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Young Lawyer can't quit
The stress from my job is killing me, but I can't quit smoking no matter how hard I try....
I've been smoking since I was twelve, smoking regularly throughout high school, smoking even more college and law school; and kept on smoking during my two years working as a law clerk for the county courthouse, almost two packs a day for the past ten years --- and I just dont know how to quit. My new job as a entry level associate has me so stressed out Im smoking more than ever, but its getting me into trouble at work because Im always needing to take smoke breaks at the office, usually two or three in the morning, another for lunch, and at least another two or three more smoke breaks every the afternoon.
My new boss even recently complained that I always smell overpoweringly like stale cigarettes!! Even though I wear alot of perfume and chew alot of Nicorette Mint gum, its still not enough! Im afraid Chantix would make my anxiety attacks even worse and terrified of the thought of not being able to smoke again. I know thats just the addiction talking, but I dont know what else to do.
I've been smoking since I was twelve, smoking regularly throughout high school, smoking even more college and law school; and kept on smoking during my two years working as a law clerk for the county courthouse, almost two packs a day for the past ten years --- and I just dont know how to quit. My new job as a entry level associate has me so stressed out Im smoking more than ever, but its getting me into trouble at work because Im always needing to take smoke breaks at the office, usually two or three in the morning, another for lunch, and at least another two or three more smoke breaks every the afternoon.
My new boss even recently complained that I always smell overpoweringly like stale cigarettes!! Even though I wear alot of perfume and chew alot of Nicorette Mint gum, its still not enough! Im afraid Chantix would make my anxiety attacks even worse and terrified of the thought of not being able to smoke again. I know thats just the addiction talking, but I dont know what else to do.
honey, we're not here to judge, we are all addicts or former addicts of one substance or another....it is possible to quit tho not easy, I fight this everyday of my life....I've quit many 100's of times in 45 years, this time I hope to God its for good, not being able to catch a full breath of air is very scary to say the least...yet I crave a cigarette, I associate every single thing I do with smoking.
I hope one day soon you will WANT to stop, stop before your lungs have irreparable damage....the first step hon is to want to stop, than the work really starts....
make that choice before its too late...... ♥
I hope one day soon you will WANT to stop, stop before your lungs have irreparable damage....the first step hon is to want to stop, than the work really starts....
make that choice before its too late...... ♥
I apologize if my last post was viewed as sensationalist, it was not meant to be. I know I have a problem and I really wish my efforts to deal with it were more successful.
I know that 3 packs a day is excessive, and I am trying to get help for that. I guess now that Im integrating back into the "real world" over the past year Ive come to realize just how bad my addictions, all of them, have gotten. When I was in college, I could usually smoke almost as much as I wanted, because there were only about 3 or 4 hours a day while I was in class and couldnt smoke, but the rest of the time I was able to smoke all the time. When I first started college, I was only smoking an average of a pack to a pack and a half a day, maybe around 30 cigarettes or so; and I used to think that was alot. But once I was out on my own, first in a "smoking dorm" when my smoking just took off and started to get out of control.
And there is no doubt that my terrible cigarette addiction has been prohibitively expensive, and there is no telling how many thousands of dollars I have litterally burned on the cigarettes that I needed. Im not sure if it was for better or worse that I "Discovered" Discount Tobacco stores and vendors when I was in college, and buying discount cigarettes by the carton made it all too easy to keep it up to two packs a day, and eventually transition into three packs a day. When you buy your cigarettes two or three cartons at a time, it makes it easier for backslide into the life of a chain smoker, especially when I was a college student with way too much time on my hands. Being able to watch tv or read or do whatever in my room while chain smoking all morning, then go to class for an hour, finishing another cigarette before going in and light up another one just as soon as I got out of class, then take a long lunch break, where I usually sat in the covered courtyard or patio smoking area, usually smoking one after the other, often while fighting off hunger while I tried to keep my weight down by usually skipping lunch. It was like I never walked or drove anywhere on campus without a lit cigarette, and just as soon as Id finish one, Id light another, then another. After just a year, Id finish my first pack of the day before the first afternoon class. When that class would let out Id have a one hour break, during which I typically chain smoked while studying. Then that last class would let out, and Id almost always have the cigarette already in my mouth before I even got out the door to light it. I should have know that what I had was way worse than usual.
