hubby smoking since stopping drinking
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Join Date: Jan 2014
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hubby smoking since stopping drinking
Hello ... rAH (got his three month chip today at AA) is smoking. He's NEVER been a smoker. I am a staunch non-smoker (no offense to smokers out there) and it is something I really can't stand.
So after being home a couple of days he says "oh btw, I started smoking when I stopped drinking. I was smoking when I went to rehab and they weaned me off with some medication, but when I thought you were going to leave me I started smoking again. I am still smoking now" ... and yes he is because a pack of smokes costs about $8.00 and I see frequent purchases at convenience stores ... sigh ...
So it is MY fault that is smoking ... ummmmm ---- NO it is not MY fault. None of this is MY fault!!! Yes there may have been issues in our relationship -- obviously --- but I didn't make you drink and I didn't make you start smoking.
Anyways ... has anyone's partner ever done this? Just started smoking because they stopped drinking? I can't even think of kissing him (not that I likely would be kissing him even if he wasn't smoking - but that is another story) ... and I listen to him hacking every night with a nice chesty cough. It annoys me to no end.
Sigh ... just one more thing to not share with the kids ...
So after being home a couple of days he says "oh btw, I started smoking when I stopped drinking. I was smoking when I went to rehab and they weaned me off with some medication, but when I thought you were going to leave me I started smoking again. I am still smoking now" ... and yes he is because a pack of smokes costs about $8.00 and I see frequent purchases at convenience stores ... sigh ...
So it is MY fault that is smoking ... ummmmm ---- NO it is not MY fault. None of this is MY fault!!! Yes there may have been issues in our relationship -- obviously --- but I didn't make you drink and I didn't make you start smoking.
Anyways ... has anyone's partner ever done this? Just started smoking because they stopped drinking? I can't even think of kissing him (not that I likely would be kissing him even if he wasn't smoking - but that is another story) ... and I listen to him hacking every night with a nice chesty cough. It annoys me to no end.
Sigh ... just one more thing to not share with the kids ...
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: South Central USA
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Kd,
My husband has started smoking -- again. When I met him, his coffee table would be piled high with beer cans as well as his gigantic trash can from the college party the night before. He would sit on the couch with a wad of copenhagen in his lip while smoking a camel cig. What the heck was I thinking...good gravy! I should have known at that time he had addiction problems...geesh. I was such a blind little girl, 17 at the time. Where the crap were my parents???
So..now that he has picked up smoking, does it bother me? ABSOLUTELY. He hasn't smoked since college. But... My mother passed away from lung cancer two years ago thanksgiving and by the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had spread to most of her organs including her bones. For some reason she was so thankful it wasn't in her brain; i don't understand that. I cared for her in her home for 4 mo. while her body began to shut down, and I held her hand as she took her last breath. I'm really trying not to take this personal, but I would lie if I said im not taking it a wee bit personal. I fume when he acts like he is doing me a favor by taking my little tiny long haired chihuahua's out to the bathroom when really he just wants a smoke before bed, then stupidly flicks the butt on the lawn like Im not going to see it, or that Im not going to smell him. Maybe he figures I've been so ignorant about his drinking all of these years I won't notice this either.
ok.. deep breath..
My husband has started smoking -- again. When I met him, his coffee table would be piled high with beer cans as well as his gigantic trash can from the college party the night before. He would sit on the couch with a wad of copenhagen in his lip while smoking a camel cig. What the heck was I thinking...good gravy! I should have known at that time he had addiction problems...geesh. I was such a blind little girl, 17 at the time. Where the crap were my parents???
So..now that he has picked up smoking, does it bother me? ABSOLUTELY. He hasn't smoked since college. But... My mother passed away from lung cancer two years ago thanksgiving and by the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had spread to most of her organs including her bones. For some reason she was so thankful it wasn't in her brain; i don't understand that. I cared for her in her home for 4 mo. while her body began to shut down, and I held her hand as she took her last breath. I'm really trying not to take this personal, but I would lie if I said im not taking it a wee bit personal. I fume when he acts like he is doing me a favor by taking my little tiny long haired chihuahua's out to the bathroom when really he just wants a smoke before bed, then stupidly flicks the butt on the lawn like Im not going to see it, or that Im not going to smell him. Maybe he figures I've been so ignorant about his drinking all of these years I won't notice this either.
ok.. deep breath..
