Nicotine, ex drug use and madness

Good read!!!

And well done so far for achieving what you have done.You talk of self destructive acts,there is something about smoking that is self destuctive and self punishing,I can certainly remember smoking several fags in succession after some sort of upset just to 'spite' myself,what a pathetic thing to do :rolleyes:

If having a rant on these foums helps you feel better,then good

Yay I managed to not scare somebody - this is good. My worst pattern was smoking in-between natural breaks when painting things. I'd do some art (I do digital paintings), go to view it from a distance to see how it's looking and that'd be the rollup moment.

It's been really horrible not having that moment

Also yeah, I put all my focus into the rant rather than in doing something negative. I don't really have anyone to talk to so it was nice

Hey fruit.

Difficult to know where to start to respond to this.

Firstly, let's look at the positives. You are a strong enough person that you walked away from all sorts of substances several years ago and survived the experience. That's more than a lot of addicts can manage.

You're in a better place now - starting from a much greater position of strength than you were in before. Another good thing.

You know your lungs have reached the chronic state where you have to sort this last addiction or doom yourself to some pretty serious suffering - so your motivation is pretty clear. Another good thing.

And you've decided to post here, which is an incredibly helpful thing to do if you don't have people you can talk to about this stuff - so yay for that.

As to how the nicotene withdrawal is making you feel... now, I can't claim to have been seriously addicted to drugs, so I can't express complete solidarity in that respect, but in my crazy youth I did use a fair few of them, for an extended period of years, so I have a bit of a clue. And I think the key is this: cigarettes are a different beast, because the subconscious prompt to top up the nicotene is pretty much constant. Unless you're chronically addicted to heroin or a very very rich cocaine user, you use drugs recreationally rather than a minute-to-minute companion and prop. You don't find yourself in a traffic jam thinking damn, I need to drop acid. Or waking up in the morning having amyl nitrate with your coffee. But cigs - oh yes. The brain prompts you to smoke in just about all situations, and in response to a whole range of emotions. So when you stop, for a while, your subconscious just says 'SMOKESMOKESMOKESMOKE' all the ****** time. Even without a history of drug use or mental health problems this is enough to drive a lot of us pretty fruit loops.

The thing is though, that the physical addiction to nicotene is pretty shortlived, and the psychological associations can be broken - it just takes determination and gritted teeth. We've all got it in us to quit, no matter our history.

One of the most important things I ever learned in my life was this (and forgive my slightly hippie ramblings, but this really did make a difference to me): "Baggage is neutral". We're all carrying around stuff from our past. And it can really be a huge struggle and inform everything we do in the present, in a very negative way - but if we understand it properly, it can inform who we are in a good way. The baggage we carry is neutral - it's how we choose to use it that matters. We've learned a fair bit about ourselves from our past choices - good and bad - and this can help rather than hinder.

Sorry - really long post. Hope some of it made sense.

Good luck.

H

You know, I can sort of relate to you. I have an addictive mind as well. It comes naturaly. Luckily I know that, so I tend to steer away from most things. People think I am a bore, but Im not. I just choose not to be self destructive. It is a concious decision. Same with the smoking. I am now more than 60 days, but I still have to tell myself every day that I have stopped. I still get that feeling on my chest that I used to get if I have smoked for some time and I know one is coming. I dont talk about this to anyone, not even my friends and family as they dont seem to understand. I have stopped doing digital artwork as it is a major trigger for me. Maybe one day I will start again.

But for now, I take each day at a time. Reminding myself that I have stopped. For my own health, for my husband, for my kids, for all the people I have here on the forum. It is the choice I made, and by golly, I WILL STICK TO IT!

Well done for making one month. We will conquer this addiction!

We all have addictive personalities otherwise none of us would be here - so you are in good company! We will get through this and we are all here to help along the way. Some days it will be you needing some help and I'm quite sure on other days you will be helping someone else quit this awful drug. We have strength in numbers so lets beat the nasty, no-good, filthy, smelly, disgusting little son of a gun right now!!!!!!!

I forgot to add that you are an inspiration to turn your life around the way you have!! I hope you are very proud of yourself!!!

Welcome

Hi I'm new here. Please don't mind me, I just need to vent somewhere or I might just explode in a shower of drama. This would probably be gross.

Don't read my post if you've got or had drug problems you can't deal with. Go and read any other thread.

So I had a severe asthma attack about a month ago and was hospitalised. I decided to see if I could give up smoking so as to try and avoid certain death and set off on my merry adventure into a world of positive thinking and clean air.

Except that I am a self-destructive mess and I think that the task of giving up smoking has unleashed a Pandora's Box of hell from which there is no escape.

I've got a long history of mental health problems, the very reason I started smoking in the first place was because I wanted a new way to destroy myself. That "Smoking Kills" warning was like an invitation or a promise, a demon outstretching it's hand and telling me that no matter what happened, one day it'd all stop. Guaranteed, and even better no-one would blame me, it was perfect. I just had to be patient.Smoking lead to drinking, which lead to everything else really. I was wrapped up in this whole thing, trying to self-medicate away my pain with all these things that worked right now not six months away. Amphetamines for the sad days, cannabis for the sunny days, alcohol for when I just wanted to break something and stranger stuff because why the hell not. I'd try anything so long as it wasn't obvious (like heroin), so I was never addicted to anything you see. I was the most cleverest drug-user.

