So much has gone through my mind since that first day I quit. It’s just kind of the way I am. I reflect on things endlessly, trying to understand and when I can’t understand then I try to make peace with it, whatever it is that I’m thinking about.
Quitting smoking really does open some unique doors in our lives if we look for them. We find ourselves dreading a given day or event simply because we know it will create those urges and to us it’s uncomfortable at the very least. At times we try to avoid those situations until we can trust ourselves just enough to get by without relapsing.
This is indeed a decent method and I would always recommend staying away from the things that might make us smoke at first but the bottom line is that we will sooner or later have to face these situations and most likely feel the discomfort of those urges. I guess this is just another part of the quit process. We have to live through every aspect that we built our addiction on before we can really be free.
But to me, the freedom comes in degrees. It begins the first time we put out our last cigarette. In a way, this is the moment that we free ourselves from the control that cigarettes had over us. It’s by no means over and it’s hard to see this wonderful freedom at first but it’s there. Every time we say no when we would have normally had a cigarette we become free. Thing is, this allows us a lot of free time that we never had before. To me it's important to fill our minds with other things besides the quit because when we dwell on the quit, the quit becomes harder simply because we’re thinking about the discomforts of it.
But once we get through the first couple of weeks we begin to hear what I call the whispers of life. This is the days of acceptance. The days when we begin to believe that we really might be able to pull this monumental task of quitting off. We might truly realize our freedom.
We gain confidence from the very act of creating our new world without cigarettes and each day that we remain true to ourselves we become more and more confident. As our minds calm we begin to find time to take stock of what we’ve achieved so far. The mind begins whispering all of the positive things that we’re accomplishing to us. We begin to dare to look ahead and see a brighter future. And more importantly, we begin to believe in that future.
And so the more we believe in ourselves, the louder that whisper becomes. Soon the whispers of life becomes louder then the sweet lies of our addiction. Our minds at last begin focusing on what we’re gaining rather then focusing on the lies that tell us everything that we’re loosing. For me when this happened it felt like a tipping point in my quit. This was the moment of acceptance and once again a new level of freedom.
No more was I dwelling on the loss. No, instead I was staring straight ahead into the light of my future. I was seeing it in ways I’d never seen it before. I gained a new perspective and lost my fear of quitting once and for all.
So though the road may seem hard and endless at first, it’s important to realize that every day is a building block on the next. Every day brings you closer to the day that we all dream of. Every moment that we can not only hear but believe in the whispers of life brings us closer to our freedom. It brings us closer to the end of the torture of addiction.
So if you can, I would try to listen to that whisper, grab hold of it and bring it to the forefront of your mind where it can grow so loud that it actually drowns out the screaming addict that is within all of us. The whispers are simply the sound of your new future which really will be wonderful and though there’s a part of the mind that doesn’t want to see it. Though a part of us cannot even fathom life without cigarettes at first. If we can just grab onto that positive future and believe that this is our reality then we can all reach that tipping point in our quits. We can all face the reality that yes, we are indeed going to succeed. This is the beauty of what we’re trying to achieve here.
So when your down. When you feel like giving up. There’s two things that I would do. First, I would come here and seek out others who understand what your going through. And secondly I would try to find that whisper that you know is there. The one that knows that what your doing is the right thing. The one that sees that wonderful future without cigarettes in it. The one that opens your eyes to the belief that it isn’t so bad. It’s just a little rough patch. The one that knows that all of the hardships you must face now will one day be nothing but a memory . . .
