to think I'm a better mother when I smoke

[Calloh]

Well of course I'm not really because I'm signing on for untold damage, a shorter life etc.

But various things, including my daughter's fourth birthday party, the builders hanging around having delicious coffee and cig combos and something more serious and awful, have made me take a break from my ex-smokerdom.

And I have been so much fun with my children! Making them laugh, dealing well with tantrums, talking reasonably to them, even being skittish on dog walks and jumping across streams and the like! Like berocca advert me.

So why the hell can't I be like this normally? Basically, when I'm not smoking, I need to chill the hell out as if I were smoking. How do I so this?

I'm only talking Marlboro lights here.

I say this as someone who ho smoked 20 aday for 22 years. I gave up smoking 9 months ago.

I loved smoking. Nothing stopped me smoking. Seriously im embarrassed now but I smoked through 3 pregnancies, tonsillitis, flu...

I gave up using patches, one day at a time. I didn't think I'd succeed. I hadn't even tried to stop for 16 years!

Then in July my mil was diagnosed with lung cancer. It had already spread to her brain & liver. One day as I sat with her on the Oncology ward, full of people dying from cancer, I thought-' I really want a fag!'
It was mad... I was in a room with 4 women dying from cancer, 3 of them smokers & I wanted some of the poison that caused the cancer.

I was also 18 weeks pregnant. At that moment in time, i realised how powerful the addiction to cigarettes is. Thats what your describing. The tobacco companies have brain washed generations of people into thinking & believing their lives are better for smoking...

I still crave but I CHOSE not to smoke.

My mil died 7 weeks ago today. She died 7 weeks after her diagnosis. It was horrendous the cancer in her brain turned her into a doubly incontinent, brain damaged vegetable 2 weeks after her diagnosis.

After watching my lovely, fun, kind mil die-I can't risk doing that to my dc. I don't know how we'll ever come to terms with losing mil. Our family is devastated.

Sorry that was very long!!

Gastrognome, totally agree, I'm much nicer and more fun now I've quit, as I smoked in secret from the kids and was a moody cow, constantly craving them and worrying when I'd have my next one.

Nicotine replacement of some description I think is what you need.Go see a stop smoking councillor then you can get if prescribed,so will be much cheaper.The thing about smoking is that you will find a million ways to justify smoking because you are addicted,and the thought of going without is too frightening.Stopping smoking is the hardest thing ever.How much money will you save if you quit.Probobly enough for a holiday with your children,That is a great mum.Incidentally smoking does not calm you down it makes you stressed by raising heart rate and blood pressure.The relaxed feeling you get is your nicotine fix suppressing your cravings because you are addicted to nicotine.The cravings are what are making you stressed the cigarette is just a very temporary fix.Good luck with quitting

Shelly I'm sorry, that is bloody awful. I'm so sorry for you and your family and your MIL.

Aren't light worse because you draw more heavily on them to get the same nicotine effect so take the smoke deeper into your lungs.

Dh is a bloody nightmare mood smoker. Gah

YABU x 100

For all the reasons you already know.

You sound like a fun Mum though