Getting rid of so many (past) bad habits. step by step.

[Shanex]

LS peers...

Tonight I feel like writing a bit about my past addictions... and how I eventually quit and recovered from them.

Tobacco, alcohol, pot, and even a few lines of coke back in my very early 20s (not proud of that at all).

I started smoking cigs like many in High School, during the break and the first few cigarettes felt super gross and disgusting but I got quickly hooked on nicotine.

Later on when I started working low wages jobs in my very late teen years, I started smoking pot or hash. For some people it helps them “relax”. Maybe it did for me too for a while but the hassle of actually buying/getting the stuff, going to a bad neighborhood to purchase it made me want to quit that eventually. Unless you grow your own weed (Illegal here and can land you in jail) it’s also very pricey. 

I did cocaine for a few months too (Snorting), when I was about 20-21 and mixed it up with heavy drinking (don’t try that at home, folks!). Again that shyte is super pricey but curiously I felt no “addiction” to speak of, unlike heroine or meth either of which I have never tried and I could quit and never snorted again.

Last but not least, I considered myself a “functioning alcoholic” for many years up until quite recently. The quantity and intake while not really too worrying were still 2-3 beers a day, almost everyday on average up until two weeks ago. Yes, this thread is somehow inspired by the “Dry January” thing and thread in this very forum.

I have only had 2-3 beers a week for the past two weeks and I am already down 6 pounds and sleeping better (on top of an also better food diet). Not saying I’ll give up any alcohol forever, but have opted for moderation now, both for my body and looks and for my liver and health overall. 
 

I’m very motivated to stay clean of all the above, the last bad habits I still have is vaping (nicotine and flavors), but the consensus is it’s still infinitely better than smoking a pack and a half of Camel a day nevermind the price of smokes.

Only ranting a bit. Just my experience. I’m turning 36 in March and have become less careless now and far more self conscious that my body has endured too many of these dopes for years and it’s time to mature a bit, for my own good. 

By the way, very few people around me still smoke pot (actively at least). Most have jobs and have to drive so that’s out of the equation when one has responsibilities or even children. I’ll still drink a bit but more socially, a couple drinks when throwing a party. 
 

Hopefully this thread isn’t pointless and didn’t bore you all. For those who struggle with an addict partner regardless of his/her addiction, there’s hope. You can help them but the motivation to quit either of these must come from them ultimately. There’s always hope IMO. 

 

 

[preraph]

Thanks for sharing, Shanex.  My story isn't all that different from yours.  I did everything in the book when young, but I was a "lucky" one who does not have the addiction predisposition.  I smoked pot at 16 before I ever drank or smoked cigarettes.  1968, you know.  

 

I tried just about everything except needles, because I knew better.  I wasn't afraid of needles but I knew which drugs were addicting to everyone, mainly at that time, heroin.  Fortunately, all but one person in my hippie crowd considered heroin a "hobo drug," so I'm lucky there was a general rejection of it from my wider crowd.  Psychedelics, barbituates, coke.  I generally got bored of pot early on, just about when everyone else in middle America began widely using it.  Too much paranoia for me.  One by one I got bored of things.  I didn't spend hardly any money on any of it.  It was everywhere.  Every guy I knew in the mid-70s and most of the 80s snorted coke.  So I did some once in awhile.  By then I was mostly just drinking and sometimes I'd do it just to sober myself up a little. Once I did do too much (was with a rocker who was really addicted) and got too wired and it was scary.  But I never LIKED coke.  I just did it casually if some guy put it out and I wanted to wake up a little.  It never got me high.  

 

Once I wasn't working in my old career where people were always partying, I just lost interest in doing all that stuff.  Even drinking.  I still smoked for a long time, but I just quit that one day, never to pick one up again.  I had never wanted to quit, but after a while it wasn't fun anymore and was just a chore, so it was easy for me to quit.  A few hard candies and occasionally go outside for a breath of fresh air and I never wanted one again. 

 

But the best thing I quit with the most benefits was caffeine.  I quit it for a diet.  It took a couple of months.  And I didn't even drink coffee, just mostly soft drinks at that time.  But I began sleeping better and being less moody and for the first time in my life, I didn't wake up feeling like a dead weight.  I used to not feel human until noonish.  That was caffeine!  It's a stimulant, and you crash from it every night and wake up hungover every morning.  So that was the best, being able to get my sleep out and wake up feeling refreshed.  I recommend it to everyone.  

 

Now, over the years, I have begun to let myself drink caffeine at lunch when I'm eating out.  I never drink it at home though.  If I only drink it once at lunch a few days a week, I don't get the side effects.  

 

Best of luck on your continued sobriety, Shanex.  My old friends can't believe I didn't end up a serious alcoholic, and I'm one of the only ones who didn't!

[Ronni_W]

On 2/28/2020 at 5:07 PM, Shanex said:

Just my experience. I’m turning 36 in March and have become less careless now and far more self conscious that my body has endured too many of these dopes for years and it’s time to mature a bit, for my own good.

Shanex,

I have also had to deal with enough of similar types of addictions that too-severely tested my own physical body.     What I've come to realize, in all of my research and self-introspection, is that it is equally possible to abuse the physical body and mind by spending too much time in the gym (physical) and/or worrying about (mind) the consequences of what we have and have not submitted ourself to, in seeking 'balance' in life.

For me, at this point, it's not so much about what I have put my body through and made it endure in the past, as it were, which leads to the question/dilemma: for what do I want to salvage and reclaim my body? It is more about: for what type of useful service do I want to offer up my body now, for which I need a healthy-functioning body? Sometimes that type of thought or perspective can help to keep us on the 'straight and narrow' as it were, as far as physical and mental fitness, even though it's not just 'for my own good' as for some type of greater good. If that makes sense?