My Story: Why Can’t I Change?

Back in Wisconsin, I had a lot of justifications for why I smoked. So I didn’t always feel very conflicted about it. I was pretty unhappy with a lot of things in my life and smoking seemed to make them… tolerable. 

When we moved to Austin, I couldn’t complain anymore about the harsh winters, living in the country, and not having friends. And then I started yoga. It wasn’t just that yoga helped me feel good physically. It was also the yoga community that I was welcomed into. They were supportive and uplifting. I was inspired by the people there trying to make positive changes in their life. 

Now when I smoked, I felt conflicted about it. I knew I wanted to quit, but I just couldn’t do it. And, to be clear, sometimes I was the one that brought the weed home. I was doing this even though I didn’t want to be doing it. And it was eating away at me. I felt so hopeless. I couldn’t change and I didn’t understand why. 

So this one time we quit after a months-long smoking binge, I experienced the worst withdrawal I had ever gone through. Finally, I said, “Enough! I’m quitting for good.”  I told my husband and he said, “Ok. But I’m not ready to quit for good. I don’t want to be smoking all the time, but to say I’m never going to smoke again? I’m just not there yet.”

And I didn’t accept that. 

Our Epic Fight

We fought about this for 6 months straight. Now, we’ve fought a lot in our relationship. But, this was different.  

In other fights, we always reconciled and apologized, even if we ended up fighting about the same thing a few months later. There was at least some attempt to make peace. 

That wasn’t happening here at all.  And it shook me. All of a sudden, my best friend, my life partner, the one who had been supporting me all these years, and I him, felt like my enemy.

The thing I wasn’t seeing was that he wasn’t going through the same changes I was. He wasn’t a part of a supportive community like I had at Breath and Body Yoga. He didn’t have the same experience with yoga that I did. And he also didn’t have a trauma in childhood like I did, either.

But I was so set on being right, that I was blind to all of those things.

The Peace Treaty

Eventually, I started to see it.  I slowly learned to let go. I finally realized that my sobriety couldn’t be dependent on his. And that he loved me even though he wasn’t feeling the same way about quitting for good as I was. 

So we came up with some rules and boundaries where he could leave the door open while I kept it shut. We at least tried to come to a compromise so we could bring peace back into the house. 

Into the Light

There were two major things that came into the light because of this argument. One was my codependency. The other was that I had no coping skills. 

• Codependency  

I was saying – I want to quit for good, and for me to do that – you need to quit for good, too. Because I can’t, unless you do. And then I was taking it personally that he wouldn’t just agree with me. I was also trying to control a situation that was outside of my control. 

This was just making everyone miserable. It was straining our relationship. Especially the hurtful things I said in anger during all those fights. Eventually I saw that it wasn’t about being right. And I accepted that my timeline was different than his. It took feeling my foundation crumbling underneath me to get there.

• No Coping Skills

As you can imagine this was a hugely emotional and intensely stressful time. And I didn’t have weed to calm me down, help me sleep, or take the edge off. So I started smoking cigarettes again. I quit smoking 6 years ago. Quitting nicotine is one of the hardest things to do! So I was beating myself up saying, “What are you doing?!” Even as I was doing it. 

I also started secretly drinking. I would buy those little boxed wines and drink them at the end of my street, come home, and brush my teeth for 10 minutes to try and cover it up.  Nobody had to tell me I wasn’t in a good place. The whole time I was like, “What is wrong with me?!” I want to live in a healthy way, do yoga, and enjoy my life! Instead, I’m doing these things that I don’t want to be doing. And I can’t stop. 

But, Why?

If you haven’t been through this you may be thinking, “Why are you buying cigarettes? They’re expensive and horrible for you! If you’re stressed, take a walk instead!” 

This was all I knew. The only way I knew to cope was by using substances that gave me instant gratification. And it was leaving me feeling hopeless because I didn’t want to do them, but I couldn’t stop myself. And I didn’t understand why. 

The Pit of Despair

I went almost a full year before I started smoking again. It was inevitable. Without knowing how to handle stress and anxiety, I had just turned from one substance to another. So it was just a matter of time before I was going to go back to smoking. I became so depressed. The longer I went where I was doing what I didn’t want to be doing, the more I felt helpless to change. 

So I would sit outside on my back porch chain smoking cigarettes for hours. I had so little motivation. I’d go back in the house, get a little done, and be back outside smoking. I was super stuck. If I was in a rut in Wisconsin, then now I was in the deepest pit I had ever been in my life. My husband tried to help and talk to me. When he realized he couldn’t get me out of my funk, he suggested I go see a therapist. At first, I was defensive. 

It’s all in my Mind

You see, while I was sitting outside chain smoking, my mind was going a million miles a minute. And I felt like I was making progress, by thinking and putting things together in my mind. So I would get defensive and say, “I am doing something!” All that thinking and ruminating was exhausting. But to anyone outside of my own mind, it just looked like I was staring into space. 

So he would back off. And then it would get to a point he just couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t take seeing me so down. So he would again ask, or gently suggest, I go talk to someone.  Sometimes I would agree that I needed help. But it still took me months to finally make the call to go see a therapist.  

Better Days Ahead

And that’s where I’m going to end the story for this episode. But I’ve got one more thing to say. 

These last couple of years I just described, where I kept doing what I didn’t want to be doing, brought me to a level of hopelessness that I had never experienced before. But it’s not where I stayed, and it’s not where I am now. 

I just wanted to leave you with a sense of hope. Wherever you are in your story, this can be true for you, too. Sometimes we are in the thick of it. And it feels like we’ll never get out. Even though our timelines are different, healing is possible. 

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