Good morning,
When we make that all important decision to quit, the first thing felt is a kind of fear. And that fear translates into a fear of the unknown. It’s because we know that the experience of losing an addiction is going to be unpleasant and as much as we want our freedom we still question that we should take the steps to get there. We still wonder if we have it in us to defeat an enemy that is in reality ourselves.
This even seems to manifest after we’ve managed our quit for a while. For me there was a simple solution to this. I first of all began looking to my future. Not just a week from now but a year from now. I started seeing myself in the world without cigarettes. What amazed me was how hard this was at first.
It proved to me just how deep the shackles of addiction had attached themselves to me. Every thought seemed to have cigarettes in them. Was I alarmed at this discovery? A little. But at the same time I did learn something that I knew would help me to understand my addiction. Just how deep that addiction was.
Still, I continued my visualization exercise and slowly I could see myself after dinner, standing on my deck and looking up at those wonderful mountains while never inhaling anything but the crisp mountain air. I saw myself at work, enjoying the peace that comes with no addiction. I saw myself driving without a cigarette and in fact this became one of the first things I did during my preparations to quit. I quit smoking while driving.
This added a sense of reality to my vision of a smoke free life. Before long, I was excited rather then scared as my quit date approached. By the time I put out my last cigarette, I not only knew that it would be my last cigarette but I no longer had any fear of what I was about to do.
And as the first days of the quit began rolling by, my smoke free vision was once again reinforced because at last there really was no cigarette in my life. My vision was becoming a reality. All I had to do was keep thinking of Mt. Freedom, the addict within and my vision of my smoke free life.
Quitting is a very personal thing I think, and as such there are thousands of ways to quit and the only wrong way is the way that doesn’t work. I simply offer this message as yet another thing that worked for me.
But no matter what, so long as we can dream it we can be it!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!
Chuck