And I completely understand what you mean by how smoking can control your life. I never went anyplace I couldnt smoke. Even though its hard these days, I still avoid places I cant smoke. I wouldnt study at the library, because I couldnt smoke there. Instead I smoked at a nearby coffee shop that had a smoking section for years, until the smoking bans a few years ago. When the weather was cold that was hard to do, and after trying to learn to study indoors with smoke breaks every half hour - I finally decided I just needed to get an apartment of my own, where I could smoke all I wanted, and study in peace. Around the same time I met the guy who would become my first husband, which was a mistake on so many levels, but he was a fairly heavy smoker too, and although may have thought my smoking was excessive, he was an alcoholic and usually too drunk or disinterested to care.
I recognize now that I had all the signs of addictive behavior when I was young, and to more than just smoking. I know someone wanted me to "keep on topic" - but its hard because sometimes the other things in life are the excuses that we use for ourselves smoke. For me the context can be very important in understand why it is that someone is so addicted to cigarettes, or other things. I often told myself that there were far worse things to be addicted to than cigarettes. It was a poor excuse, but when I was first married, I was geting into drugs, and was kinda starting sliding into addiction rapidly when the marriage ended and I was left out on my own. Although I never had an arrest, or anything like that, I had a few near overdose situations, often involving a combination of drugs and alcohol, and I had more than a few trips to the hospital.
The first time I went to rehab right after my divorce and after I dropped out of college for a semester, I felt like cigarettes were my only friend. Back then the rehab facility I went to allowed people to smoke in most places. For me at the time, it was almost like smoking is how I got through rehab. Everyone else in rehab smoked, and many of our Counselors smoked themselves. I found that to be both very comforting and very telling of how much people can find themselves needing cigqarettes.
I was smoking more than ever when I left rehab and started to get my act back together, and re-enroll in school. To help pay the tuition I got a part time job as a file clerk, at a storage facility where most I would spend most evenings by myself in a rundown office that was inside a musty old warehouse, and nobody really cared if I smoked there while reading or studying for class. It was clear that people had been smoking in that dank, ratty, little warehouse filing office for decades, and no one was going to care if I chain smoked a whole pack of cigarettes on my shift.
Smoking was, and still is, a huge part of my life. I smoke a cigarette when I first get up, then another, then another, then I start getting ready. Part way through my morning routine I often have another cigarette, then another while I make a pot of coffee, then another while I drink the first cup of coffee, then another while I drink the next cup, then another when Im done. This routine is insane and I know it, but I feel like Ive done it for years. All of that just before I leave my apartment, always with a lit cigarette in my mouth, then Id smoke in my car the whole way while commuting to school or work, often four or five cigarettes, sometimes six. The day pretty much just keeps going from there, one cigarette after the other.
Lately my job has involved me spending ALOT of time driving for hours and hours to various storage buildings, digging through files, doing days upon days of mindless document review as part of discovery that lasts for weeks at a time. Then I just get shipped off to another document center or warehouse to spend another several weeks. Driving hours a day to get there and hours to get back provides a lot of time for a chain smoker like me to fuel my addiction. And even still more than half of the more seedy document storage centers turn a blind eye to people smoking while in there, since the few employees usually there tend to be smokers themselves.
After a long day of chainsmoking and reviewing documents, I end up taking any copies of documents I was allowed to make, along with any notes I have back to my motel, where I summarize the findings for several more hours. Essentially its glorified paralegal work, until the late late hours of the night, with nothing but cigarettes, and coffee, and cigarettes, and redbull, and cigarettes to keep me going. Then I try to sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours, at most, and get right back to it again.
With days and nights like this it should be easy to see how someone like me can finish three packs a day, sometimes four. Its awful, downright terrible even, and my lungs punish me for it, even though Im not even 30 yet. None of that makes it ok, and none of that makes it right or justifable or acceptable. It just is what it is.
But for now, I will just try to keep it under three packs today, while being ashamed and embarassed at my failure to gain control of myself and my addictions.
