Connected addiction

Addictions don't just live in isolated emotional spaces by themselves. They thrive by their connections to other addictive behaviors.

I need to stop drinking coffee.

Every time I do, later that night I get an amazing and powerful craving to smoke a cigarette.

Right now, I'm thinking, nay, wallowing about pawing through our neighbors' garbage, because they smoke and they might have thrown away a not-completely smoked cigarette which I could puff on.

I brew a damn fine cuppa coffee.

I buy green coffee beans from a local importer, and seeing as how I live in New Orleans which is the major place for all coffee imports, I get good stuff. And I'm aware of the roasting vs. character curve for any given bean as I roast them at home. Roasted coffee goes stale within a week, don't you know. So if you really love coffee, home roasting is the way to go.

But for some reason coffee caffeine and cigarettes are somehow inextricably intertwined in my brain chemistry. If I drink strong coffee, later that night I will need to sm0ke a cigarette.

I know that I get addictive behavior from both sides of my family. I'm a double addict, genetically speaking.

It doesn't help that I've caved a couple of times, and that the fairy tales my cravings are spinning are entirely correct. I *will* calm down and begin to think clearer if I smoke a cigarette. But, I also know that tobacco-suck moments of clarity are fairly fleeting, and that non-smoked moments of clarity last a lot longer.

Total bullshit, but necessary if I'd like to live a long while.

I just keep remembering Gunter smoking on Friends, "Oh, Dark Mother, once again I suckle at thy smoky teat!"

I'm an addict who will ALWAYS be an addict.

And I just need to manage that.