how did you all stop drinking & smoking? (generation, addiction, problems)
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My oldest brother Chris died in January this year due to lung cancer from smoking. My mom is a lung cancer survivor due to smoking and she's been off cigarettes since 2005.
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Hmmm... I love driving my car much more than getting drunk. So it's never been a difficult choice to stay sober all night if I need to drive myself home later on. At a nightclub, I can still have fun just drinking ice water.
I guess that early on, I realized that I didn't need to be drunk to have a good time at night. I never believed the crap that ad agencies produced insisting that getting drunk was the best thing to do every weekend. And for the last 20 years, I can go for months not drinking at all. I can have beer in the fridge and forget to drink them.
Most people can. Mui is not an alcoholic or have any basic understanding of what one is.
If you can control and enjoy your drinking, that's wonderful. If you can find it easy to quit and stay quit, that's wonderful too.
If I'm not mistaken, the thread title is inquiring the experience of folks who have actually quit smoking and/or drinking... as implied by the posed question, "How DID you stop..."
Maybe we can go into the Great Debates subforum and discuss the morality and legal implications of the use of these products or we can do the same in health and wellness, food and drink etc.
If this thread is not about the recovery from the abuse of alcohol/tobacco, let me off the bus right here, thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnnieA
I don't mean this to be snarky but, why did you post on this thread if you have never drank or smoked, except to tell the rest of us mortals what jerks we were....? LOL.
This. I'm trying to go back through this thread and appreciate each and every useful post as there are many.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CindyDavis
Never started. Didn't have to quit.
GOOD! Hope you stay quit. Pomegranites are so much tastier anyway.
Was it AA ? That made you stop drinking? What about smoking? Anyone just woke up & stopped whats your story?
Just fairly simple, straightforward, logical thinking. Sometimes distractions were used in bad situations, and when it was time to try to move on, to take a step forward in life, it was logical to give up certain bad habits. Short term pain for long term (possible) gain. When it was a logical conclusion in my mind, that I could stop this and should, I tried to keep it as a promise to myself... that going back to such bad habits would be betraying myself and my goals, that such decisions would be dumb, etc..
Logic is good stuff. I wished it worked on other things like cancer and paranoid schizophrenia ... then my oldest brother Chris might still be alive today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by choo_choo_train_lol
...that such decisions would be dumb, etc..
Now, as far as being dumb because someone is fat or alcoholic or addicted to other substances or depressed... I just can't follow you there.
Too many smart, logical, well-minded people I know struggle with these things.
Logic is good stuff. I wished it worked on other things like cancer and paranoid schizophrenia ... then my oldest brother Chris might still be alive today.
Now, as far as being dumb because someone is fat or alcoholic or addicted to other substances or depressed... I just can't follow you there.
Too many smart, logical, well-minded people I know struggle with these things.
Self-will or willpower and self-knowledge or logic are just as useless against terminal cancer
as they are against alcoholism. Both illnesses defy logic.
Now, as far as being dumb because someone is fat or alcoholic or addicted to other substances or depressed... I just can't follow you there.
I think you're confusing me, when I basically said "that would be a dumb decision if I made it". I never said that I'm a dumb person if I make a dumb decision, and I never said that a dumb decision for me is a dumb decision for anyone else. Though, is it not a dumb decision for an alcoholic to decide to have a drink? What does depression have to do with it? Taking a drink is a decision, eating bad food is a decision. Having an addiction or depression isn't a decision.
I guess my point originally was that using logical thinking helped me overcome impulsive and unhealthy desires.
I think you're confusing me, when I basically said "that would be a dumb decision if I made it". I never said that I'm a dumb person if I make a dumb decision, and I never said that a dumb decision for me is a dumb decision for anyone else. Though, is it not a dumb decision for an alcoholic to decide to have a drink?
For an alcoholic to drink booze is unacceptable behavior. To say it's stupid is a huge misunderstanding. But fear not, join the club. For an alcoholic to decide to have a drink is to decide to be at comfort, peace, and ease. They don't see the drunk at the end of the road.
If you're not an alcoholic, you don't have to try to control and enjoy your drinking! You just do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by choo_choo_train_lol
I guess my point originally was that using logical thinking helped me overcome impulsive and unhealthy desires.
As a recovered alcoholic, I don't need to use logic to stay away from booze, drugs, etc. I've found a sufficient substitute... aka a higher state of consciousness... and I don't need to decide or coerce myself to not do it. The problem has been removed. It does not exist for me. The process of recovery was logical; attach part A to part B, then B to C, etc., then at the end, you got a swing set.
My situation is strange, I CAN refuse a drink in the day but NOT at night. I feel the need to drink before I sleep. I dont know what it is about night time that makes me lack restraint. As for smoking, I only smoke outdoors so I have had to stop due to the cold weather.
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