Night Shift

Good on you for cutting back. Nothing much has been working for me so far. I'm just counting what I'm doing this week as well as introducing structured mindful breathing. It's for more than one kind of smoking. (I'm not being coy, but was moderated once before for saying too much). And I'm taking in what we talked about at the first session, there was a fair bit of ground covered.

That too was a major problem, chronic, for me for many years but I live without it now and I manage a lot better. I think it contributed to my anxiety and possibly also bipolar episodes. The only way for me with that was to just stop and I felt much better within a couple of days. Unfortunately I've not been able to go cold turkey with tobacco.

Since you mentioned being moderated for talking about it now I'm not sure what I can say - I'd love to give you a great resource that really helped me but don't know if that's allowed. It's a national 24hr hotline that will call you regularly and send you a workbook with exercises to help you with your goal and they also give advice about challenges you will face along the way. Surely talking about it this way would be ok.

It does contribute to my anxiety for sure. It's a compulsive habit. I have been able to give up completely for days, months, even five months at a time so far. But then I've fallen off the wagon with it again. This time I'm trying with some extra outside help with the psychologist. He is an addiction specialist.

I have been thinking about your psychiatrist suggesting the three month visits instead of every few weeks. Maybe if you are feeling too vulnerable between visits you could ask for less time between appointments.

I think that might be okay with the resource you are offering, @eth...

That's what I'm going to do with the psychiatrist. I hope the psychologist helps you as much as you hope.

Thanks for the well wishes with the psychologist and I hope the psychiatrist is in agreement with your suggestion.

It's past midnight here now so Halloween is over and I've made it a step closer to bed by putting my daggy nighty on.

Ok ... It's the National Cannabis Information and Helpline ph 1800 30 40 50 (free call) and I was wrong about 24/7, it's 11am-7pm est. They give you one person who counsels you and it's the same person does all the follow-up calls with you. As I see it every resource you can use is a good thing, as long as your helpers know what the others are doing. And I reckon part of the reason for these forums is so we can help each other so surely they won't have a problem with this.

What happens when you do get moderated? Do they just tell you and remove your post or do you get banned for a while or ?

I can imagine the nightie might be too much there. I'd probably be the same. In this relatively moderate heat the nightie also helps me ritualise going to bed so I don't give in so easily to my love of the night.

Thanks heaps for that contact. I've added the contact to my 'health' folder, where I gather my resources. I'll talk to my psychologist about it and if he agrees will get on to them. Or, if he prefers not and I'm still having trouble after our sessions, will try that next.

Moderation is really a painless process whereby the post is removed and an email is sent explaining why. The text is usually included in the attachment so that it can be copied, edited and pasted back into a new message if you want to repost. I've been moderated a few times and there's always been reasonable explanations for it so I don't mind at all really, just try to avoid doing the same thing again.