Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Do you smell smoke?

As many caregivers know, we have our ups and our downs, and some things that just make you want to rip your hair out. My brother, Bryan, has been smoking easily since he was about 13. I remember the arguments with my parents and the fact we just could not get him to stop stealing cigarettes, buying them from other kids that shouldn't have had them and so on. Now Bryan is 26 going on 27 in a few months, and I am trying the unthinkable, to get him to stop smoking. My dad was a smoker, my mom, stepdad, grandfather and myself are all smokers, and we know how difficult quitting can be.

Bryan has managed to turn a cigarette smoking addiction into what seems like none other than a heroin addiction. He scavenges the house looking for cigarette's, steals them from wherever he can find them, and even has stooped to smoking any cigarette butt he can get his hands on to the point of crawling underneath the porch on his hands and knees to find enough remnants for a puff.

With HD comes OCD, I wish his version was the kind that likes to do dishes and clean the floors, but instead he has the kind where he will wobble from one end of the house to the other and back, in and out every single door, breaking into vehicles and the shed to find nothing in general, unless he's on a mission for smokes. In any normal non-HD situation this would be mildly annoying, but in our household it has become the bane of my very existence. I am screamed at over cigarettes, "I HAVEN'T HAD ONE IN AN HOUR!!!" "GIVE THEM TO ME NOW!" "I NEED IT, I'LL DIE WITHOUT IT!" Both my mother and I get called every name in the book, which would be rude of me to list here. Not to mention he has been caught several times in the hospital while at HD Clinic in Albuquerque, smoking in the bathroom and being caught in several other areas of buildings smoking where he shouldn't be.

But, back to the struggles of being an HD caregiver. Bryan is not the only person with an addiction to cigarettes, and yes we're all smokers in this neck of the woods. If he can't then neither should I or any of us for that matter. With Bryan it is more than his smoking and frequent cigarette tantrums, it is the fact he smokes in the porch also that has us worried. He leaves lit cig's all over the porch, burning the wood, chairs and our plethora of animals. He has ruined every t-shirt and pair of pants he owns, not to mention he's burnt his face, hands, feet, arms, torso, and legs. We've contacted his PCM to try to get him some kind of prescription for the smoking cessation. A pill would be best, as with a patch I fear he would just pull it off when we aren't looking... Anyone else have to deal with this?

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