Good morning Exer’s!
I hope all is well with you in life and with your quit! When the idea of actually quitting pops into our heads, I think we all reject that thought at first. We look for reasons to continue smoking rather then look for reasons not to. This in itself should tell us a little about what will happen when we first quit. After all, our minds have been conditioned to smoke and we have convinced ourselves that we enjoy it even when this very thing makes no sense. Even when we realize that we’re committing a slow suicide, we can’t seem to shake the fact that we still think it’s O.K. to smoke.
This would be the deception that our minds try to believe even when that very belief is irrational. This is the face of addiction. This is what must be ripped from our minds in order to win. And part of the problem is those darned withdrawals! This adds fuel to an already confused mind. This is why those first hours and days are so crucial. Because we have to begin learning that we have been deceiving ourselves and we have to learn to take that deception and turn it into something more harmonious. And our minds just want to rebel at first. Our minds want to continue believing all the excuses that we used all those years to smoke.
There’s no way around those first hard days. I think during those first days that we concentrate simply on not smoking. This is really how it has to be and yet this is when many lose their resolve and then their quits. I remember my mind actually trying to rationalize smoking. Trying to look at what’s missing. Trying to find ways to say it was alright to smoke. And during this time it’s so easy to believe these deceptions simply because it’s easier to cave then it is to keep fighting. The brain is demanding all those dangerous chemicals because over the years it’s been trained to like them.
This is when we must use the rational part of our minds to fight off the irrational urges that an addicted mind creates. I think there’s a part of the mind that doesn’t really know right from wrong. And then there’s the part that does. The problem is that the part of the brain that sends us the signal to smoke is the part that reacts only to stimulus. That stimulus being nicotine of course. We have to teach that part of the mind that it’s perception is wrong and secondly we have to tell it that we can’t smoke anymore.
This set’s up an internal conflict that I always thought of as the addict within. I labeled this other part of my mind in order to clarify to myself that there really is an internal conflict when it comes to addiction. This allowed me to directly speak to that part of the brain that controlled my addiction and thereby created my discomfort. By visualizing another entity it clarified the internal conflict that was going on inside myself and then gave me something to directly say no to.
I can’t say that this works for everyone but it was something that helped me to understand my own conflict. To me, my quit became a battle between myself and this screaming child that was my actual addiction. And this visualization helped me to "teach" this child (or spoiled brat would be more like it!).
So really it doesn’t matter how a person goes about understanding addiction. What really matters is that you first understand that you are an addict and second that you intend to destroy your addiction.
The power to win is within all of us. All we have to do is have a burning desire to be free of the addict within. A desire to see life as one who is no longer enslaved. A desire to feel better both physically and mentally. A desire to see our loved ones grow old and to grow old with those who are closest to us. This is where it all starts. By resolving that internal conflict.
So though there may be a lot to do at first, but it’s time well spent because there can be nothing more beautiful then freedom!!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!
Chuck
