*cough*

My name is Dirtycowgirl and I am an addict.

I am controlled by a demon and it's name is nicotine.
Like every smoker I know all about the risks and what it is doing to my lungs, and I keep saying I'm going to quit, but whilst the brain might think this is a wise idea the willpower says no. I actually gave up for 14 months about 8 years ago, but in a moment of stressed-angry-I-want-to-fucking-kill-someone I reached for my emotional crutch and in the space of two weeks was back to my old lung destroying ways.
I think that being a smoker is a bit like being an alcoholic, you will always be one, but you might get to be a smoker who hasn't had a fag for twenty years. I know people who quit years and years ago who will say that although they will never smoke again there are still times when they find themselves wanting one.

And the truth is that despite all the knowledge of the effects it has on my health I like smoking.
I like to think it makes me look like this :

Even though the reality is more like this :

I started smoking when I was 12. (Yeah, I know). My friend Janet and I decided to smoke because we thought it would make us look grown up, sexy and more attractive to boys. Not that either of us would've known what to do with a boy if the plan had worked at that age. But this was before tobacco advertising was banned and a packet did not come with grotesque pictures and health warnings plastered all over it. It also helped that Janets family owned and lived above a shop, so it was very easy to steal sneak a packet.

The main flaw in the plan to attract the opposite sex was that we were both so scared of getting caught smoking our contraband stash that we used to go and sit under a bridge near her house to do it. It was pretty cosy under there but not exactly a hub of social activity. Although we managed, with the aid of menthol cigarettes, to perfect the art of "taking it down". This enabled us to not cough our guts up with every drag blow the smoke out of our noses (even sexier, or so we thought). Eventually we decided that we needed to take our boy-magnet skills out to the world at large, so we got some money (I don't remember how but I'm pretty sure it involved minor larceny) and got a train to the next town.
So there we are, parading up and down the High Street chain smoking out of our noses and on the look out for unsuspecting males, and not having much luck. But we did bump into two of my Aunties.
Which resulted in a call to my Mum.

I only became a regular smoker and therefore addicted when I started working at 15. As that was in the days before there was so much employment law (am I making myself sound old here), even though it was supposed to be an after school/Saturday job my boss told me that if was bunking having a day off I could go in to work. Given the choice between school and earning money I was at work more then I was in the classroom and consequently had enough money to develop as many bad habits as I wanted.

Until the day I was sat on my checkout and my Maths teacher was in the queue.
Which also resulted in a call to my Mum.

I've never been what you might call a heavy smoker, a packet of twenty will last me 2 or 3 days, but I did eventually progress to the joys of smoking weed.

I was then a regular weed smoker for a very long time, but that stopped when I quit cigarettes and when I began smoking them again I tended to go through phases with weed. I could go for a very long time without it, but if I was at a friends and smoked a joint I'd invariably end up buying some myself. Then for a while I'd get back into it, until I realised that the lethargy that eventually comes with it was taking hold and I'd stop.
The last time I had a "stoner phase" was about two years ago. I wasn't working at the time so the effects of it didn't matter, but I stopped when I decided it was time to get back on the reality train and find a job. I'm not saying that I'll never be a regular weed smoker ever again, but I don't intend to.

I have always felt that had I not been a cigarette smoker I might never have tried weed, because the first time someone offered me a joint I would've said "no thanks I don't smoke". (And if I'd not been into weed then I might've said no to the other things that were offered to me - but that's another story).
But I guess if I ever do succeed in giving up the fags that'll be the end of all of it.

Nowadays the help-you-stop-smoking products are advertised everywhere, but I don't think any of them really work unless you want to stop (when I quit I did it cold turkey) - willpower is the key, not gum, patches or inhalers. They might help with the craving but they do nothing to break the habit, that's all down to you. I know someone who was insisting that her doctor give her Champix because "they worked for me before". Really ? If they worked that well why are you needing them to quit again ?
Nah, like I say, unless you REALLY want to stop nothing will help, and if you REALLY want to stop that much then that should be all you need to do it.

I am halfheartedly cutting down, if I have none in the morning I will sometimes wait until the evening to go to the shop, or if I know I only have a couple left when I leave work I don't buy any on the way home. Son smokes roll-ups so I might get him to make me one of them (to this day I can roll all kinds of fancy joints and I don't need a mat but I can't make a rolly fag to save my fucking life), but I don't really like them so I'll maybe just have one to kill the craving, whereas I'd smoke 4 or 5 cigarettes. Every little helps.
And, as I said, it's been two years since I smoked a joint.

Last night I only had one cigarette left when I got in so I saved that for after my dinner, and Son had gone out so I knew I wasn't going to smoke anymore for the rest of the night.
That's fine. By 10.30 when I decided to go to bed I was craving badly but doing my best to ignore the nagging voice in my head saying "smoke. . nicotine . . smoke. . need to smoke". I went to get myself a drink and saw an ash tray on the kitchen side with an unsmoked roll-up in it.
Fucking result !
(Son tends to make a few up at a time, so it's not unusual to find one about the house).
So I smoked it.
And about six puffs in when I started to feel a bit odd realised that it wasn't a cigarette at all.

Oops.

By the time Son got in I was a giggling mess and when I told him what I'd done he said "well it's lucky I've got this...." and produced a bar of chocolate from his bag.
Fucking double result !



However today I've not been feeling exactly bright.
And no. I'm not tempted to buy a bag of weed.
And Son has been told not to leave anything other then tobacco where I'm likely to find it.