DOSE:	35 joints/cigs	smoked	Tobacco - Cigarettes	(daily)
			Pharms - Bupropion	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

My Drug Story

When I was ten, I caught my brother and his friends smoking in the woods. He made me take a puff off his cigarette so that I wouldn’t tell on him. But really the first time I tried tobacco when I was 12. My older cousins were visiting and they smoked. I liked hanging out with them and wanted to appear 'cool' so I told them that I smoked on occasion and asked for a cigarette. I didn't inhale of course and I probably looked like an idiot, holding it and puffing away and thinking I was all grown up. I remember one of my cousins telling me not to get started on the “shit”. I didn’t. They left and I forgot all about cigarettes and smoking.

Fast forward to high school. I was 17, still insecure and feeling awkward and just wanting to be accepted and popular. I was a good girl for my parents and a good student at school. I had a few friends. That summer, most of us worked part-time at the same place. Small group. Three of us discovered alcohol together. We had an older co-worker get us the booze. She bought us two 26oz bottles, one was Southern Comfort, the other cherry brandy. What a combination. The three of us drank it all and is it any wonder that we got sick. The hangover was tremendous. I had to learn how to deal with the hangovers though, because I couldn’t let my parents know I was drinking. Every weekend that summer, we drank and partied and passed out and suffered hangovers. What a great summer! (Hah). It didn’t stop when school started in September though. We were still into the weekend booze-up parties. Then the one of the guys at work introduced us to hash. It took me awhile to get high off it, but eventually I did and it was a good time, so I did it quite a bit. And it seemed to open up a whole new world. New friends, more than I could count. I was quite happy and remember my senior year as a fun one. My grades suffered, but I didn’t see that at the time. I still had good enough marks to get into university.

Of course hash and cigarettes go hand in hand right? Well they did for me. I took up smoking, but it wasn’t really a habit then. I felt that I could take them or leave them. I only smoked when I partied and then only a few bummed from a friend or two.

At university I hung out with people who smoked weed and drank and had a good time. It was my first taste of freedom and I took full advantage of it. Classes did not matter. Parties did. Drinking and getting stoned with my friends did. I tried LSD for the first time and it was awesome. I did acid again and again and again. Fun, fun, fun! I never had a bad trip.

My boyfriend at that time smoked. He eventually got sick of me smoking his cigarettes, or as he put it “supporting my habit” and told me to buy my own. I remember buying my first pack of cigarettes. There were so many kinds to choose from! I bought Benson and Hedges because the package was a pretty gold color. And they were 100’s. Extra long, extra cool to smoke (or so I thought). So I took up smoking for real this time. I smoked when I drank, I smoked a lot when I drank! I smoked when I got high because I thought it enhanced the buzz. At that time you could smoke inside buildings and restaurants and in your dorm room, so I smoked whenever I felt like it.

My whole first year at university was a blur and a buzz of parties, parties, parties. When it was all over, my parents asked to see my grades. I couldn’t show them. They were terrible. B, C, D, F, F. The B was in English. I actually went to that class quite a bit. Not because I liked it but because I was chasing after a guy and we shared that class. But, I knew my Dad would freak so I refused. I worked and partied all summer. Life seemed so good.

In September I went back to school and continued along the same vein. This time there were more acid trips, more drinking, more dope. I never went to class. I slept all day, because I stayed awake all night. When I went home for Christmas, my father asked to see my grades. I refused again. I had pretty much failed everything. I think he had a feeling about what was happening. The drinking anyway, maybe not the drugs, and the missing classes. My father told me that he had no intentions of paying my tuition for the second semester. He said that I was a “bad investment”. I had no money to pay myself, so I lived at home and got a job. I stopped taking acid, but I still went out drinking every weekend and where there was booze, there was weed and cigarettes. All of my friends at that time were smoking up and drinking to excess. I followed suit.

