REPOST By Troutnut 1.   Date Approx. July 2018

17 years quit: “What advice do you offer a brand-new quitter?”  17 years quit smoking today!  I guess I’m a slow learner...

It took me 31 years to stop drinking and 34 years to stop smoking. I was pretty good at both addictions. And eventually it became a race to see which would kill me first. I think the sickarettes would have won because they seem to be the more efficient killer. And I instinctively recognized smoking as the more dangerous activity.  But try as I might, I could not quit smoking without quitting drinking.  The alcohol always led me right back to relapse. Long story short, I was either born without a “moderator”, or the one I was given was defective.

By 14 I figured out that if 1 is good 2 is better!   The rule of my life has always been that if a little bit of something is good, a LOT of it must be a whole lot better. So if 2 are better than 1, what will 5 do?  If there was a pill that allowed us to not smoke or drink, I would take TEN of them so I could smoke and drink more.  Then I’d probably start figuring out how I could smoke, snort, drink, or inject the pills. I guess you could say I have a very addictive personality.

By 1998 I was broke and broken. Three plus decades of smoking and drinking had taken its toll and I was losing everything including my health. I found my way into my first AA meeting two days after I had my last drink on 11/21/1998. I quit smoking that day too, but relapsed several months later on smoking. But kept my sobriety. A wonderful AA sponsor with a sobriety date of 11/11/1960 adopted me and turned me into his project.

Three meetings plus a week followed in addiction to probably 6 hours a week parking lot time with my wise sponsor. I learned everything I needed to remain sober.  My health started to return.  My relationship with Mrs. Troutnut healed.   I found a good job.   I had savings for the first time in my life.   I quit smoking for good 2/28/2001.  I gradually paid off all of my bills.   I made amends to my parents financially and otherwise.  I took on other people struggling with alcohol as sponsees.   I started taking the message of sobriety into jail and prison.  And I shared the quitting message with my new friends at Quitnet. Quitting alcohol was the game changer for me. It allowed lots of things good to happen…

I learned everything I could about addiction. I learned that it is a primary, chronic, and terminal disease. Primary means it is not the result on some other disease. It is a disease all onto itself. Chronic means it is incurable. I will always be an alcoholic and an addict of the drug nicotine. And we all know what terminal means. BUT, (and this is HUGE) I don’t have to ever take another drink again or take that FIRST puff of nicotine again if I don’t want to). I learned about “comorbidity”, which is a fancy way to say that both alcohol and nicotine had ganged up on me to try and take me out. Either the drug alcohol, or the smoking, would have eventually killed me if something else didn’t just happen to kill me first. Luckily for me, I also learned about the Law Of Addiction. This law simply states that re-administration of the drug of choice, in any form, in any amount, causes instant re-addiction in the brain of an addict.

There is no such thing as “just one” for someone like me. And just as importantly, I acquired tools. Tools I had never received for some reason earlier. I left my playground thinking and moved into responsible adult behavior.  Better at 45 than never I guess, but most people get there by age 21. These “tools” allowed me to live well enough that I finally lost the need to make it all go away with drugs like alcohol and nicotine.

My life is great enough today that I don’t want or need to make it go away anymore.   I’d rather extend my life for as long as possible! What a great adventure! And I almost missed it entirely.  Statistically, I should be dead.  But I’m grateful that I’m not.  I’m glad too that you are all along with me. I sure couldn’t have done it without you.

I’m glad if I have been able to help in some way by sharing my journey with you.  Stay away from that FIRST puff, one day at a time, and it is physically impossible to fail!  Stay away from that FIRST puff, just for today, and you are absolutely, positively, 100% guaranteed to go to bed a WINNER tonight!

Your friend in Montana Troutnut1-dennis