They're right PJM. The fear will fade. I dipped in the car on the ride home from my biopsy.........both times. Sean Marsee the 18 yr old dying of cancer kept chewing after they had removed half of his face. I've read posts where others have kept demanding chew through the haze of morphine strong enough to make them almost unconscious. Even on their death beds, nicotine addiction has a grip.
This isn't about fear. It is about addiction. Your a doctor, your going to hate the next thing I tell you.
"The only difference between you and a heroin addict is your choice of drugs"
The behaviors that circle around the substance are the same on all accounts. The sneaking, the lying, the justifications for using, the rationalizations to yourself and to others. Your an addict in the ugliest sense of the word.
That being said, your in the right place. But don't chase the wrong rabbit Alice. Using fear may be a good start but this is about choice. You choose to be quit, and you live with that decision. It's that simple.
You can't choose it FOR your wife as a surprise or a present, when shit gets hard you'll resent her for it, and you'll cave. YOU have to make this decision, and it has to be for YOU and YOU alone.
I read a great post the other day about being selfish. I think it was in Words of Wisdom. The jist of it was that we have earned the right to watch our kids grow up, to grow old with our loves. To live our lives. To be selfish and want to suck all the good stuff out of life.
Quitting a substance that is essentially a prolonged suicide ending in death by living autopsy over a period of months is infact selfish, but in a good way. I want you to be selfish, I want you to live long without an addiction hanging over your neck like a anchor. Get mad , make the decsion. Quit.
sm