Since I blogged about my smoking cessation, I’ve got to tell about The Relapse.
Yes, I’ve started smoking again … temporarily.
Everyone is disappointed. More people are finding out each day.
I’m really stupid.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I know that.
I want to blame someone but there’s no one to blame but me.
It’s a sad situation.
This Old Lady with emphysema/COPD is smoking again.
This Old Lady who just received a clean bill of health from her doc is again smoking.
It’s ridiculous.
Last week’s obituary for one of my favorite newspaper columnists, Mike Harden, lists the cause of death – cancer.
Then tonight these words found.
Read.
Words written by Harden and published June 30, 2010, in The (Columbus) Dispatch – within days of this most-talented man learning his C-word diagnosis.
“Before you think I'm deserving of either sympathy or compassion, you ought to know that I consumed a steady diet of cigarettes from my draft-card days through my first Social Security check. I quit for seven years after the casket lid was closed on my 54-year-old father, leaving him without so much as a single Pall Mall to sate his three-pack-a-day habit.
“Seven years I was clean. But in the midst of a divorce, I picked it up again.”
Sigh.
This is what I needed to see.
So what do I do now?
I’ve thought about that a lot. I’ve been preoccupied with that question because it’s not like I can lay down the pack without planning.
Yeah, I have to have a strategy.
I learned a couple of things during my nearly year-long relationship with Shana, a professional health coach, who weekly picked my brain trying to find ways to help keep me smoke-free.
The first thing I have to do is set a quit date.
My quit date is Oct. 28 - one month to the day from when I took that first drag that nearly sent me dry heaving.
The second thing I need to do is remember the urge will pass – if I let it - during times of high anxiety.
Smoking doesn’t take away the stress – ever.
I’m smoking and I still have it.
So what lead to this decision to even light up following eight months of being clean?
The Slip followed an evening of inconsolable crying because I needed to talk with my late aunt - the same aunt whom I talk about in my Overcoming my addiction blog in April.
The Relapse occurred when I continued to smoke.
This is an awful addiction. If I didn’t know any better I’d think it worse than any drug my aunt ever took.
Go into any store and the clerk will sell you a pack of cigarettes and a lighter too. She may know you’ve quit smoking but she’s still gonna sell you that pack of smokes.
It’s too easy.
The most important thing I need to do now is to do something for me.
For me that is losing weight.
And the replacement for smoking will be exercising.
I need to get my body moving.
Since quitting smoking in February I have packed on nearly 25 pounds. Add that to the 10 or so pounds I gained from last November to February following two rounds of steroids due to respiratory illnesses.
I weigh more now than during each of my three pregnancies.
I don’t want to gain any more weight and quite honestly, smoking these past few weeks has allowed me to lose several pounds – without exercising.
I have no appetite.
I’m feeling better about my body but I know smoking should not be used to lose weight.
This summer I started walking.
That has ceased.
This summer I bought a couple pieces of exercise equipment at yard sales – a Tony Little gazelle and a cardio glide.
So in the next week I plan to get my butt in gear and learn how to use the equipment, set up the unpackaged Wii Fit Plus, purchased in June, in our new TV room in the basement (see the Where we’ve been blog posted last week).
I don’t think it would be wise to continue to smoke to lose weight and I really want to lose weight.
So that’s my plan.
I’ll let you know what happens.
Thanks for listening.
Mike Harden died from throat and chest cancer at age 64.
UPDATE: Tomorrow is Oct. 28 and I've pushed my quit date back a couple of days.
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cigarettes. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Overcoming my addiction
I finally reached a goal I set for myself following the death of my aunt a year ago.
I’ve quit smoking, and apparently just in time.
Today I was diagnosed with “mild” emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
My aunt, an educated professional who was 12 1/2 years my senior and more like my sister, was an addict.
For years she toyed with recreational drugs and alcohol (excluding her pregnancies). Then her husband died when her children were 8 and 12 years old. After that she was diagnosed with depression. Her addictions became more pronounced. Her physical and mental health deteriorated. Prescription drugs (written by numerous local physicans!) consumed her up to her death.
Her dying had become a real possibility to me but her death was still unexpected. I had prayed for God’s will to be done. I was working toward an intervention that might lead to her long-term rehabilitation, the only treatment for her, I believed.
I did not expect this kind of intervention.
I really miss my aunt with whom I spoke on the telephone many times a week. I hated her illness but I still loved her.
My life has changed in her absence.
To fill the void, perhaps, I started a blog – which you are reading - and tuned into Facebook and reconnected with people I haven’t seen since high school. What a place!
Plus I wanted to do one thing ….She couldn’t overcome her addiction but certainly I could. I had to try. Again.