At 21 I got pretty serious with a guy and we moved in together. My mother was not happy. She was all about the no sex before marriage thing and gave me a rough time, but I didn’t give a shit. I was happy. The drinking and barhopping continued. And of course the ever-present weed, hash and smokes. By now I was smoking a good pack a day. No doubt hooked completely on cigarettes, but I never really thought about it like that. I would smoke cigarettes all day at work. Then come home and smoke some hash or weed with my boyfriend. Get stoned three or four times a night. He would drink beer, maybe a six pack a night, but I didn’t like how drinking made me feel at work the next day, so I would hold off till the weekend. Around then I tried coke. It was amazing! I had no inhibitions that night. I chatted up a storm to everyone. Everyone was my friend. And no amount of alcohol seemed to bring me down. It was one of the best parties I had been to in a long time. As the night wound down though and the coke was depleted, one of the guys at the party started to get really uptight about wanting more coke. I remember him phoning everyone he could think of trying to score more. He was frantic about it. Pacing and shouting and just getting more and more pissed off that he couldn’t hook up with anyone. I thought – whoa! There is no way I want to turn into to him. I never did coke again.

A few years go by. I am still living with my boyfriend. I am still smoking dope and cigarettes and hitting the bars every weekend. But I begin to notice that I am blacking out a lot. I wouldn’t remember half the night. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t even remember “crossing the line” with my alcohol intake. It never felt like I had too much or that I was completely zooed. I would just black out. I would wake up in my bed the next morning asking my boyfriend if I has done anything foolish the night before, like dancing on the tables or stripping my clothes off in front of everyone. He always said that I acted normal, like I was having a good time. Talking and laughing and no, not seemingly drunk by any means. I decided that this was no good. I couldn’t handle the memory loss, the missing time freaked me out. Especially because it was happening every weekend. I quit drinking.

When I quit the drink, I became the “designated driver”. Everyone was quite pleased that we were saving money on cab fare. I was still smoking weed and hash and cigarettes, but I always felt in control when high on them. So driving didn’t seem like such a big deal. However, I soon got bored with all the drunks I was carting around every weekend. I told my boyfriend that I wanted it to stop. He agreed that I should stop catering to everyone. He however did not stop drinking on the weekend. He and all my “friends” just continued to party without me. Sometimes my boyfriend and I would smoke up during the week, but he eventually told me that I was no fun anymore. He started going out almost every night. So my boyfriend and I would fight about it. I hated being alone all the time and I did not want to go backs to drinking my face off. I actually liked not feeling like shit every weekend. Eventually we split up.

Move ahead. I am 30 years old and I am smoking weed every night and five or six times a day on the weekends. My current boyfriend didn’t mind. He doesn’t touch the stuff. The only time he tried weed, he got sick. Never did it again. I am also smoking about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. So is my boyfriend.

At 35 I decide that I don’t want to smoke dope anymore. I quit. Just like that. No fears, no withdrawal, no regrets. Just stopped. Shortly after, I decided to quit smoking cigarettes. Oh boy! It was completely different. I couldn’t take the constant cravings. I thought about cigarettes every moment. I had no peace. I folded after two days. When I started back up, I smoked my brains out.
At 36 my doctor prescribed me Zyban. It gave me weird dreams, but the physical cravings were not there when I quit smoking. All the psychological ones were though. I felt like I was making this huge sacrifice and that I would never enjoy life again. I turned into the biggest bitch. I hated everyone. I hated myself for being so miserable. My boyfriend told me how relieved he was when I started smoking again. He had been very supportive of me, but he told that some days I was so cranky he was ready to force-feed me a smoke. I lasted a month. When I started smoking again, I was relieved that the suffering was over. I also remember how horrible the cigarettes tasted. I couldn’t get over it. I really couldn’t believe that I ever enjoyed them. That disappeared real soon.

I am now 40. I want to quit smoking. I really do. I hate them. I hate what they are doing to my body. They are poison. I hate the way my house smells. I hate having to clean that awful yellow gunk off my walls and my belongings. I hate spending money on them. It is a waste. Money going up in flames. They do nothing for me. Nothing. But yet, thinking about quitting scares the shit out of me. The demon nicotine likes to play mind games. Likes to make me believe that I need him. That I am nothing without him. That I am not in control. That he is in control.

I am on Wellbutrin now and I am almost ready to make the break. I am not the least bit worried about the physical withdrawal. That is nothing. I know for me it is the psychological dependence that I must master. And I feel that I can. I will join the world of non-smokers and finally break free from nicotine. Then I will be free of all drugs.

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 63473
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 29, 2017	Views: 1,376
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Tobacco - Cigarettes (266) : Combinations (3), Addiction & Habituation (10), Various (28)