Scare me stupid with your smoking/drinking/lifestyle choices stories

[Bluepony2]

Desperately attempting to turn my life around here...

I have been drinking heavily for a couple of years off and on. I can easily drink a bottle of whisky in one sitting, not every day but at my worse upward of 5 x week, also can drink wine, beer etc.

With the drinking comes the smoking, when drinking can easily smoke 20+ ciggies in one evening.

Cigarette smoking had also creeped into daily habits because of immense stress of the last few years.

So ashamed to say this, but on top of all this, was recreational drug use, its very acceptable to use cocaine within my social circle. This has been going on a few times a month, off and on for the last 5 years or so.

I've had enough. More than enough. I am done.

I have been here before though, and each time, I find myself back in the cycle.

The end of day drink will creep in, followed by a ciggy, followed by prehaps someone from our social circle showing up, which can lead to other things.

I have been 'clean' for 4 days today, absolutely not unheard of, but today ive been very stressed dealing with something huge and the urge to go and buy cigarette was enormous, it left me absolutely knackered. Im proud to report I didnt do it.

Tonight I have stumbled across of thread someone wrote about being a smoker and concerned pain were because of lung cancer - I read people stories of smoking etc, all none judgemental, some experiences of others, some experiences from other smokers, all incredibly supportive and it gave me so much strength to read these stories and feel proud that so far, I am managing not to fall down the rabbit hole.

So, please may I ask for your stories?
Quit smoking? Tell me about it
Lost someone to drink? Tell me about it
Struggling to quit something? Tell me about it
Social drug taker who spiraled? Tell me about it
Tell me any stories you can think of to really help me (and prehaps others) commit to this change.

I'm sat here desperately trying to curb my ciggy cravings.

So please, kind people of MN with no judgement of my situation (its been really hard for me to write this thread tbh) tell me you stories..

Help me quit everything.

My dad had a heart attack in lockdown (age 51, lifelong smoker) . He denied it was smoking - must have been stress. Had to have a quintuple heart bypass which I didn't even know existed! Was days from death. When they opened him up they couldn't believe the smoke damage. Both his parents had the same but it's taken this for him to quit.
My friend just lost her 62 year old mum to lung cancer. The devestation to the children and grandchildren is awful. A couple of them are seriously depressed and one is suicicidal.
Best of luck to you, OP. I don't smoke but I do drink too much and always make excuses for it. I was afraid to get pg incase I couldn't give it up but it's been easy - it's totally changed my outlook.

You might find bryony Gordon's latest book helpful. She is very candid and an excellent writer. Good luck.

Lung cancer is horrific - pm me for the details if you want

Currently in the process of stopping smoking. I was found to have cervical pre-cancerous cells. I 'only' smoke 5 a day but I m pretty sure smoking has been a big contributing factor.
In to erms of alcohol, I've been dry now for 4 years 2 months. I was a barely functioning alcoholic.
It took a near fatal heart arrythmia to make stop drinking.
Unfortunately this event has left me with PTSD.

God, I sound delightful.

My mum, dead at 58 from alcoholic liver disease.
She only ever drank after 6pm, however doing this 7days per week for 30 odd years resulted in poor nutrition, poor mood, poor social relationships and eventually a breakdown in relationships with her children. She still worked and managed a large house.
Started to get unwell in the feb, noticeable changes in physical ability by June, bed ridden by September and dead in October.
She left behind 3 grandchildren under 6 who she adored but now have no other grandparents at all.

No judgment from me, you can do it and it will be hard but you're worth looking after. Save yourself and family years of misery.

My mum was fit as a fiddle, walked, smoked, gardened, smoked, holidayed, smoked. Then very suddenly without warning she had a stroke and is severly disabled. She was on 20 cigs a day, didn't drink. She was only 71.

Yes... I used to smoke at least 20 a day until I was about 30. I had chronic bronchitis and I always had to clear my throat to speak. My partner had asthma and I HAD to give up.

At that time I met someone who owned a restaurant in the town I was living in, overseas. He was a desperate smoker. He'd had a heart attack at 30-odd and you could see he was really ill. His skin was yellow, waxy, and terrible looking and even though he'd been told he must give up smoking or he'd die, he couldn't resist it. I sat at a table in his restaurant and watched him and knew I had to give up. I went cold turkey. It was a big struggle, but every time I felt like having a cigarette, I'd go to his restaurant and remind myself why I had to give up. It worked. That was 20 years ago and I haven't smoked since. I moved back to the UK sometime afterwards. I don't know what happened to that man, who unknowingly helped me. I hope he managed to give up too.

My step-father was an alcoholic. Drank a bottle of whisky a day mixed with prescription pain killers. He was abusive, stole from us, ran up bills that my mother was still trying to clear years later and was banned for drink driving.

The GP told him to stop drinking or he'd die. He couldn't stop despite a couple of stays in rehab and eventually began bleeding from an ulcerated oesophagus. That quickly became multi organ failure. I was there when he died to support my mum and, despite hating him for his abuse and having wished him dead on more than one occasion, it was horrific and I had nightmares for months.

Ive made a some poor choices of my own where drink is concerned and am ashamed of some other ways I've behaved in the past. The thing that put a stop to it was the look on my teenager's faces after a particularly ill-judged New Year's Eve. I wouldn't want them to ever have to go through with me what I did with my step-father.

