I tried to quit last year but 2012 was such a crappy year that I eventually relapsed. I hate myself for it.
In 2012, I attempted to quit several times. Every month I made an attempt. Sometimes I would go for two days without, other times, two weeks.
I'm so scared. My mind won't let me sleep. What will I do without health insurance? I turn 40 this year and I found a gray hair on my head. Pretty soon, something's gonna happen to my health if I don't stop this smoking shit. For all I know, I could have emphysema right now or the beginning stages of lung cancer. How the fuck would I know if I can't even see a doctor?
Nicotine withdrawal is playing tricks on my mind. Like an RKelly song inverted, my body's telling me no, but my mind, my mind is telling me YES! Just get in the car and go to the store. Just get in the car and got to the fucking store. All the tension in your belly will relax, the taste in your mouth will go away. Try again next week. Fuck you, brain!
I quit smoking weed, too. Quitting cigarettes and continuing to smoke weed didn't really give me the satisfaction I needed. Of course, my untreated depression depends on weed for self medication but it doesn't help my depression about dying of lung cancer when I continued to cough for 2 months after quitting. I know the cough will be there without the weed but now when I cough, it feels cleansing, like I'm loosening things up, clearing things out, you know? Before, I couldn't tell if I was coughing from cigarettes or weed. I love to wake up and cough now. It feels strangely...good.
I got a free membership at the rec center last week. They have a nice fitness room with cool, new workout equipment. I only went to workout once so far but I plan to go back often. I'm just not ready this week. I have to hide in this house and not drive past stores that sell cigarettes because I never know when The Crave will hit me.
I can't even call my damn mother. I'm such an angry person. I'm angry because I hate my mother for being abusive to me my whole life in one way or another. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about how I hate her because she won't even let me forgive her for the past. She's actually attempting to invent another past in which she was never an alcoholic. That's it. I'm done with the bitch for good. I have to hang up on her every time I try to talk to her. EVERY TIME. She won't STFU about conspiracy theories and I'm not gonna listen to the shit for 2 hours and I think she's an idiot so I really, really don't want to hear shit that she's too ignorant to debunk. She insists on bullying me with it anyway even when I tell her to stop. I'm not important enough to her for her to STFU about something that will be the last nail in the coffin of our relationship. She's so offensive and crass and nasty. I might not even attend her funeral.
I won't feel guilty about not attending her funeral, either. There's nothing redeeming about her as a mother. My grandfather didn't attend his father's funeral because he used to physically abuse my grandfather until he was grown and actually tried to shoot him once. My grandfather didn't have to take that shit and neither do I. We don't owe anything to people just because they brought us into the world to do nothing but ruin and hurt us. My grandfather was an asshole, too but different.
It helps me to watch Shameless on Showtime (the USA remake). If you've ever seen this series, you have seen my childhood. I'm black Fiona Gallagher, nice to meet you. My mother is actually Frank AND Monica, Fiona's parents. If she wasn't disappearing and leaving us with alcoholic grandparents for months, she was the alcoholic, laying in a puddle of her own piss in the morning (if she made it home at all) while I ran around trying to get everybody off to school. I'm not as selfless as Fiona but our lives are so paralleled, I wonder if somebody hadn't been spying on my family for the plotline of that show. She's not nice to me. She's jealous that I'm prettier and younger than her which is so offensive and alarming to me, I won't even eat her food because I think she's a monster. She's the sickest mother as far as psychological abuse I've ever seen. She's such a narcissist, she makes Frank Gallagher look like a saint by comparison.
Paging Dr. Freud.
I feel alone. I don't have a husband or a boyfriend or even a sane mother. All my friends smoke something or other but not usually cigarettes. Black n Mild cigars or weed mostly. They keep a bottle of vodka in the house.
I'm not a big drinker, even though I have had brief alcoholic episodes in my life. I recognize that I'm an alcoholic so that's one thing I keep in check. I start acting like an asshole when I get drunk. I don't act abnormally promiscuous or anything like that. I don't dance on tables and fight people. I get really hostile and sarcastic to men who hit on me the wrong way instead of just walking away. I'll argue with my friends who say political things I don't agree with. Somebody always brings up Trutherism or The Illuminati. It's like I wait for it so I can pounce. It's a way of fighting my mother by proxy. Seriously, Dr. Freud, help me. Everything leads back to HER.
This happens when I drink past the point where I know I need to stop. It rarely happens nowadays but that's not what worries me. Drinking is a huge trigger for cigarette craving.
Drinking, smoking and drugs; the calling cards of a poor and dysfunctional life. This is what they say that "the ghetto blacks" and "the poor white trailer trash" devote their lives to instead of more productive pursuits. Fuck everybody who says that. How nice for them that they didn't have parents that smoked cigarettes and weed and drank to excess. La-de-fucking-da, you privileged little brats. I'll bet your parents were drunks, too, they were just able to hide it with money.
I want to be healthy and productive, too. Other people buy clothes, I spend my money trying to keep my teeth from looking too "poor", even if my shoes give me away. Shoes can be replaced or even borrowed, not teeth. Poor people can't go to the dentist for most things unless they pay. It's really hard to do. I refuse to date or even kiss most men because I'm afraid of what's living in their mouths after 40 years of no dentistry. I had all the tartar scraped off my teeth and under my gums 2 years ago. Smoking made it worse than it would have been. It's time for me to have it done again and I don't know how I'll get the money this time. I'm gonna use all the money I would have spent on cigarettes, I guess.
In case you're wondering, it's only the beginning of day 3 and I'm wearing a very weak, outdated Step 3 nicotine patch. I was gonna spring for the whole set, starting at Step 1, but I really, really want nicotine out of my body as soon as possible.
I just want to say, thank you all for listening and thanks for being such nice people. I'm sad about Translator (Dave) and GreenMountainBoy02 and the sadness is a bit of a trigger because I feel that the only people I can truly trust are within the pages of this crazy blog. When you guys are hurting, I feel it, too. I couldn't sleep so I wanted to talk to you all but things are so hard to say sometimes. I feel as if I can say anything here. I'm saying that I'm a desperate addict in the grips of withdrawal and I need to write even if you don't read it.
The Crave has passed. I think I'm gonna make it this time. People around here have bigger problems than me and I know it too well so ignore me if you want because I completely understand. I appreciate the format of this blog that gives us all a chance to be prolific (or not) writers and this is the best tool I have, so thank you, Markos Moulitsas as well.
Good night (or morning, whatever) I've been up since about 3am and now I feel a little bit sleepy. One minute at a time, lord, one minute at a time.
I love you. Thanks for being here for me. ((((((Daily Kos)))))))