I know that 3 packs a day is excessive, and I am trying to get help for that. I guess now that Im integrating back into the "real world" over the past year Ive come to realize just how bad my addictions, all of them, have gotten. When I was in college, I could usually smoke almost as much as I wanted, because there were only about 3 or 4 hours a day while I was in class and couldnt smoke, but the rest of the time I was able to smoke all the time. When I first started college, I was only smoking an average of a pack to a pack and a half a day, maybe around 30 cigarettes or so; and I used to think that was alot. But once I was out on my own, first in a "smoking dorm" when my smoking just took off and started to get out of control.
And there is no doubt that my terrible cigarette addiction has been prohibitively expensive, and there is no telling how many thousands of dollars I have litterally burned on the cigarettes that I needed. Im not sure if it was for better or worse that I "Discovered" Discount Tobacco stores and vendors when I was in college, and buying discount cigarettes by the carton made it all too easy to keep it up to two packs a day, and eventually transition into three packs a day. When you buy your cigarettes two or three cartons at a time, it makes it easier for backslide into the life of a chain smoker, especially when I was a college student with way too much time on my hands. Being able to watch tv or read or do whatever in my room while chain smoking all morning, then go to class for an hour, finishing another cigarette before going in and light up another one just as soon as I got out of class, then take a long lunch break, where I usually sat in the covered courtyard or patio smoking area, usually smoking one after the other, often while fighting off hunger while I tried to keep my weight down by usually skipping lunch. It was like I never walked or drove anywhere on campus without a lit cigarette, and just as soon as Id finish one, Id light another, then another. After just a year, Id finish my first pack of the day before the first afternoon class. When that class would let out Id have a one hour break, during which I typically chain smoked while studying. Then that last class would let out, and Id almost always have the cigarette already in my mouth before I even got out the door to light it. I should have know that what I had was way worse than usual.
And I completely understand what you mean by how smoking can control your life. I never went anyplace I couldnt smoke. Even though its hard these days, I still avoid places I cant smoke. I wouldnt study at the library, because I couldnt smoke there. Instead I smoked at a nearby coffee shop that had a smoking section for years, until the smoking bans a few years ago. When the weather was cold that was hard to do, and after trying to learn to study indoors with smoke breaks every half hour - I finally decided I just needed to get an apartment of my own, where I could smoke all I wanted, and study in peace. Around the same time I met the guy who would become my first husband, which was a mistake on so many levels, but he was a fairly heavy smoker too, and although may have thought my smoking was excessive, he was an alcoholic and usually too drunk or disinterested to care.
I recognize now that I had all the signs of addictive behavior when I was young, and to more than just smoking. I know someone wanted me to "keep on topic" - but its hard because sometimes the other things in life are the excuses that we use for ourselves smoke. For me the context can be very important in understand why it is that someone is so addicted to cigarettes, or other things. I often told myself that there were far worse things to be addicted to than cigarettes. It was a poor excuse, but when I was first married, I was geting into drugs, and was kinda starting sliding into addiction rapidly when the marriage ended and I was left out on my own. Although I never had an arrest, or anything like that, I had a few near overdose situations, often involving a combination of drugs and alcohol, and I had more than a few trips to the hospital.
The first time I went to rehab right after my divorce and after I dropped out of college for a semester, I felt like cigarettes were my only friend. Back then the rehab facility I went to allowed people to smoke in most places. For me at the time, it was almost like smoking is how I got through rehab. Everyone else in rehab smoked, and many of our Counselors smoked themselves. I found that to be both very comforting and very telling of how much people can find themselves needing cigqarettes.
I was smoking more than ever when I left rehab and started to get my act back together, and re-enroll in school. To help pay the tuition I got a part time job as a file clerk, at a storage facility where most I would spend most evenings by myself in a rundown office that was inside a musty old warehouse, and nobody really cared if I smoked there while reading or studying for class. It was clear that people had been smoking in that dank, ratty, little warehouse filing office for decades, and no one was going to care if I chain smoked a whole pack of cigarettes on my shift.
