I'm such an idiot.

lady_marmalade

Been off the smokes since October 2005. Went to a hypnotist - everything was great, got my teeth whitened, thought it was the final nail in the smoking coffin. Then I'm round a friend's getting v. drunk and end up having a few smokes. This has happened quite a lot, well, every now and then I'll have a few drinks and the little voice in my head tells me 'Ah a couple every now and then are ok!'.

I know this is a slippery slope. Has anyone else gone through this? How can I make myself cop on?

biko

Drink less would be the obvious answer
Or smoke cigars, you can't inhale then.

Tell your friends not to give you their expensive smokes any more.

marco_polo

lady_marmalade wrote:

Been off the smokes since October 2005. Went to a hypnotist - everything was great, got my teeth whitened, thought it was the final nail in the smoking coffin. Then I'm round a friend's getting v. drunk and end up having a few smokes. This has happened quite a lot, well, every now and then I'll have a few drinks and the little voice in my head tells me 'Ah a couple every now and then are ok!'.

I know this is a slippery slope. Has anyone else gone through this? How can I make myself cop on?

Don't do it ever again. I was off the smokes for 9 months and then started having sociable ones out in the pub with my mates.

Long story short, you feel guilty bumming all the time off your friends and buy a pack just for the night out.

Wake up with hangover find one ciggie left in pants pocket, ah sure it won't kill me.

30 mins later - "20 benson and hedges please Mr Shopkeeper".

I have to go through the whole quitting ordeal again. :mad:

Kurumba

Just don't do it ever again, cut down on the booze until your back on track and promise yourself you won't do it again.
Like others said, i was off them for 7 months, had a bad day and said right feck it sure 1 won't kill me and that was 2 years ago.
I keep quitting,going back on them, quitting... off them at the minute but i'm not sure how long that will last.
It was so hard the first time and I was convinced i'd never smoke again, but one bad day and I ruined it with the little voices saying 1 won't kill me.
It was all downhill from there..

Redshift

This is the exact reason I had to quit for a second time.
It is a slippery slope and it will lead back to your full time smoking habit without a shadow of doubt.
You've got to discipline yourself a bit here and not allow it to happen. That may mean cutting the booze for a while if you feel you will slip.
Good luck though it's one of the trickier parts of the quit and it's where I fell down 1st time. This time round I don't even entertain the prospect of having just one because there is no such thing.

peckerhead

That little voice is the monkey on your shoulder, and he will probably never go away completely, so learn how to ignore him. I like (well, accept! ) a lot of the ideas on this at www.whyquit.com.

The only thing I don't agree with in the posts above is biko's comment about cigars. I've inhaled plenty of them. And I invariably went back on the fags following a few drinks.

I gave up booze altogether about 9 months ago, basically because I'm also an alcoholic (that's another story, but it's all addiction) — and I'm only now beginning to really accept that if I ever let my guard down and/or start entertaining the idea that I can take the odd drink, 'not now, of course, but maybe one day', etc., etc... I'll be right back where I started, or worse.

Having learned a few coping tricks, I'm also only now feeling ready to take on quitting the fags — and I've been smoking for nearly thirty years, on and off. My stop day is Friday week, when my eldest finishes her Leaving Cert. At least that way, for the first few days, I can crawl off into a hole and gnaw on pieces of wood during the withdrawal phase...

Stick with it, lady_marmalade ...or end up like me! (the smoking for thirty years bit, not the rest... )

lady_marmalade

Aw, thanks for all the wise words, lads. You've made me more determined not to get into that position again. I don't want to go through the whole quitting process all over. I suppose it's time to be determined and have a bit of willpower.

And yeah, I've inhaled cigars too...

peckerhead

Picture yourself turning around when you're my age and saying 'ah, f*ck it, wasn't I the right eejit to quit smoking, I shoulda kept it on for a few more years...'

Doesn't work, does it?