Action for the Day

Today, I'll help out. I will make coffee at the next meeting or offer to do service next week. I will let a fellow addict know I'm glad he or she is sober.

News Item of the Day
An article titled Sober Talk: Alcohol and Nicotine — an Addictive Link by Kathleen M. Blair in today's Ithaca Journal says:

Why are tobacco and alcohol co-use so common? Both are legally available and easily obtained. Recent research also suggests that common genetic factors may make people more vulnerable to both alcohol and tobacco addiction. Consuming alcohol and tobacco increases the pleasure users experience from either drug alone. Nicotine has been found to increase the craving for alcohol; the number of cigarettes a person consumes rises in tandem with the number of drinks consumed. Smoking is also a behavioral trigger for drinking....

Smoking cessation does not cause abstinent alcoholics to relapse, but may actually decrease the likelihood of relapse, since nicotine is both a behavioral and biochemical trigger for alcohol use....

Any smoker will tell you tobacco use is expensive. In one year, the cumulative tax alone for someone smoking a pack a day ($2.75 x 365 days) amounts to $1,003.75. That's a lot of gas, groceries, movies, dinners, etc. When combined with the cost of 365 packs of cigarettes, it could help finance a vacation. It costs in other ways too, not just in health care expenses, but in life insurance premiums. According to the Consumer Federation of America, a smoker pays twice the price a non-smoker pays for life insurance.

Take a moment and evaluate what it really costs you to light up. If you are in recovery, consider talking to your health professional about options for quitting.