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: TX
Posts: 380
Not dismissing your feelings about the smoking, but I wish my (r)AH (gets his 12 month chip on Tuesday) would have been honest with me at about any thing at any time in the past year! So, if nothing else, cuddos to him for his honesty.
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 97
I can relate. After my husband went to OP he went on Wellbutrin to quit smoking, and was successful. Then a year and a half later he started smoking, then chew, then e-cigs-right around the time he relapsed. Then when he went to IP rehab they wouldn't let him use e-cigs b/c they are unregulated, and he swore he was quitting everything cold turkey, but I know he bummed chew while there. The day after he got home he bought a refillable e-cig. I found it VERY disheartening, because it made me feel like he was just trading 1 addiction for another.
BUT, I will say that they don't bother me near as much as regular cigarettes did (he's smoked off and on over the years). I don't like that I still see an "addiction" going on, or that he is spending money on it, but since I am trying to focus on me and let him focus on him and he is doing great with his recovery, and meetings/steps/therapy, I am letting it go. I also realize the health risks are unknown, but they do seem less harmful than actual smoke, and at least I don't have to put up with the stinky side effects.
I don't like it, but I didn't cause it, can't control it, and can't cure it
Hang in there!
BUT, I will say that they don't bother me near as much as regular cigarettes did (he's smoked off and on over the years). I don't like that I still see an "addiction" going on, or that he is spending money on it, but since I am trying to focus on me and let him focus on him and he is doing great with his recovery, and meetings/steps/therapy, I am letting it go. I also realize the health risks are unknown, but they do seem less harmful than actual smoke, and at least I don't have to put up with the stinky side effects.
I don't like it, but I didn't cause it, can't control it, and can't cure it
Hang in there!
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
My A concealed his smoking along w/his drinking. We both smoked when we met, and then about 6 months after we got married, he came home one day and said that a friend of his and the friend's wife were quitting smoking, and maybe we should, too. I said sure, let's go for it, and proceeded to quit while he pretended to quit. Over the next 17 years, I would occasionally find a pack of cigarettes, confront him and say "If you want to smoke, then just SMOKE, for f*** sake! Quit this stupid adolescent hiding s**t!" He would always say no, no, he really was going to quit this time, even going to the extent of patches, wellbutrin, etc. Then a couple of years later, I'd bust him again....just really, really stupid.
So now that he is in recovery for about 7 months (so far as I know), he has finally taken to smoking in front of me once in a while and recording expenditures for cigarettes in our budget book instead of sneaking cash out of the bank account. As another poster said, the waste, the expense, and the health issues certainly bother me, but it IS indeed his choice to make, to smoke or not.
The thing that bothers me most is that, to me, this shows just how deep his need to lie and conceal things goes. I am not at all convinced that I won't find out that there was even MORE going on that I never imagined--others here have posted about their A's addiction to porn, and at this point, I'd not be surprised that this is the next issue to crop up.
Smoking in and of itself? Nasty, dirty, unhealthy, expensive habit. Smoking and concealing it and lying about it over a period of nearly 20 years? As an adult? Symptoms of a deep, deep problem.
So now that he is in recovery for about 7 months (so far as I know), he has finally taken to smoking in front of me once in a while and recording expenditures for cigarettes in our budget book instead of sneaking cash out of the bank account. As another poster said, the waste, the expense, and the health issues certainly bother me, but it IS indeed his choice to make, to smoke or not.
The thing that bothers me most is that, to me, this shows just how deep his need to lie and conceal things goes. I am not at all convinced that I won't find out that there was even MORE going on that I never imagined--others here have posted about their A's addiction to porn, and at this point, I'd not be surprised that this is the next issue to crop up.
Smoking in and of itself? Nasty, dirty, unhealthy, expensive habit. Smoking and concealing it and lying about it over a period of nearly 20 years? As an adult? Symptoms of a deep, deep problem.
