How I Moved On From A Toxic Addiction To A Healthy Relationship | Prologue

As humans, it is common for us to stick to patterns that we apply in our daily lives. However, some of these patterns may not be beneficial for our health or our relationships. Sometimes, it may seem like everything is hopeless and we just accept that these are habits that we will just live with for the rest of our lives. In spite of that, there is always hope.

We all know that addiction is never good. Nevertheless, it doesn't always have to lead us into a dark path. In my experience, I was able to turn my addiction into a very healthy relationship with my partner. It wasn't very complicated when I think about it now and it was even fun doing it over the years. Before I tell you how you can overcome your addiction and have fun in the process, I think it's best to tell you my own story.

I came from a very conservative Catholic school when I was in high school. In college, I went into a very liberal school and that is where my eyes were opened to the different vices that I thought I would never do.

When I was in college, some of my college friends, and even some that I knew from high school slowly learned how to smoke. It wasn't really new to me because there were some in my family who also used to smoke. However, it was also the time when I was exploring things like drinking. Eventually, my smoking turned from occasional into a habit. I started from just trying it out to buying my own packs of cigarettes. I even tried buying different brands and flavors. This wasn't really a problem for me during that time. I didn't have any problems with my health since I had a very active lifestyle and I was playing a lot of sports.

When I graduated college, I started working while keeping the habit of smoking. I was already hooked. The worse part is that I could no longer keep my old active lifestyle since I had less free time. Adulting, am I right? Regardless, the urge to smoke was even worse. Because I was already working, I was also more prone to stress and once I felt stressed, I smoked more. It became a vicious cycle. I eventually gained weight. Of course other factors contributed but since I was smoking a lot more, I was also losing my breath more even in the simplest tasks.

My partner and I started dating when I was already working as a Systems Engineer for a document solutions company. She knew that I smoked and it wasn't a problem for her in the beginning. Because of her, I also started to go back to being active by jogging. That was also when I realized that I didn't have the stamina I used to have when I was in college. Thus, I acknowledged that something had to change. After that, my partner and I started a plan to slowly but surely get rid of that bad habit.

If you want to get the TLDR version of this guide, you can get it for less than a pack of cigarettes here. Otherwise, I will describe the steps on the next post.

Thanks for reading my story. I hope you have a good day and see you in the next post!