I have been a slave

[nsd_user663_2302]

Hi all, i thought i'd write a bit about myself and my reason's for smoking and wishing to stop.

I started smoking when i was 15. There's a whole load of people i could blame for it. My best friends, my elder cousins; all played a key part in this history. My cousins came to live with us when i was around 13-14 when their folk's split up and i think this marks the beginning of the end of that period of childhood innocence (it was bound to happen sonner or later). It was one particular cousin who embraced dope as his lifestyle and i used to really look up to him.. before long, we used to smoke pipes and joints out of the bedroom window and we were never rumbled. He taught me how to smoke dope on the sly and i never forgot. Towards the age of 16-17, me and my best mates at school were heavily into smoking dope. All our school days at this point were centred on being very stoned. Oh, really, looking back it was such a great laugh and i had such great friends then (I still do really.. i'm just lost in a nostalgia trip). You get the picture, we smoked a lot, there was always someone carrying, we always shared, we didn't need much: The golden days.

I think it was from there on that it all went a bit wrong. I hope you're ready because the next few years become something of a sob story...

Jan 19th 1996. The day of the English Higher Prelim exam came and went like any other day, even for a day laden with an exam for a subject that i found intensely boring. We finished the exam and went to the pub. Thats the last time i saw one of my good friends and very nearly two. That night, for reasons best left aside, two friends crashed their car. One died, one was paralysed and in a coma for 3 months. This drew our band of mates closer than anything we'd experienced and we smoked like nothing would/could stop us. We smoked and mourned and smoked and mourned. We were still smoking and mourning in March when the next big thing happened. The Dunblane tragedy was something that shook not just our local teenage world, but the whole world. And i was right next to it (cos i wasn't at high school where i was meant to be). It was horror. I don't honestly remember the full details of it anymore, but i was close enough to hear the shots.. i was late for school and walking through the primary school that morning and i walked right past the gym that minutes later became a scene of horror. I'd been smoking and walked right by. When i was five or so minutes past the gym, i heard the shots. Never thought it was a gun though.. sounded like a hammer (i'll remember that forever). Well Dunblane changed after that. And so did we.

We finished school a month or two later and most of us wanted to get out of that town. I joined the RAF. Still smoked though.. i've no idea how they never caught me in 5 years. When i joined, i didn't smoke during training and it was during my first posting that i started up again. (There was a fair enough amount of it going around the junior ranks, so i was not alone). I stayed in the RAF for 5 years in total, smoking and hiding from the world but by now, i was really pondering the error of my ways and was keen to stop.

I was in the process of applying for officer training, it was 2000 and i was 21 when the coup de grace happened. My girlfriend, Carol, committed suicide. I began to feel that death was all around me. I left the RAF on medical grounds after that following my re-engagement medical examination. I told them how depressed i was after Carol's death and that i didn't feel i could fully carry out my duties. I was medically discharged in Aug 2001.

I fast tracked into a Physics degree, which i passed with honours in 2003 but never got round to using. Since 2003 i've been a dopaholic without even as much as a hint of stopping, all the while knowing that i must at some point.

So here i am, 4.5 years on. I feel the dope has hindered my recovery from all these events and that, when i stop, i'm going to have to deal with it all in concentrate form. This really scares me. It's precisely what i've been avoiding for over 10 years.

Sorry for the essay and the woes it contains. But those are the reasons for smoking (aside from my own weakness in refusing it) and those are also my reasons for wanting to stop: So i can take command of my life (just as i aspired to do as an officer) and move on.

Tick tock, tick tock. I must learn to love clocks and to get over the fact that none of this is actually my fault.

damn, i feel the urge for sedation again.

Arf. Cloud 9

[nsd_user663_1789]

Wow, i don't really have any words to follow that, but its your words that are important and to me you seem to be ready for what is ahead of you.

Its the old saying of 'admitting you have a problem is half the battle', its so true. You seem to be fully aware that you are about to start a new journey and although some times may be tough, i bet you will end up in a better place.

Good luck, stay strong x x

[nsd_user663_2302]

Thanks.. I must admit. i'm not feeling very strong today. And now that i don't have my "safety net", i'm very tearful just recalling those events passed. As long as i don't call my dealer, i'll be happy. But i know that for 5 mins, i'll be happy if i DO call him.. But then the guilt will hit again.

Arf x

[nsd_user663_1789]

It would just put you back to square one and give you something to hide behind.

Quitting the dope and facing your feelings will make you a much stronger person in the long term, but you have to face feeling shitty in the short term. There is nothing wrong with mourning and grieving but try not to outright depress yourself, try to do something to take your mind off it.

Sometimes the right things to do are the hardest.

[nsd_user663_2302]

Sometimes the right things to do are the hardest.

Aye. The path of least resistance is always the favourite. Must... gain.. control..

[nsd_user663_1704]

Thank you for feeling the trust here to share your experiences x x x x

Quitting will open you up to the world and make you feel quite raw, this is the only way to help the natural process of self healing.

Through all this pain you are a big strong intelligent person, you need to rediscover that person and live your life to the full x x x x

I find you remarkable, this is a very big thing for you and that's where you find your strength, I admire you.

Keep crying when your sad and laughing when your happy and take the world on !

Never forget those times but learn to lay them to rest in the past.

Onwards and upwards

*hugs*

~Buffy x x

[nsd_user663_2339]

Hi all, i thought i'd write a bit about myself and my reason's for smoking and wishing to stop.

Sorry for the essay and the woes it contains. But those are the reasons for smoking (aside from my own weakness in refusing it) and those are also my reasons for wanting to stop: So i can take command of my life (just as i aspired to do as an officer) and move on.

Tick tock, tick tock. I must learn to love clocks and to get over the fact that none of this is actually my fault.

damn, i feel the urge for sedation again.

Arf. Cloud 9

I had to fix the problems in my head before quitting. I had a thousand failed attempts of one or two days. I had councelling that was ok. But the thing that sorted it all out was listening to audio books and reading. I read a lot of stuff that helped. Books and CDs that I would have sniggered at before. I started with Susan Jeffers' "Feel the Fear and do it anyway". Once I got over the language difference (American) I found it worked wonders. It deals with addiction, guilt and a whole host of stuff.

Belinda

[nsd_user663_2302]

Thanks, i just looked up the book you recommended. I may well be buying it

[nsd_user663_2367]

Lots of deep stuff there Cloud.

At least you see the dependence on the weed as something that is holding you back. It is such a different drug than nicotine though. In my experience nictoine makes you feel like you can handle sh*t now. Weed makes you feel like you dont have to worry about that s*it right now. In reality they are both just decieving you.

My brother is a huge smoker of the green. He does not see that it holds him back. He does not acknowledge his dependance. he has licked a much worse addiction so I dont like to criticize him for weed but it is painful to watch sometimes. He has had a rough life but living in a haze is not helping him. Personally it was never my drug of choice I'ts ok but generally I would rather have a drink (which is really no better if not worse)