Smoking was, and still is, a huge part of my life. I smoke a cigarette when I first get up, then another, then another, then I start getting ready. Part way through my morning routine I often have another cigarette, then another while I make a pot of coffee, then another while I drink the first cup of coffee, then another while I drink the next cup, then another when Im done. This routine is insane and I know it, but I feel like Ive done it for years. All of that just before I leave my apartment, always with a lit cigarette in my mouth, then Id smoke in my car the whole way while commuting to school or work, often four or five cigarettes, sometimes six. The day pretty much just keeps going from there, one cigarette after the other.
Lately my job has involved me spending ALOT of time driving for hours and hours to various storage buildings, digging through files, doing days upon days of mindless document review as part of discovery that lasts for weeks at a time. Then I just get shipped off to another document center or warehouse to spend another several weeks. Driving hours a day to get there and hours to get back provides a lot of time for a chain smoker like me to fuel my addiction. And even still more than half of the more seedy document storage centers turn a blind eye to people smoking while in there, since the few employees usually there tend to be smokers themselves.
After a long day of chainsmoking and reviewing documents, I end up taking any copies of documents I was allowed to make, along with any notes I have back to my motel, where I summarize the findings for several more hours. Essentially its glorified paralegal work, until the late late hours of the night, with nothing but cigarettes, and coffee, and cigarettes, and redbull, and cigarettes to keep me going. Then I try to sleep for maybe 4 or 5 hours, at most, and get right back to it again.
With days and nights like this it should be easy to see how someone like me can finish three packs a day, sometimes four. Its awful, downright terrible even, and my lungs punish me for it, even though Im not even 30 yet. None of that makes it ok, and none of that makes it right or justifable or acceptable. It just is what it is.
But for now, I will just try to keep it under three packs today, while being ashamed and embarassed at my failure to gain control of myself and my addictions.
can't help but agree with the girls, younglawyer IF you are legit than you have serious problems, but I really do believe you are playing with everyone here and not at all genuine with even remotely wanting to quit smoking.....that being said, this is a forum for 'addiction' and not necessarily just for us that are quitting, but I ask that you please keep your posts on topic...we aren't interested in any of your other escapades.....
Uh, in order to smoke three and a half packs a day, you would have to literally sit and chain smoke one after another. I did two packs a day and felt like that was all I did, so something aint adding up here. If your smoking alot like you say you are then you are doing absolutely nothing in a day except smoking. It is the habit not the nicotine that has a hold on you. It is the mental addiction. No one can change your mind. Unfortunately it is going to take something like cancer to get to you and even then I doubt you would listen. I would really hate to hang with the smell that must encumpos you, your car, your home and your hair and clothes. But if that is what you want in life, that is your choice and I am glad you can afford your habit at the price these days of a carton of smokes. Two cartons these days would cost over a hundred bucks and if you smoke as much as you describe, then you are literally working to puff. I am thinking this post is not a serious one at all and is more a game. I apologize if I am wrong, but you obviously are not seeking help and it seems more of an attention getter. So puff on and good luck. Over and out.
Stephanie, it's not a Relapse if you never stopped in the first place. I am truly worried for you on so many levels. Chewing the gum "constantly" AND smoking 2packs a day - it's only a matter of time before you experience an acute overdose.
You were too drunk to drive so let a "guy you met at the bar" drive you to your hotel?...then walk you to your room?? You are lucky he wasn't a rapist or worse.
This is all too much, I mean, you can't be serious. If I were you, I would consider rehab for both the alcohol and cigs so you can continue your life and live your dream as a lawyer because you are walking a thin line, here.
You were too drunk to drive so let a "guy you met at the bar" drive you to your hotel?...then walk you to your room?? You are lucky he wasn't a rapist or worse.
This is all too much, I mean, you can't be serious. If I were you, I would consider rehab for both the alcohol and cigs so you can continue your life and live your dream as a lawyer because you are walking a thin line, here.
RELAPSED AGAIN - I have to confess I broke down and smoked 3 and a half packs of cigarettes yesterday, throwing myself off track.
I thought I had been doing so well for these past 2 weeks. I was chewing the nicorette gum constantly, and had managed to (just barely) limit myself to only two packs a day for nearly ten consecutive days - which was a HUGE achievement! I think it might have been at least eight or nine years since I had cut back that much on my smoking. Just the day before I caved in, I managed to actually hold myself back to only smoking 39 cigarettes in one day, leaving one in the pack. I was so proud.
