early recovery from smoking

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Day 3 – “Just one more day.”

March 22, 2009 in early recovery from smoking, Gratitude, Service, Willingness by Chris | 6 comments

Joe hasn’t been home in 3 days now, but he’s been seen and he’s terrible.  He’s every horrible thing you can imagine about someone who has relapsed on heroin (or other heavy narcotics).  His phone is dead so he can’t call anyone.  Jake gave him my number but he refuses to call because he’s still angry with me.  I guess he hates hearing the truth.  He also told Jake that he’s going to keep using “just one more day” before he asks for help.

How many times have I said that?  I’ve said that every day for years at a time.

I also see that I’ve been pretty codependent with my relationship with Joe.  I’ve been possessed by the delusion that I have something to offer him that will rescue him and that it’s my job to save him.  I got it today that I can’t save him, and that it’s not my job to save him.  I also recognized that it may have been impossible for me to be very other centered considering how sick I’ve been for so long.  (I’m hearing now that I’m not the only one who has had this particular horrible stomach virus and that the fact that it took nearly two weeks to be rid of is par for the disease’s course.)  Being that sick for that long didn’t leave me with much, and I may personally have failed Joe, but by the same token, the program didn’t fail Joe.  Joe failed the program.

In spite of all that I’ve made it, sort of, through just one more day without cigarettes.  That is not a completely honest statement.  I smoked half a cigarette this morning.  The smoking cessation literature that I’ve read has made a careful delineation between what they called a “slip” and a “relapse”.  This morning I had a slip.  I’m back on task.  I have renewed commitment.  I’m aware that I made a choice to smoke that cigarette, and I know why I made that choice, and I know how I’m going to handle that situation, which I am sure I’ll face again, the next time I face it.

Another of my sponsees came over this morning to do his 5th step.  He had been as thorough as he is capable of being right now.  I told him to go home, open up his book to the instructions for the 6th and 7th steps, and to do that, then give me a call.  Two hours later he showed back up at my house with tears in his eyes and reported what the experience had been like for him.  Everything he described was exactly what the experience was like for me.

And at that moment, I got it that this isn’t about me.  I may fall back into serious selfishness because of illness or because I have fallen prey to the delusion that I can save someone.  But I cannot save anyone, not even myself.  All I can do is be willing to do whatever I need to do to nurture my recovery and to show up for those who ask for help the same way people showed up for me when I was ready to ask for help.

Day 2 – Off & Running

March 21, 2009 in early recovery from smoking, Faith by Chris | 5 comments

Joe has been gone from the house for over 24 hours now, and has presumably accelerated his relapse into full on heroin use. I have not only been in close contact with my own sponsor about the situation and my actions in it, but I also got to go and hear him tell his story at a speaker meeting tonight.  He celebrated 39 years on Monday, yet there is nothing he ever shares, whether it’s about what it was like for him 40 years ago or 40 days ago, that doesn’t demonstrate the power of the program, and the infinite love of his Higher Power to change things.   I had really hoped that Joe would have made himself available to come along.  After going over everything with him carefully today, I understand that I’ve done all I can do for Joe.  The rest of this is God’s job.  I have a few obligations I need to keep, in terms of contacting my probation officer to tell her what’s going on, and, perhaps, Joe’s parents and probation officer, which I’m not happy about, but that’s OK, too.

I don’t know that these challenges had any bearing on how difficult it was to not smoke today, but I’ve made it through, aided by fully restored health, a little meditation, and Commit lozenges.  The second day smoke free was accompanied by markedly increased coughing and phlegm, which has something to do with my lungs begining to heal.  So I guess coughing is good.  I also found the smell in my house even more troublesome, so I’ve washed nearly everything (about 6 loads of laundry), vacuumed, freshened the carpets, douched my room with Febreeze, and thoroughly cleaned the floors and dusted the living and dining rooms.

My life, especially by comparison, is so great.  I just don’t understand why someone would consciously turn their back on it unless maybe they never tasted it in the first place.

Day One

March 21, 2009 in early recovery from smoking, Faith, Honesty, Hope by Chris | 3 comments

It’s the first day of recovery, again, for my first sponsee, Joe, who had the courage this morning, to admit that he relapsed.  Perhaps it wasn’t courage really so much as the absense of an adequate denial.  And perhaps it’s not the first day of a new recovery.  Okay.  Let me just be honest.  He’s acknowledged his relapse but I don’t believe he has taken any steps toward or is even interested in recovering.

It is a “day one” for me though.  I smoked my last cigarette 26 hours ago.  I am using a nicotine replacement product so the cravings are somewhat under control.  It’s not the same as smoking, but the edge is less sharp.  A good written first step on smoking seems like a good idea.  The first obvious, and really irritating symptom of unmanagability I’m dealing with at the moment is the smell.  I smoke in my house.  I attend AA meetings where smoking is permitted.  At one day off cigarettes I am acutely aware of the smell that permeates everything I own.  It disgusts me yet strangely it makes me want to smoke.

I know that smoking will kill me, and yet I smoke.  I think that fits the kind of definition of insanity that the program talks about.  And I have come to believe that a power greater than myself can solve all of my problems.  My experience has been that when I made a decision to stop using crystal meth, I found the strength and support I needed to do it, and I believe that If I make the same decision with cigarettes, I’ll have the same experience.

But it is day one.  I am edgy.  It will pass.  I’ll feel healthier.  The smell will wash out.  The craving will be removed.  I’ll be restored to sanity.  And God, in His infinite grace, will bless me with a little more happiness, joy, and freedom.

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