FullaBella's Journal, 05 December 2012

Analyzing my Addictive Behavior Part II - Smoking - Read at your own Risk

As you can imagine based on my upbringing explained in my previous journal any good teenage drinker worth her weight in whiskey smokes, too, Right? So I probably started smoking around age twelve. First it was whatever left over butts I could find in the ashtray to test it out. A little gross but another habit that grows on you quite easily and stayed with me until I was 24 years old.

I never quite figured out the how or why but whether I was at school, college or even when I worked in an office from daylight to dark I never even craved a cigarette. I never gathered with the other kids or coeds behind the library or in the breakroom with the rest of the smokers (this was before it was all mandatory outdoors).

But the second I'd get in my car at the end of the day I displayed the most amazing show of dexterity in which I could pull a cigarette from the pack above the sun visor, light it, and start my car all at the same time. When I finally did quit at 24, I don't even remember why I quit I just remember putting the pack down one day and not picking one up again until I was in my thirties. I don't even remember the 'how' or if it was difficult to quit. Weird.

Somehow I HAVE to figure out this constant ten year cycle of behavior. For most people it's SEVEN years but mine have most frequently been a decade of deterioration. Choosing to start eating healthy this year, in the fall of 2012, was cutting that decade in half. Perhaps this step forward will be a permanent one for me.

Regardless, I picked up the Marlboro Lights again when I was in my thirties and like everything else I did in excess I was the poster child for chain smokers. While the corporate offices remained immune to my habit and I refrained from joining my colleague smokers (now outside in the rain) I resumed the 'start your engines and smoke 'em if you got 'em' as soon as I got in my car, all through the evening at my hotel and right up until I returned to work the next morning. When I worked from my home office I had a cigarette burning in the ashtray on my desk all day long when it wasn't dangling from between my lips. I even had a cigarette burning when I ate; I would stop between shovels of food and take a good long drag off a cigarette.

Then MH (who also smoked) was diagnosed with lung issues and sternly advised to stop smoking especially when the bypass surgeries began. So just like with the drinking ( in my previous journal where I became the designated driver) I put the cigarettes down.

This was Y2K. Happy New Year and Pass the Cold Turkey.

My first 'holidays are over, back to work day' location that following Monday morning was a five hour one way drive and I thought I was going to chew the steering wheel in half before I completed the journey. An entire bottle of 'new car smell' spray did nothing for the cigarette odor in the vehicle and breaking the habit of reaching for a cigarette in the 'console cozy' every five miles was maddening.

At the first rest stop I went into a Cracker Barrel and bought a bag of those old fashioned peppermint sticks and let them dangle from my lips in place of a cigarette.

An hour and a dozen peppermint sticks later I caught my reflection in the rear view mirror and realized not only was I in the middle of a really horrid sugar spin I looked ridiculous with the red candy drool streak trailing down my chin. I tossed the peppermint stick out the window and resorted to chewing plastic straws until my teeth ached.

Pacing my hotel room later that night I buckled and went downstairs to the bar and bought a pack of Benson & Hedges from the vending machine. I didn't particularly like that brand so I hoped 'not enjoying' it would help me. It actually did. I carried that pack in my suitcase over two years. I accepted that if I HAD to HAVE a smoke, it would be from that one crusty old dried out pack of really gross B&H's.

My most favorite time to smoke, other than driving, was when I'd soak in the tub. A nice long hot bubble bath and I was good for at least ten cigarettes. Breaking that habit required a lot of candles, meditation, and prayer.

In this case of giving up something I didn't feel I really had to (yeah, I know it's bad for you, but so were the cheeseburgers) I decided to give myself a reward. Especially as MH did NOT in fact stop smoking as HE needed to do. Rather than me resuming the smoking habit I hired my first housekeeper.

I'd watched too many people talk about 'do you know how much money you could save if you stopped smoking' and they would go out & finance something expensive as their incentive. Like, a new car. But then they'd start smoking again and their debt load doubled. I did not want to do that.

So my reward was to hire someone to come out to my home twice a month. My position was if I started smoking again, I had to resume cleaning my own toilets.

Well, housekeepers would come and go ~ I actually nicknamed one (privately) 'Fumbles' because she managed to break something everytime she came. I do have someone who comes in once a month for the heavy dusting but now that I don't travel as much I take care of the day to day tidying. Regardless, I have not started smoking again on a regular basis even as I resumed my own toilet cleaning.

Wow - that sounds like it needs a qualifier, doesn't it? Well, it does. Over the past twelve, nearly thirteen years since I stopped smoking a second time in my life, the urge to smoke sometimes overwhelmed me so much I couldn't breathe. And twice I gave into the weakness.

You know how smokers will tell you 'smoking relaxes them?' It's true. Because likely, that was the ONLY time I ever took a deep breathe during the day, especially during stressful times. When I was working to break the habit of smoking, I would actually mimick it without a cigarette. I'd inhale a good long breath, filling my lungs, holding it until my chest started to ache and then slow slow slowly exhale as if I were exhaling a cloud of smoke. It helped.

But twice in the past five years with MH's more serious surgeries, long hospitalizations and all that it entails as described previously, I felt I could not breathe. No meditation, no fake smoking, no prayer, nothing was helping. Not even a paper bag! And despite the many surgeries, despite having quit drinking, he continues to smoke. Not often. I think he has one in HIS bathroom with the window open twice or so a day but that's all now.

So twice I have grabbed his pack of cigarettes that remain on his shelf (I was not about to relive the argument from when I'd discarded them in the past) and filled my tub. As I sank down into the hot soapy water I wondered if I was sinking back into a bad habit. Hours later I'd drag my finally relaxed saggy soggy body with the smoke filled lungs from the tub.

An hour after that I had to rinse my sinuses, brush my teeth, open the back door and set up a floor fan to get the really disgusting taste and smell of cigarettes out of my body and normally clean, maintained bathroom. The second time was a complete affirmation of a good reason to not do that anymore.

This most recent hospitalization of MH's, I did not smoke. At times I had trouble breathing but I did not smoke. That's Two hurdles. No drinking this time. No smoking this time. Actually, it's three ( I believe they call that a hat trick) as I didn't fall off my healthy eating plan wagon either.

But I'm not out of the woods just yet. I still have to talk about money and the addictive behavior of retail therapy. But that's another day, another journal.

Thank you as always for reading.

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1216 kcal

Fat: 31.07g | Prot: 101.43g | Carb: 135.60g.   Breakfast: Schwans Blueberries, Dannon Light & Fit Greek, Creamer, Flax Seed, Quaker Old Fashioned Oatmeal, Coffee. Lunch: Schwans California Blend, Schwans Salmon Burger. Dinner: Smart Squeeze Butter, Tomatos, Mushrooms, Schwans Turkey Sausage, Wheat Bread, Lowfat Swiss Cheese, Kraft Fat Free Cheese, Egg White, Egg. Snacks/Other: Schwans Six Cheese Tortellini, Grapefruit. more...

3657 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Walking (slow) - 2/mph - 1 hour, Sleeping - 8 hours, Sitting - 6 hours, Desk Work - 6 hours, Standing - 2 hours, Housework - 1 hour. more...