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Unofficial History Regina’s story-unofficialnicanon and me
DIR By: chairperson
Date: March 24, 2019, 8:20 pm
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March 2005 Seven Minutes Newsletter
I grew up with strict parents and it was this fear and
loneliness that started me onto a life of addiction. I was not
popular, I was not pretty, and so I clung to the fact that my
life would always be filled with pain and loneliness. At
thirteen I had started taking sips of beer and by sixteen I was
drinking full beers at a friend’s house.
Well, that was the beginning of self-medication and a whole
different story. However, that is when it hit me. I knew if I
started smoking my peers would see me different I would be cool,
accepted and part of something. So I practiced smoking in the
basement. It was easy be-cause both my parents smoked and
cartons were always around. I could take a pack and they would
never know. Learn-ing to smoke definitely was not easy. I
coughed, choked, and of course, there was learning to hold that
cigarette just the right way. I had to look cool with it. Pain
continued in my life and, so of course, so did the smoking.
Finally in 1980 I started to get involved with a church. I
always had a deep longing for some kind of spirituality, longing
for peacefulness, without pain. It was with this group of people
where I learned I was hurting myself with the smoking and that
God wanted me to quit.
In 1983 I decided it was time. I woke up, drank my coffee and
opened my bible. All day I read and somehow or another I made it
through that first twenty-four hours. I felt I needed to test
that though, and so I went outside to the garage and asked my
husband for a puff. He fought me a bit, but gave in. I took one
puff, said okay and walked away. That was my first experience
smoke free and it lasted four and one half years. I have to say;
they were also the best years I have known, living without
cigarettes.
The problem I had though was that I had no real support. I never
heard of Nicotine Anonymous and most of the friends at church
really would not speak of their experiences of daily living and
how hard it could be. Without that, I found myself completely
alone.
I was losing my spirituality with all the daily stresses in my
life. One day my ex-husband called. We fought on the phone and
that was it. I dropped the phone and picked up my husband’s
cigarette ling in the ashtray. One puff, two puffs, and there it
was, the start of going back to the only thing I knew to relieve
the pain. Certainly, I did not go back to two packs a day right
away. And yes, I did try to stop in-between, but it was
impossible. I could no longer deal with every day stress. From
then on, it seemed like issues became mountains and I could no
longer hold back from continually smoking.
In 1997 I started learning about newsgroups and found a quit
smoking group. I joined and I posted, a lot. I tried to quit
over and over again, but although they were nice people, they
were also judgmental. Every time someone relapsed they were
disappointed. And finally I lost all hope. One of the men there,
Ben F, suggested I find a Nicotine Anonymous meeting. He said,
if all else fails, this would work. I laughed because Nicotine
Anonymous, in my book, was a joke. Addict? Cigarettes? Come on.
A month went by and my attempts to quit still were not working.
My association with the group was dwindling.
I decided then that I would at least look on the web and see
what this group was about. When I found the website, I learned
more just in one day then I ever did in that newsgroup. Then it
hit me. They talked about spirituality, they talked about
acceptance, pain, support and we. What a concept. I found no
meetings close enough. With panic at-tacks, I could not drive an
hour to get to a meeting. So I wrote and received their pen-pal
list. One of them was a person named Eileen. Still that did not
seem enough. So I sought out people on the Net that were part of
Nicotine Anonymous. One such person was Gina F. It was through
her that I found the door open for fellowship in this program.
Gina and I talked sometimes on ICQ, which is a chat program. She
knew I had this need to be around NicA people and I told her I
thought about opening up a group online so I could get some NicA
people together. I also knew that I would learn lots about the
program if I stood close to them. She told me of a person who
also wanted to start a group. This person was already involved
on AOL, but wanted more. The problem with AOL is that it’s not
open to anyone except AOL members. So I started the
unofficialnicanon group on Yahoo, August of 1999.
It was unofficial because I felt it was not really part of NicA.
Then Gina introduced me through email to Susan K. We hit it off
immediately. We had a few members in the group already and Susan
who was completely computer illiterate, took months to find her
way into the group. How-ever, once she got there, things started
to fly. Our friendship grew and I admired the fact that she was
approximately eight months free of nicotine. She didn’t judge me
for smoking, she accepted me, and shared her story and life with
me. We started meetings, which she had little experience with,
and I had none. However, that did not stop us. Finally Jim L.
talked to us about getting meetings registered. Whoa, what a
concept and so scary. Susan and I agreed to try. We emailed
Martha and that was the beginning of a future for Nicotine
Anonymous and online groups. It took a lot of work, not just on
our part, but for Nicotine Anonymous also.
Lots of things needed considering: lots of acceptance on both
our parts. This was something new. Change is not easy for an
addict and that was what was happening. We went through tears,
hard work, battling personal addictions and through that I
learned to love this program and how it worked.
Becoming registered meant we had to clean things up, we had to
learn to run meetings properly. Zulma from AOL came in and
helped us to learn the suggested format. At first we typed
everything out. But slowly we learned tricks, like copy and
paste. That helped because typing it all out took too long and
that meant sharing was limited.
Then we had to decide when to have meetings. Being on-line we
have people from all over the world, so time differences came
into play. And we felt one meeting was not enough so we made
sure there was a meeting every day except for Tuesday and
Sunday. November 1999 we received our numbers from NAWSO for
each of our six meetings. It was a big day. The following year
at the NicA World Conference, several members logged onto their
computers and came to one of our meetings. That was a beginning
of feeling part of this program.
From there we have grown. We have over 1500 members, who come
and go and many who are nicotine free. I don’t know the exact
number on that, however, even the old timers, who had to leave,
come back from time and time to share their stories.
Growing does not happen without pain. With so many members and
personalities, there have been times when resentments came into
play. Most of the time, Tradition Twelve, (Anonymity is the
spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to
place principles before personalities) came into play. Our group
is very tradition minded. We hold fast to it because traditions
are what keep this group in unity. The very reason it has lasted
this long. Last year this group with so many personalities
working together had a difficult time. I’ve heard that many a
group, splits over resentments.
..., unofficialnicanon meetings are mostly typed. Along with
that we have added Yahoo Conference Meetings for Mac Users
because they could not get into our regular meetings...
With technology on our side, we surely are being able to leave
no stone unturned in helping the nicotine addict who still
suffers.
I have stayed in this group for almost six years now with a lot
of pain, growing, and even running away at times. For me the
service work has been great, but through all that, too much
service work can take away from why you are there, and that
certainly happened to me. This year I found a wonderful sponsor
who quit nicotine in Unofficialnicanon. I have grown so much
these past few months, learning to balance service work and my
recovery. Although I am not quit yet, with the grace of my HP I
am very hopeful I will be quit in the very near future. I think
the whole point is, that I am not giving up. If I can keep on
trying no matter how long it takes, I know HP will not let all
that go to waste. There is hope. Thank you Nicotine Anonymous
for giving me this hope.
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