The Hardest Button to Button

I can't tell what's the harder drug; alcohol, or nicotine. I quit drinking alcohol three years and nine months ago and never looked back. I quit smoking when I was pregnant with Hayden 7 years ago (oh my GOD! Seven years???!) and did look back. I started again when Hayden was about 6 or 7 months old. I quit again a couple years after that, but it only lasted about a month. Then I quit again at the same time I got pregnant with Alex, and started AGAIN when he was a few months old. I really thought I had beat it that time. I really thought I would never smoke again......BUT, when you're a smoker, you deal with stress by smoking, and when you're not an ex-smoker, dealing with stress is complicated and weird and when something huge comes along like Cancer, you smoke. There's nothing else you can do to ease the emotions........except maybe alcohol. This is why I can't figure out which one's worse. Alcohol and I have a really REALLY bad relationship. Full of pain and heartache and abuse and its best that we just lead our separate lives but I can't help but long for it when I'm feeling the absolute shittiest. It was always there for me to comfort me when I was upset. Two faced, alcohol is. It claims to love you, to want nothing more than to make you feel great, to help you forget all your worries and your stress, and then when you're most vulnerable, it takes you over. Consuming your every thought and emotion until you're nothing but a zombie, a slave to the drink and everything it wants you to do. It makes you realize that everyone is wrong, that the world is out to get you, that it is your only friend. I don't know how I managed to get out of that relationship but I did. Landon is the most amazing person in the world. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have made it out. He helped me realize what Hayden and him meant to alcohol. Alcohol didn't care about them, it didn't care about me. It was using me, abusing me and my vulnerabilities, so I had to leave. It took a lot of work and a lot of courage, but I did it. Nicotine.......this one is MUCH more sneaky. Clinging to the stress. You don't even realize what its doing until its much too late. Smart sneaky seductive cigarettes. This is why I can't figure out which one's worse. Alcohol comes on strong and fast. Nicotine is slow, and sticky. It does such a good job that even after you've been away from each other for so long, you see it, and you want it. You smell it, and your heart races. It consumes your thoughts and cravings for eternity. You'll never be able to let it go. You love it. It loves you. Sure its going to kill you, but its out of love. It loves you so much that it doesn't want anyone else to have you. It craves you just as much as you crave it. It knows that once your a smoker, you're always a smoker. It knows you'll never forget what its done for you. It knows you'll never care how much it hurts during the bad times, just how wonderful it feels during the good times. It knows you'll always come back. That's why it never hurts you badly, just enough to make it exciting, to entice you to always want more. Fucking assholes all of them. And yet marijuana is bad?