Night Shift

@Mazarita, I guess so, but I smoke just as much with friends as I smoke alone. I guess I COULD have been using more at home, but remember, I'm recording. 😛

Good night!

@Former-Member, thanks for all the good tips. I can't exactly change my thinking right now, but I'll make sure to try in the future.

My nurse thinks my mental illness is being worsened by drugs, because I went from BPD, then bipolar, then schizoaffective.

@Former-Member, thanks! 🙂

Sometimes I'm optimsitc about it, but sometimes I feel completely hopeless about it. I'm still working on that!

What time is it over there?

Hi @Snuchu how are you going? I'm back after a few days away and have seen the conversation about giving up the green. I also used it chronically for over 25 years and found it very difficult to stop. I had many tries at cutting down gradually but that didn't work for me. I was unable to leave it alone if it was in the house and if I had it I'd use it, time and time again. So in the end I just told myself I wasn't allowed to buy it again. Full-stop. I had no physical withdrawal issues and started dreaming again right away. But I had accessed a national phone service to support people giving up green and their counsellor would ring me most days to see how I was going without it. Maybe something like that exists where you are. I found the one here just in the phone directory in the front section where all the government departments and health services are listed. So they got me to write lists - one for all the reasons I was doing it and one for all the reasons I didn't want to do it (the second one was much longer) and when I felt like relapsing I would look at the list and remind myself. I also developed bipolar 1 and there is a chance that it was much worse (psychosis) because of my high consumption of green. Yes I had a couple of brief relapses but would phone the hotline again each time and got off again each time a bit quicker. It's now been over 3 years since I relapsed.

Regarding the social side I have to say that almost all the people I used to smoke with have dropped out of my life - shows how real the friendships were. I now see that in a lot of ways we were just using each other to support the habit. I still have one close friend who smokes in front of me but for some reason it's just not a problem. I talked with him when I gave up and he promised I would never get it from him, not even a puff, and I've never asked. So I definitely think it's worth talking to your friends when you feel up to it about the fact you are trying to give up and asking them to respect that. And then you can also just go to another room for a while when they light up if they still do.

@eth, thank you so much for sharing your own experience as well. 🙂

Sadly, I'm competely deaf, so I rely on my nurse for support instead of hotlines.

About my friends, we were childhood friends so I hope they don't fall out of my life. It's good that you have been off the green for a while now, congrats!

Wow, that's early, @eth. It's 1:10 PM here!