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Feb 9 04 5:04 AM
Everyone who drinks needs to go into drinking situations with his or her guard up and reasons for quitting and wanting to stay off intact. Waiting until being inebriated to deal with smoking thoughts on an intellectual level is dangerous and should be considered life threatening.
Life threatening when you consider that such a lack of preparation can cause a relapse and a relapse is fully capable of costing you your health and your life over time. People who know they are recovering alcoholics cannot drink--smoking or quitting smoking is not the variable here of primary concern for why they drink. They have an addiction to alcohol to be concerned with.
People who have never considered themselves to be an alcoholic or a problem drinker but who cannot drink in a controlled manner, or people whose drinking at one time has adversly effected their health or caused them any economic, professional, legal, or personal problems--these people need to think long and hard of whether they are in fact problem drinkers or possibly dealing with alcoholism issues. If your drinking threatens your quit, you are in effect a problem drinker--you are putting your health on the line to drink.
The vast majority of non-alcoholic social drinkers can still drink without risk of relapse--but being mentally prepared is crucial here. Go into ALL drinking situations reminding yourself that you are a recovering nicotine addict and you are going to be a recovering nicotine addict for the rest of your life.
While that may not sound great in concept--being a recovering nicotine addict--it beats being an actively using nicotine addict hands down. For over time being a recovering addict has no real signs or symptoms and no real adverse health or even social effects associated with it. Being an active user would actively be destroying tissue with every puff, depositing cancer-producing chemicals with every puff, assault your heart and circulatory system with every puff, cost you money with every puff, and make you reek with every puff. To avoid all the problems of being an active addict still translates to always knowing that to stay smoke free--even when not totally sober, still only requires remembering to never take another puff!
Joel
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