My addiction for more than a quarter of a century has been nicotine, in the form of cigarettes. My parents don’t know this but I started smoking occasionally in high school. (My parents are proud of me for quitting).
I smoked in college. I smoked after college. I smoked when I started my job at the newspaper 21 years ago. I smoked at my desk! Crazy.
A health scare on Sept. 9, 1998, and a trip that night to the ER revealed I was asthmatic. (I know this date because I found the ER discharge papers in my files over the weekend). I’ve used an inhaler ever since.
And I continued to smoke … until last summer.
Through my workplace I entered a smoking cessation program that has been a godsend. Four months after my aunt’s death, since August and one time a week, I have spoken with a professional health coach – “S” - on the phone.
When I became ill last Halloween and ended up in the ER with severe respiratory distress, I had been smoke-free for a couple of months. I relapsed on Nov. 20 but thanks to “S,” got back on track in February when I became ill again and vowed I did not want to leave my children motherless (like my aunt) if I could help it.
This past weekend I shredded more than a decade of medical information - reaffirmation for my non-smoking brain. I examined every doctors office and hospital bill and prescription receipt. Seems every year of those 12 - sometimes two or three times a year - I’d visit the doc and be diagnosed with bronchitis.
And still I smoked.
I am pleased with myself and my effort to stay quit. It’s not been easy and I’ll tell you the truth, I came this close to smoking last night after an argument with my husband – just hours before my appointment with my pulmonologist. But I didn’t. It’s a huge hurdle.
Now I am focusing on weight loss through exercise because I’ve got more to do to make me well.
Today I think of my aunt and thank her for helping me to stop smoking before it’s too late.
(Those struggling with an addiction or those who have a loved one struggling with addiction are encouraged to watch “Intervention” on A&E and to visit the Web site -http://www.aetv.com/intervention/index.jsp)
I’ve quit smoking, and apparently just in time.
Today I was diagnosed with “mild” emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
My aunt, an educated professional who was 12 1/2 years my senior and more like my sister, was an addict.
For years she toyed with recreational drugs and alcohol (excluding her pregnancies). Then her husband died when her children were 8 and 12 years old. After that she was diagnosed with depression. Her addictions became more pronounced. Her physical and mental health deteriorated. Prescription drugs (written by numerous local physicans!) consumed her up to her death.
Her dying had become a real possibility to me but her death was still unexpected. I had prayed for God’s will to be done. I was working toward an intervention that might lead to her long-term rehabilitation, the only treatment for her, I believed.
I did not expect this kind of intervention.
I really miss my aunt with whom I spoke on the telephone many times a week. I hated her illness but I still loved her.
My life has changed in her absence.
To fill the void, perhaps, I started a blog – which you are reading - and tuned into Facebook and reconnected with people I haven’t seen since high school. What a place!
Plus I wanted to do one thing ….She couldn’t overcome her addiction but certainly I could. I had to try. Again.
My addiction for more than a quarter of a century has been nicotine, in the form of cigarettes. My parents don’t know this but I started smoking occasionally in high school. (My parents are proud of me for quitting).
I smoked in college. I smoked after college. I smoked when I started my job at the newspaper 21 years ago. I smoked at my desk! Crazy.
A health scare on Sept. 9, 1998, and a trip that night to the ER revealed I was asthmatic. (I know this date because I found the ER discharge papers in my files over the weekend). I’ve used an inhaler ever since.
And I continued to smoke … until last summer.
Through my workplace I entered a smoking cessation program that has been a godsend. Four months after my aunt’s death, since August and one time a week, I have spoken with a professional health coach – “S” - on the phone.
When I became ill last Halloween and ended up in the ER with severe respiratory distress, I had been smoke-free for a couple of months. I relapsed on Nov. 20 but thanks to “S,” got back on track in February when I became ill again and vowed I did not want to leave my children motherless (like my aunt) if I could help it.
This past weekend I shredded more than a decade of medical information - reaffirmation for my non-smoking brain. I examined every doctors office and hospital bill and prescription receipt. Seems every year of those 12 - sometimes two or three times a year - I’d visit the doc and be diagnosed with bronchitis.
And still I smoked.
I am pleased with myself and my effort to stay quit. It’s not been easy and I’ll tell you the truth, I came this close to smoking last night after an argument with my husband – just hours before my appointment with my pulmonologist. But I didn’t. It’s a huge hurdle.
Now I am focusing on weight loss through exercise because I’ve got more to do to make me well.
Today I think of my aunt and thank her for helping me to stop smoking before it’s too late.
(Those struggling with an addiction or those who have a loved one struggling with addiction are encouraged to watch “Intervention” on A&E and to visit the Web site -http://www.aetv.com/intervention/index.jsp)
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