have asked why have you not cracked yet!

The truth is slowly I am cracking. I am having small mental breakdowns. Of course it's natural to tell people it'll get better. It'll all be okay. Oh this too will pass!

No it won't, your mother's death never passes. Remembering her funeral never passes. The pain never eases.  Fighting with the husband you love always stings! This has pushed us farther behind on bills then we ever though possible and we all know bills don't stop.  Thanks to my stuff I am now receiving crazy medical bills and feel like it's my fault!

If I crack and have a cigarette, I won't blame myself at all! I will wait until all this smoothes over and we're on some sort of level field and then quit again.  If I don't smoke that's great!!!! 

People say oh non smokers go through this! This is true they do! If you notice though they some times fall into their own addiction as well.  Drinking more caffeine, eating more strict or not eating, exercising a whole lot more than they should, becoming obsessed with certain things.  They are all addictions! It doesn't have to be just smoking that damages you. Also drinking too much caffeine can cause cancer scares in women. Too much caffeine has been known to cause adrenal fatigue and also lumps in women's breasts!  Processed food like hot dogs are now said to cause cancer. I think some times the next thing they'll say is walking outside can cause cancer! 

It's not about the nicotine withdrawal or the process of quitting all the time. Some times you have mental breakdowns over something completely different.  We all have different lives, different circumstances! How could you honestly say you know what it feels like if you've never been through it?

Some times I wish I was in a hospital right now because it would make it easier with a feeding tube starting tomorrow but they are not admitting me.  They said I don't have pneumonia or a heart attack or anything that would co rule a warrant to be in the hospital. It makes sense, people live outside all the time without one. Why? It would take me out of the situation, it would allow my body AND mind to heal without nicotine.  For that person that said I survived. YES YOU DID and that's great I am so happy for you!  I'm glad you're here.  You were in the hospital though not facing real life. Yes you were very sick but you weren't staring at bills, you weren't working, you weren't doing all of this on top of getting better.  So know not everyone survives just because you survived in the hospital.  I can't have that luxury of just pushing all this away right now.

It's about life, life can drive you to outlets like smoking or drinking.  Yes we are all responsible for our own actions but some times life does give us more than we can bare without some form of release.  Some times no matter how much you walk, like I went out for a walk just a mile before I felt too weak, it didn't cut it. It didn't give me peace. A drink don't give me peace because I'm not into that.  A hot bath, also did that today, all I could think of was mom and bills.  Blaming myself for even taking a day off today!  I cried over and over and no not all this crying is healthy for me either. Especially when it causes me to throw up.  So no it's not healthy for us to cry whenever we need to cry.

I don't have a choice in living but I wish I didn't have to live with all this and like this! The point is do not blame everything on a nicotine addiction or automatically think that just because they have quit for say 5 days it's nicotine addiction because some times it's really NOT!

I think a lot of people forget that, I went off another friend of mine today because she told me over the phone that it's just nicotine addiction. All the unicorn stuff.  I told her I never want to see her again and slammed the phone down and I do mean that. I never want to see her again.

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