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Join Date: Dec 2008
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I don't know how common it is in numbers....but anecdotally, I would always see people out smoking in the parking lots of most Al-Anon meetings because they are held at the same time as the AA meetings in the same building.
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Midwest, USA
Posts: 2,899
I'm an off and on again smoker. It is gross and disrtuptive in a lot of ways. I get it.
Choosing between a non-smoking active alcoholic and a smoking sober husband, there was a time I would have happily taken my husband back as a sober smoker. Your mileage may vary, but that's just not the hill I would have chosen to die on.
When my AH fell off the wagon again, I started smoking again after over a year without. I loved not smoking! I was never going to go back! But as he was taking off for rehab #3, I was home with two kids, one of them a new baby, and so overwhelmed, I fell back on old habits. There was no explanation for it, it was just a compulsion. Smoke through the anxiety. There are a lot of reasons why people smoke -- it is a mood regulating drug after all.
Anyway, your husband is an adult, he's doing a legal if self-destructive thing, and it's up to you to decide how to want to live. If you don't want to be married to a smoker, you have some hard decisions to make.
Choosing between a non-smoking active alcoholic and a smoking sober husband, there was a time I would have happily taken my husband back as a sober smoker. Your mileage may vary, but that's just not the hill I would have chosen to die on.
When my AH fell off the wagon again, I started smoking again after over a year without. I loved not smoking! I was never going to go back! But as he was taking off for rehab #3, I was home with two kids, one of them a new baby, and so overwhelmed, I fell back on old habits. There was no explanation for it, it was just a compulsion. Smoke through the anxiety. There are a lot of reasons why people smoke -- it is a mood regulating drug after all.
Anyway, your husband is an adult, he's doing a legal if self-destructive thing, and it's up to you to decide how to want to live. If you don't want to be married to a smoker, you have some hard decisions to make.
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: TX
Posts: 380
Originally Posted by honeypig 
Over the next 17 years, I would occasionally find a pack of cigarettes, confront him and say "If you want to smoke, then just SMOKE, for f*** sake! Quit this stupid adolescent hiding s**t!" He would always say no, no, he really was going to quit this time, even going to the extent of patches, wellbutrin, etc. Then a couple of years later, I'd bust him again....just really, really stupid.
The thing that bothers me most is that, to me, this shows just how deep his need to lie and conceal things goes. I am not at all convinced that I won't find out that there was even MORE going on that I never imagined--others here have posted about their A's addiction to porn, and at this point, I'd not be surprised that this is the next issue to crop up.
The thing that bothers me most is that, to me, this shows just how deep his need to lie and conceal things goes. I am not at all convinced that I won't find out that there was even MORE going on that I never imagined--others here have posted about their A's addiction to porn, and at this point, I'd not be surprised that this is the next issue to crop up.
A few years ago rAH's father got lung cancer and passed away withing about 8 months. H decided he was quitting - Great! Way to go! He did and stuck to it for over a year.
We live in a rural subdivision and have tons of wildlife in and out of our back yard. For Christmas that year I had asked for a game cam so I could capture some of the going on's at the feeder. At that time we had a herd of deer of about 12 that came in the morning and evening. We had opossums, racoons, squirrels, rabbits and tons of migrating birds. Anyway, at one point I was transferring the pictures from the game cam to my computer - and lo and behold there is a picture of H smoking a cigarette. LOL. BUSTED! At the time, I thought it was funny, but really wish I had seen the writing on the wall at that time.
Who knows exactly how long he actually "quit" I guess he thought by hiding it from me and if I didn't know he wouldn't get cancer
Oh the insanity of the addict!
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when I thought you were going to leave me I started smoking again.
It sounds to me like a) he's blaming you for the fact that he's smoking instead of taking responsibility for his CHOICE to smoke. In a way, replacing one addiction with another. (Nicotine, btw, is a hell of a substance to quit. Trust me on that.) and b) that tells me that three month chip or not, he is not quite where he gets the taking responsibility for your choices/actions stuff.
