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Author Melissa Jagears |
I thought I’d co-write an article with my husband on
Overcoming With God since I wanted to highlight the struggle with addictions that
I’ve seen with my husband through the hero of A Bride at Last.
When we first met, my husband was a chain-smoking alcoholic.
He was a lot of other bad things too, but there was something about this blond
chick he worked with that made him decide to risk dying by bursting into flames
by crossing the threshold of a church. (Thankfully he decided to do that before
church started to spare the congregants seeing such a gory death, and
thankfully he didn’t actually burst into flames either.) And later when he
accepted Christ, the addiction to alcohol was gone immediately.
Whoa, wait a second. . . that’s not overcoming, that’s a
miracle. Yes, but the addiction to nicotine was left for him to struggle
through. His main motivation to give up smoking was for that same blond chick who
said she didn’t want to marry a smoker, so he traded one addiction for another,
cigarettes for nicotine gum. Then that newly married wife after a year of paying
for expensive gum said the budget couldn’t handle it any longer.
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Our first picture together in 2000. Without a doubt, he has some nicotine gum in one of those cheeks! |
Wanting to remain married….well, sort of, because that first
year of marriage is hard! :)….He slowly traded out the nicotine gum to chew
many, many packages of regular gum.
Plain gum is basically going cold turkey which is probably
the best way to begin putting an addiction behind you, but it’s also probably
best to take off of work because you’ll really want to kill people. Randomly
during the years following, the wife would ask him if he’d smoked, and he’d
always proudly reply ‘no.’
The wife was happy with the gum expense and the hubby was
trucking along when someone brought a can of vanilla Skoal to work. Having
chewed as a kid, being a sucker for vanilla, and having years of being off
nicotine under his belt, he thought taking one dip wouldn’t be a bad thing. By
the end of the day, he had his own can. And he wasn’t about to tell his wife.
And since she only occasionally asked if he smoked, he could still tell her the
truth when he answered, ‘no.”
And then the years of lying about needing candy bar cash at
work and sharpening people’s knives to get a little more untraceable money
began—and the weekend withdrawals at home …which got so bad that he’d hide cans
of chew out in the woods so when they fought, he could stomp off to the woods
and get a fix. Of course, during those years he blamed all the anger and
fallouts on his wife, not even realizing that his two days of withdrawals every
weekend were turning him into the
jerk. It was all his wife’s fault. Why was she being such a witch now? In order
to deal with his suddenly not-so-nice wife, he needed a chew to be able to deal
with her “calmly” yet he couldn’t let her know.
The evil of addiction convinced him the longer he stayed
addicted, that if his wife ever found out, she’d leave him. Some of the things
she said seemed to be downright mean (things she later convinced him she’d
never said), and he knew for sure she’d kick him to the curb once she found
out. He prayed God would do something to force him to come clean to his wife
and God answered by giving him a black spot on his lip. Having to get a
doctor’s appointment that he couldn’t hide from the wife forced him to come
clean. That night, his wife didn’t kick him to the curb, but rather helped him
research the best ways to quit. The best thing she found was an online
community of chewers wanting to quit called
Quit Smokeless where people who
understood the evil that addiction is banded together to quit. And strangely the
next day, his wife took him gun shopping ….what? She wasn’t packing him up and
throwing him out, but happily taking him shopping for something he’d wanted for
awhile because she was so relieved to find out he didn’t hate her?
She’d wondered for two years if he’d hated her and would be
leaving sometime soon since those withdrawal weekends had her dealing with a
very angry husband who didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near his family. She
was happy to find out that it wasn’t her, but the chemical mess in his head.
Those chemicals are evil, though he’s been fifteen years
quit of smoking and seven years quit of chewing, he still often dreams that he
has failed and wakes up in the morning disgusted with himself for caving and
believing he has to start quitting all over again. And then his coffee helps
him realize it was just a bad dream, a nightmare so real he can feel the desire
for more coursing through him. Every time he smells a cigar or sees someone
chew he wants ‘just one more.’ The
desire, according to most everyone he knows who’s quit, never goes away. But
every day is a little bit easier to say no.
Being a proud fellow, he didn’t pray as much as he should
have while quitting, but that is definitely something that helps. Surrounding
yourself with supportive family and Christians is good, but you really need to
find someone who understands, who can tell you about the nightmares, the never
ending temptations, the feelings you’ll have to battle. It’s essential to
commiserate with someone who understands and feels exactly like you do. Whether
that’s a personal relationship with someone or joining an online support group,
find someone who’s been there before.
He never would have been able to quit on his own. The desire
is far too strong. But though it is good to have the support of others, without
God, remaining quit would be even harder.
And now his wife occasionally
asks if he has smoked, chewed, snorted, shot up, huffed, and every other
variation of taking in a controlled substance she can think of to let him know
he can’t fudge the truth again.
CFP: Thanks Melissa and Ross for sharing! By our testimonies we overcome!!!
Giveaway: We're giving away a paperback copy of Melissa's latest novel,
A Bride at Last, this week and a copy of her novella, choice of ebook or paperback in Barbour's new anthology
The Convenient Bride Collection. Comment on any of the blog posts to enter. Also, each blog post counts individually (if you comment on each post you get three entries!)