Then I had to go out of town again for work, spending the night alone in a hotel, stressed out by the mountian of work facing me, and I gave in like I always do to my inherant need for cigarettes. I should have known it was not going well when I had finished my first pack of the day before lunch, then between chain smoking straight through lunch, and constantly having to take smoke breaks while working all afternoon, I had nearly finished the second pack by the time I met our expert at a bar for a late afternoon happy hour. The fact that you could smoke outside on the bar patio didnt help matters, nor did the fact that the expert was a handsome man, who was himself a smoker. Needless to say it was a long happy hour that streached on into two, then three, then four, ordering bar food for dinner, and one drink after another, right on through when I started and finished a third pack of cigarettes for the day and was well on my way to nearly finishing my fourth pack of the day when they finally shut the bar down.
Im embarassed to say, but I was probably way too drunk to be driving back to my hotel, as I was practically falling out of my high heels everytime I tried to go anywhere, so I ended up letting a guy I met at the bar drive me back to my hotel. Im not sure if he was expecting to get lucky or what, but he was nice enough to take me up to my room, where I promptly passed out and don't remember a thing after that. I woke up all alone this morning with a monsterous hangover that I havent been able to shake all day and whats worse, is that my cigarette cravings have come back harder than ever, and since I've been by myself in a warehouse nearly all day reviewing documents until I couldnt see straight, Ive been able to smoke almost almost as much as I wanted, and am nearly done with my third pack of the day and havent even eaten dinner yet.
Ive been chewing the gum constantly, more so than usual, but my cravings just went through the roof yesterday and today, and Im scared I'll probably end up smoking 4 packs today.
I know this is just my own weakness, but Ive never felt these cravings come on so strong, and so suddenly and unexpectedly. To go from getting down to only 2 packs a day to back up to chainsmoking nearly 4 packs a day is awful, I feel so ashamed of myself.
I thought I had been doing so well for these past 2 weeks. I was chewing the nicorette gum constantly, and had managed to (just barely) limit myself to only two packs a day for nearly ten consecutive days - which was a HUGE achievement! I think it might have been at least eight or nine years since I had cut back that much on my smoking. Just the day before I caved in, I managed to actually hold myself back to only smoking 39 cigarettes in one day, leaving one in the pack. I was so proud.
Then I had to go out of town again for work, spending the night alone in a hotel, stressed out by the mountian of work facing me, and I gave in like I always do to my inherant need for cigarettes. I should have known it was not going well when I had finished my first pack of the day before lunch, then between chain smoking straight through lunch, and constantly having to take smoke breaks while working all afternoon, I had nearly finished the second pack by the time I met our expert at a bar for a late afternoon happy hour. The fact that you could smoke outside on the bar patio didnt help matters, nor did the fact that the expert was a handsome man, who was himself a smoker. Needless to say it was a long happy hour that streached on into two, then three, then four, ordering bar food for dinner, and one drink after another, right on through when I started and finished a third pack of cigarettes for the day and was well on my way to nearly finishing my fourth pack of the day when they finally shut the bar down.
Im embarassed to say, but I was probably way too drunk to be driving back to my hotel, as I was practically falling out of my high heels everytime I tried to go anywhere, so I ended up letting a guy I met at the bar drive me back to my hotel. Im not sure if he was expecting to get lucky or what, but he was nice enough to take me up to my room, where I promptly passed out and don't remember a thing after that. I woke up all alone this morning with a monsterous hangover that I havent been able to shake all day and whats worse, is that my cigarette cravings have come back harder than ever, and since I've been by myself in a warehouse nearly all day reviewing documents until I couldnt see straight, Ive been able to smoke almost almost as much as I wanted, and am nearly done with my third pack of the day and havent even eaten dinner yet.
Ive been chewing the gum constantly, more so than usual, but my cravings just went through the roof yesterday and today, and Im scared I'll probably end up smoking 4 packs today.
I know this is just my own weakness, but Ive never felt these cravings come on so strong, and so suddenly and unexpectedly. To go from getting down to only 2 packs a day to back up to chainsmoking nearly 4 packs a day is awful, I feel so ashamed of myself.
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