You are very brave and well done for deciding to change but with the kindest of intentions I don't think it's wise to go for ivf until you and your partner have been clean and sober for at least a year.

Not just from the perspective of if not being fair on a child, ivf is an incredibly stressful thing to go through and I think you won't cope with it if you haven't really got a long term handle on the substance abuse issues.

I'm pretty sure too from a physical perspective this would be advisable too as it takes time for the organs which can to recover.

I am the relative including daughter to a lot of addicts, it is a miserable life for a child and not one I would wish on any child.

My dad alcoholic, is now bed bound and has been for almost 30 years, he is in constant severe pain that he is prescribed liquid morphine which he sips pretty much constantly, he can barely form a sentence cognitively speaking, both parents are lifelong smokers too and that's taken it's toll as well, he fights for every breath. Mums had cancer 3 times and also struggles to breathe is constantly ill with chest infections and ear infections.

If only to avoid the pain alone stop op, do so safely - check with your dr. As stopping alcohol abruptly when you're drinking above a certain level can be dangerous, but also in order to access support to do so.

NONE of the addicts I know who are long term off whatever their addiction is managed it alone, they ALL used some kind of forms support agency, some used AA and NA, some it was church groups, some it was social worker groups, some gp and other medical support.

The ones that tried to do it alone always returned to the addiction.

Get whatever support works for you, use whatever aids work for you - vaping, nicotine patches, Antabuse...

A former colleague "only" smoked around 5-10 cigs a day. Recently had to have a lower leg amputation due to circulatory problems caused by smoking. She's had to give up her job, is depressed, rarely leaves the house, has turned against friends trying to help. I can see her being an agoraphobic recluse within a year.

My 41 year old, heavy smoking best friend has just been diagnosed with throat cancer
Her alcoholic dad died earlier this year from cirrhosis of the liver.

My mum died from COPD. Watching her struggle for breath while smoking a cigarette and holding her inhaler in the other hand was horrible.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. You can do this.

BIL has emphysema at 50 after a lifetime of smoking cigs and spliffs. He still smokes, my sis is 15 years younger than him and all she does is work to provide for them and care for him when she’s not at work. He looks like hell tbh.

I know you’re mainly asking for scare stories, but at the end of the day, you have to want to leave this lifestyle behind. When you are a casual user it’s very easy to think “ooh I’m not an addict, I don’t shoot up, there’s people out there much madder than me” - but as you’ve rightly recognized, it’s still a harmful and unhealthy lifestyle.

I was like you once upon a time. Everything coalesced - I had a bereavement and I left my long term relationship. It was the catalyst I needed to clean all the toxic people out of my life and focus on me and my mental health, for therapy, got into exercise.

Not going to lie, I miss partying from time to time, and I still have a spliff every so often (not with BIL lol). But my life is lovely now. You can do it OP, but you have to want to - wishing you the best xx

I think you'll find it too much to quit everything in one go. Why not start with the alcohol and drugs as the two usually go hand in hand then try to quit the cigs further down the line.

Thank you everyone for the continued participation of this thread, when I am feeling a little weak in my resolve, I will come to this thread to remind me of how important it is that I stick to changing my lifestyle.

I am so thankful to everyone who has shared.

@crinkle77 I understand totally where you are coming from, thing is, I can go a few days without smoking. Im not addicted as in, I must have one everyday. I tend to crave when stressed, excited, wanting a break, as a habit. Im pretty sure if I give up everything, at once, then I'll be able to stop.

I am all or nothing, and a few ciggies during the day, can easily turn into 'why not a glass of wine' - which can easily turn into a bottle and thus the cycle starts again.

So, IMO I think going for everything is the best course of action for me. I could be wrong, but its worth a try now - nothing is something I do stand alone. The ciggies, drink, recreational use, all comes in one big package. Im unlikely to one, without the other. Use of one thing, is likely to trigger another, if that makes sense.

Yeah that makes sense @Bluepony2. Good luck!

My aunt drank alcohol after a bereavement, it became a more regular thing and one evening she fell down the stairs. My nephew found her dead the next morning.
I always thought she’d either recover or slowly drink herself to death. Either way, we thought there would be more time.

I used to be a functioning alcoholic. I used to drink 1 or more bottles of wine every night on my own and smoke around 20 cigs every evening. If I ran out of wine I would scrabble around in the kitchen cupboards looking for any alcohol - I once drank neat Pimms. I had a choking sensation in my throat when I lay down at night because the smoking used to clog me up, and my ankles and feet used to tingle because all the smoking was affecting the blood supply.
I often used to vomit in the mornings before work and sometimes when I got into work. My face looked dirty and my eyelids drooped. I ignored my kids sometimes.
I can't quite remember how it managed to turn it around, but I had enough. I stopped drinking alcohol and I stopped the cigarettes...It's odd, it really was quite sudden but at the same time I had loathed myself for years because of the smoking and drinking.
Now I drink alcohol occasionally and smoke very rarely, I am in control.
I started using retin a which really helped my complexion and thank God my kids still love me (they are late 20s now)
Good luck to you OP, it can be turned around.