Addiction

Once upon a time, I was addicted to cigarettes.

The reasons that I smoked were all stupid ones. Started as a teen, of course.

I quit in late 1986 because they were tasting funny for some reason. I just decided to give them up. Turns out, I was pregnant and did not know it.

I was considering starting smoking again (gave me something to do during breaks at work, and everyone else smoked, too) when I found out I was pregnant.

I did not smoke for more than two years. During that time, we moved to Oregon. We found that we still had the same bills, but much less income, and I found a part time job in the evenings. Our little guy went to a babysitter for about 30 minutes a day. I dropped him off on my way to work, Eric picked him up a short time later on his way home. That way, he was with one of us most of the time.

Once again, everyone I worked with smoked. It was pretty easy to start smoking again, and I continued until 1992. I suspected I was pregnant, and bought a pregnancy test at the grocery store. I smoked my last cigarette on the way home. After a positive test, I gave them up again.

Matt was five years old, and attending K. He had learned in school that smoking is bad, and made me promise to never smoke again. It was pretty easy to make that promise, since there was no way in hell I was going to smoke while pregnant/nursing.

I have not smoked since then.

The withdrawal from smoking was similar to the withdrawal from Diet Pepsi I went through recently. I had headaches, I was irritable, I felt tired, achy, and miserable. More than once I thought it would be easier to just stay on it.

The hardest part for me with both addictions was the psychological withdrawal. There were certain times of the day that my body expected a fix... and when it didn't happen, my body didn't like it. Once the time passed, the cravings subsided until the next occasion.

Now here's what I wonder. Was I addicted to the caffeine? Was it the chemicals in the soda? But wait. Caffeine is a chemical anyway. So is Nicotine. (Of course the tobacco companies deny any addictive properties.) I wonder. If I were to contact the makers of Diet Pepsi and ask if their product is addictive... what would they say?

edited to add... put Diet Pepsi addiction into the search field on Google. Interesting reading. Lots of screaming rhetoric, which can be fun. Sift through it, though, and you may be as convinced as I am that diet sodas are a pretty bad thing to put into your body.