For those of you out there who have been long term smokers, I just wanted to relate some of my most recent insights into the nicotine monster. When I first quit, I thought it was going to be so easy because, at first, it was. Three weeks into my quit is when I started to fall apart. I'm going to offer an alternative theory here that, yes, I have started mourning, but not the loss of the cigarettes. My belief is that the nicotine has covered up a lot of issues for me. In the past four year's I've lost three very important people in my life. Two of these passed away, one pushed me away. The first two, my next door neighbor and my mother-in-law were devastating to me. The third was the attorney I worked for previously. Over the four year's that we worked together, we had formed a friendship based on mutual admiration and trust. To get to the point. I never properly grieved any of these losses. I'd say to myself, ok, stand up and put your big girl panties on, they are gone, and you are her. Grab a smoke and drug your brain into believing you are just fine. It's who I am. Why do I think that I am so much stronger that I must dismiss my feelings and move on so quickly??? I'm the caretaker of the world. I take better care of those around me then I do of myself. Because I didn't want to deal with the hurt and pain of the losses and so I'll just smoke another cig and move on to the next subject. I hope this is making sense. It seems harder to put in writing than what is actually in my head. It is no different than any other addiction. I smoked to self-medicate, and it was legal and easy. I believe that is why I started crying all the time. Because all these feelings became unmasked and hit me like a ton of bricks.

Well, I'm working on processing all that I've learned, and I am learning to accept help from others. I am not a pillar, I am a person. And the sooner I start accepting that, the easier my life will be. The hard part is that everyone around me sees me as their pillar of strength and sometimes they forget that I need help too.

Thankfully, my loving husband has been the first to see that he needs to take over some of the responsibilities I've been carrying and he is now asking "what can I do for you". Not that he's a taker, he is complacent because I've always done it all, made it happen, taken care of him when he was sick, making decisions, holding on by a thread that only I could see.

Well, there's my epiphany for this day. Hope you ladies out there will take a good look inward and see if you are as guilty as I at not being the best I can be because I'm trying to be everything to everyone.

Have a wonderful, smoke-free day!