As I continue on the path of freedom, I find myself looking at others around me more. The thing is that almost all who I work and live with smoke. Some of these people I love dearly and at times it becomes difficult to watch. Not because it makes me want to smoke but rather because it’s almost like looking into a mirror of the past.
I see the addict for what he truly is exposed in the actions of others. I see the enslavement that smoking really is. I think like any addict we tend to ignore these things when we’re smoking simply because it reinforces our own addiction. Ignoring the fact of our addiction gives a strange kind of credibility to the addiction itself.
In my opinion we never really see these things until we seriously decide to quit. The addict keeps itself in the forefront convincing us that we’re doing just fine the way we are. This same addiction is what strikes fear in us when we even think of quitting. This is because when our addictions are in full swing there is a kind of power over us.
This is why I always treat my addiction as a separate entity from myself even though I realize that the war is with myself. But it makes it so much easier to see the addiction for what it is when we treat it as it’s own entity. Something that can be studied in a more realistic fashion. Something that can be conversed with.
In this way I find it quite easy to ask my addict questions such as why do you want to smoke. Why don’t you stop fighting this thing that we are going to do and so forth. I can study my addiction more in the fashion of seeing it from the outside looking in. This helps me to distinguish my addiction from the part of myself that wants to be free. It gives me the ability to question the addiction itself.
For me, this is something that helps me to make sense of the entire quit process. It helps me to free myself of myself enough to look at what’s really happening in my quit and how I can improve on what is already there.
But now I see my addict in others as well. Every time they must stop working and go outside to feed their addictions, I see the addiction. Every time others get irritable because they can’t smoke, I see the addiction. Every time I see them stop and pay all that money for a pack of cigarettes, I see the addiction.
And so I continue on, happy with the fact that I am becoming free of my own addiction. I remain dedicated to my quit and will never give that part of myself that I call my internal addict the power over me that it once had.
Why would I? That would mean a lack of freedom now wouldn’t it?