So one day I moved away so I could escape it all. A part of me wonders to this day what I was thinking, to move away from all of that almost without warning. To up and leave and find myself in a place where I couldn't get cannabis or pills or whatever. I still did it though. It set me free in some ways.

Fast forward even more and we get to the point where nicotine is starting to properly kill me, after meeting the right person and moving to an even better place. The government have taken away the money they used to give me because I was a bit of a lunatic, because get a job you scrounger, which meant I had fewer options for stop-smoking aids, but other than that I'm ok. Except smoking is killing me. I can't breathe any more. I've been in hospital twice. The Demon was true to his word when he told me at age 15 that he'd kill me and end my pain. I don't go to the doctors because the doctors suspect I'm a terrible, hopeless junkie (except I'm not any more but that's irrelevant to them as far as giving me useful medication is concerned), so I have no quitting plan, no backup, my new friends in my new town in my new house don't even know I used to be a terrible and hopeless junkie, because I moved on folks. I became someone a bit more like I always imagined I'd be, before the pain. I'm never going to tell them because I like people thinking I'm this person for once.

So I've got my partner, who these days is more of a junkie than me (I mean, he drinks alcohol people, it's shocking) who has absolutely no idea what it means to be me while I am in this state and in this much pain, with my crazy mind and my crazy addictive personality, getting shouted at while I turn into a hellhound, because GOD-DAMNIT THIS WAS THE LAST DRUG I HAD LEFT. THIS PATHETIC, STUPID EXCUSE FOR A CHEMICAL WAS THE LAST DAMN ONE AND NOW IT'S BEEN TAKEN TOO.

I gave up my old life, I gave up everything and during it all I had the old nicotine. It didn't get me high like everything else, I mean let's be honest nicotine is a **** drug. Yet now I've given it up because I'm going to break the contract to the Nicotine Demon and it's responded by breaking down all the walls I'd built up in my head, by myself, because no-one ever helped me. So I got over drugs and things long ago. It's been something like 6 years, easily. That's forever in drug terms I think. Yet giving this nicotine up has threatened to un-do so much progress, mental-health wise. If my mind implodes again then I'm worried that I'm screwed.

I'm just about 1 month in giving up nicotine. It's evil.

I feel a bit better now. Thanks, stop smoking forum I found on google. I don't know if you have many people like me suddenly appear, but if I scare you or something you can just ignore me if you want. I've vented, crisis has been averted for now. I'm really grateful.

Fruits I can say you will not meet any less judgmental people than on here - i struggle with the demon (and in the past with much much stronger things). The truth is it is all addiction - and we think its wonderful but we know it is not - i think nicotine addiction is not seen for what is it - it is a horrificic addiction (probably the worst of all!) - there is always a reason to be positive

e.gtoday i smiled because this awful government no longer get extra tax from me than non smokers! - scary how much extra tax us smokers have paid over our lives!

Hey everyone, thanks for your welcoming and understanding messages, I can't express how much I appreciate it. Forgive more walls of text but it helps me work through things I think.

I feel guilty to suddenly appear in your nice cosy forum and go WHAM with messy emotional stuff but I had to, or else I think I'd have imploded. It was just a sudden wall of text and I felt weird hitting the post button. The main reason I did was because I liked the idea of a two way dialogue, hehe.

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I think the thing that really does not help me when trying to sort all of this nicotine-free mindset out is that the internet (very innocently) does not presume that there is anything wrong with you. It kinda says "oh hello there fellow human, I see you have a small problem. Just follow these easy NHS approved steps and you'll be right as rain in no time!"

But what happens when you're a person who has all this underlying addiction / mental problems? It does not say anywhere. "May cause depression" is one thing you see or "anger" but that's fairly normal for lots of people.

Yet here you are having flashbacks to the last time you had real withdrawal and it brings it all back, and you get this mad feeling like you never really got over it, any of it, and all the worst things about the mental problems suddenly appear, and you're not prepared for it all because no-where did it tell you that this was a thing. All caused by such a stupid drug though, that's the real thing that makes me angry I think.

I don't know, maybe it does and I missed it. I knew I'd get the things it lists all over the place, but all this other stuff is a sudden surprise to me.

I have stopped doing digital artwork as it is a major trigger for me. Maybe one day I will start again.

I do digital art too! I find it really hard because I don't know how to take a break while working on things anymore

Hey fruit.

Difficult to know where to start to respond to this.

Thank you for responding even if my original post was quite heavy going, it means a lot and you have some very good insights into the nature of the beast.

We all have addictive personalities otherwise none of us would be here - so you are in good company!

That comment made me think about how so many places assume that we don't have that problem though. It's not like on the NHS website or wherever that it linked me at any point to something related to that. Maybe they've made progress in the past 6 years and there is stuff I can do at home to help strengthen my mind against it - but I don't know because in the chaos I didn't think to search for things separately :/

Thanks for the positive vibes.

Hey Fruitloop how are you getting on?