25 août 2009
I lose my friends becose of smoking
According to Philip Morris research, “over 85% of smokers agree strongly/very strongly with the statement, “I wish I had never started smoking.” Most of our friends feel the same and wish they knew how to stop. They can benefit greatly by having a friend in their corner who understands the journey users make in returning home. The nicotine addict’s mind has been conditioned to believe, through association, that using nicotine is central to our entire life, including friendships.
While true that we will no longer engage in nicotine use with any person, no relationship whose foundation is broader than shared drug use needs to be adversely affected by nicotine’s absence. Successful recovery need not deprive us of a single friend or loved one. On the contrary, tobacco use has probably cost us relationships. Fewer and fewer non-users are willing to tolerate being around the smells and smoke, and oral tobacco use can be a major turn-off. Aside from no longer using nicotine, our current lives do not need to change at all unless we want them to change. Mine did. I no longer sought situations that allowed me to feel comfortable smoking.
Fellow nicotine addicts don’t normally try to make each other feel guilty for being hooked and using. In fact, there can be a very real sense of dependency camaraderie. We serve as a form of “use” insurance for each other on those occasions when our supply runs out. Obviously, I no longer frequented community ashtrays. In fact, for the first time in my adult life I found myself totally comfortable sitting beside non-users and ex-users for extended periods of time. Gradually, yet increasingly, my circle of friends and acquaintances grew to include far more non-users and ex-users. It was as if my addiction had been picking relationships for me.
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