Experience, Strength, and Hope

I'm a Nutcase So I'm a nutcase. That's what happens when you're a nicotine addict. While smoking I stayed away from people. I was a mess health wise. I stunk to high heaven, couldn't stop coughing, everyone was on my case about smoking, and my belligerent self told them to go to hell if they didn't like it. I lived in hospitals and doctors offices on an ongoing basis loaded with meds, cough syrup, cough drops, you name it. And I believed my life was going ok all things considered. After all, I had a right to smoke. As long as I wasn’t hurting anyone else, what’s the big deal? Of course, I was hurting my family and friends or should I say associates? I really had no friends as I as a loner but as long as I had my cigs, who cared? Basically, I stayed in denial what smoking was doing to me for a very long time. So now I don't smoke and haven't for many years. I can now act like a nutcase and be glad doing so. At least I am a smober nutcase. And I like it. You know since I quit smoking, my quit meter says I have been able to not smoke 500,500 cigarettes since I quit smoking. My God that is a lot of cigarettes I must say. I smoked up to 4 packs a day and I set my quit meter for smoking 70 cigarettes a day and now I look at the stats, and it’s hard to imagine I really could have smoked that many cigarettes if I was still smoking. See what over 22 years of not smoking gets you? I have been given the gift of smobriety, and it’s my responsibility to give it away. As it says in the Bible-“much is given, much is required.” The 12th Step states: Having a spiritual awakening as the result of working these steps (the previous 11 steps) we tried to carry this message to nicotine users and to practice these principles in all our affairs. I cannot keep what I have unless I give it away. If I don’t I will be like the Dead Sea—always takes and never gives. In which case I would lose what I have gained. It would be all for naught. So I always share my experience, strength and hope with anyone that comes to mind. I have been through many phases of this addiction and recovery over the years and processing the first 11 steps in my life I practice the 12th Step by helping the newcomer and whoever else comes into my life. The 12th step says to practice these principles in all of my affairs. That means I have to walk the talk in all areas of my life. How one might see me in a NicA meeting, then I best be sure I’m the same way at home, work, or out in the community. Where I used to think what my purpose in life was, I could not see anything, and I was just taking up space. What I went through by smoking and what I have learned in this program gives me a purpose now. I believe in service work, and over the years I have been involved in many areas, and it has been a joy to do what I have done. It keeps me out of myself and keeps me focused on my recovery. For me, to stay in service all these years has given me a lot of freedom, and no desire to smoke, none what so ever. Now, this did not come easily to me and to say otherwise would be a lie. This addiction is so buried in denial that after decades of smoking it’s almost impossible for one to find a way out of using nicotine. I smoked for 49 years up to 4 packs a day. I was a basket case, and I spent the last 15 years before I came to NicA on trying quit in any way I could. I could quit, but I couldn’t stay quit and that just frustrated me to no end. I have been to countless cessation programs and when they were over with where was I able to go and get support. There wasn’t any. I was like on the edge of a cliff and had two choices. Stay nuts with a thought of smoking or smoke. I don't need to tell you what I did. I quit one time and had my own business and my wife send me some balloons and cards congratulating me on quitting and that really irritated me to no end. That put me in a spot of too much pressure to maintain my quit. Needless to say, I went back to smoking. I put my truck two blocks from work and left my cigarettes in the truck, so when I wanted a cigarette, then I walked to the truck. That idea didn’t last too long. Ha! That lasted all of one day. I made my wife responsible for the number of cigarettes I smoked each day. I would buy them and give them to her, and she would give me what I wanted. Each week the amount decreased, and after a time I wasn’t giving her any cigarettes to her to dispose to me. I told her this doesn’t work and it’s a bunch of bull malarkey. I went to church, and the pastor gave me a long talk over how smoking is a sin and all that crap. I took different meds to make me quit supposedly and you know where that went. I have been to hypnotists, therapists, I put myself in the hospital three times due to smoking issues, and that didn’t make me quit. A bad case of pleurisy, pneumonia, acute bronchitis, and on and on the list went, and you couldn’t scare me into quitting. Hell, I just smoked more to hide the fear. I went to one doctor, and this is a joke. She told me if I didn’t quit I would have a massive heart attack with six months. And then she turns around and says if I could just smoke a half a pack a day, it wouldn’t harm me. Lol.