After giving in and buying a vape, I woke up feeling relief that it’s gone. It didn’t even help with the pain and I’m grateful it didn’t because I’d find a justification to keep it.
My addiction is the ritual of smoking itself, whether it’s tobacco or cannabis, so it’s sometimes tricky to navigate.
I told myself it was for pain and I knew that was a lie. Thankfully, I threw everything out last week, so this was the only thing I had.
So, instead of feeling bad for myself, I stayed busy all day. No breaks meant no “time off”, which is when I crave smoking the most. I cooked shepherds pie and made my own salad dressing, then went for a nice walk with the dog. In an hour I’m going to lift and end the day with an epsom salt soak.
While I’m disappointed, I am even prouder for standing back up.
Sounds like you know the mind space you want to be in. You mentioned lifting. How are you going to do some resistance training to strengthen yourself - and flexibility training to loosen yourself - so the next addiction wave doesn’t overwhelm you?
For me I found meetings to be helpful. I have two people from my group that I call every day and we go through a checkin. That helps me get out of my head (which is where my addiction behaviour starts - it starts in my head before it ever shows up in my outer behaviour). I have meetings I attend with the group every week and that helps me learn from other people’s shares.
There’s a range of groups; there’s a list here - there are groups that meet in person and groups that meet online:
It is precisely the same as having a trainer for your gym workouts (the trainer people are the ones with more experience) and a gym group that you go to the gym with (for accountability and companionship). By having these relationships and working on the strength-building program each day, I will be (and have been) able to safely navigate the addiction waves when they come back (which they still do, from time to time).