I'm not saying "to be sober and recovering you can't smoke" -- hell, I only know one RA who didn't smoke like a flippin' chimney during rehab & first year of recovery -- but I'm saying the fact that he's laying the responsibility for his choosing to smoke at your feet, that would worry me. That's not good recovery talk.
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Join Date: Jan 2014
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Originally Posted by lillamy
I think that statement would bother me more than the smoking -- and I hate smoking.
It sounds to me like a) he's blaming you for the fact that he's smoking instead of taking responsibility for his CHOICE to smoke. In a way, replacing one addiction with another. (Nicotine, btw, is a hell of a substance to quit. Trust me on that.) and b) that tells me that three month chip or not, he is not quite where he gets the taking responsibility for your choices/actions stuff.
I'm not saying "to be sober and recovering you can't smoke" -- hell, I only know one RA who didn't smoke like a flippin' chimney during rehab & first year of recovery -- but I'm saying the fact that he's laying the responsibility for his choosing to smoke at your feet, that would worry me. That's not good recovery talk.
It sounds to me like a) he's blaming you for the fact that he's smoking instead of taking responsibility for his CHOICE to smoke. In a way, replacing one addiction with another. (Nicotine, btw, is a hell of a substance to quit. Trust me on that.) and b) that tells me that three month chip or not, he is not quite where he gets the taking responsibility for your choices/actions stuff.
I'm not saying "to be sober and recovering you can't smoke" -- hell, I only know one RA who didn't smoke like a flippin' chimney during rehab & first year of recovery -- but I'm saying the fact that he's laying the responsibility for his choosing to smoke at your feet, that would worry me. That's not good recovery talk.
He is very much a "woah is me" kind of guy ... he is having a wonderful pity party for himself. That just turns me the other way ... I can't build you up anymore. I have tried that route. I just feel completely detached.
It isn't the smoking that is making me think I can't do this relationship anymore ... this is a long time building throughout the years. I just feel worn out and done ... I feel tremendous guilt for feeling this way, but I am trying not to. Somehow the thought of getting out on my own with my girls excites me too ... I just don't want relationship issues to ruin his recovery for him kwim?
I am so confused and overwhelmed. There is so much on my plate lately.
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: TX
Posts: 380
Originally Posted by kdjom
Yes THAT statement BUGS me to no end!!! It is NOT my fault that he is smoking. He has never been a smoker before so why all of a sudden he'd turn to it, I have no idea! It sure won't help his blood pressure and all that!
He is very much a "woah is me" kind of guy ... he is having a wonderful pity party for himself. That just turns me the other way ... I can't build you up anymore. I have tried that route. I just feel completely detached.
It isn't the smoking that is making me think I can't do this relationship anymore ... this is a long time building throughout the years. I just feel worn out and done ... I feel tremendous guilt for feeling this way, but I am trying not to. Somehow the thought of getting out on my own with my girls excites me too ... I just don't want relationship issues to ruin his recovery for him kwim?
I am so confused and overwhelmed. There is so much on my plate lately.
He is very much a "woah is me" kind of guy ... he is having a wonderful pity party for himself. That just turns me the other way ... I can't build you up anymore. I have tried that route. I just feel completely detached.
It isn't the smoking that is making me think I can't do this relationship anymore ... this is a long time building throughout the years. I just feel worn out and done ... I feel tremendous guilt for feeling this way, but I am trying not to. Somehow the thought of getting out on my own with my girls excites me too ... I just don't want relationship issues to ruin his recovery for him kwim?
I am so confused and overwhelmed. There is so much on my plate lately.
Here is virtual hug (((kdjom))), sorry for my tears on your shoulder. I too am having a not so good day today either.
Oh, and the "woah is me" kind of guy - that has GOT to be an A trait. I too have lost all patience with it - OMG - you have a hurt hand/thumb. Deal with it. It is not broke, it is not swollen, yes, it will more than likely take a bit to heal BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO GO TO A FRICKIN HAND SPECIALIST THAT CARRIES A $1000 DEDUCTIBLE. I have carpel tunnel in both wrists. I am in pain every day. I have numbness in my fingers and shooting pain up my arm and into my elbows. My nerves are swollen and bulge at my wrist. They are like this every single day.
Sorry /rant off.
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