Good morning EXer’s!!
I have to tell you a true story. This isn’t a cry for help. I’m fine. But a strange thing happened to me the other day. I was tense, irritable and just out of sorts for a good part of the day until I realized what the problem was. It was the addict within, sending me urges!
Now this may seem like a bad thing to some since I’m approaching three years of a good quit but the reality is that it’s not. And this is why. Once there was a time when urges would drive me nuts!
This time I felt the urges and didn’t understand what they were! Can you imagine that? After all of the days that I lived with these things. They were foreign to me. The thing that I fought against for so long was now a strange new thing.
Once I understood what was happening, I simply did what I always did as I walked the path to freedom. And it was gone! I was back, feeling the peace like I always do these days, I was having a strangely horrible day but you know what? When I realized what it was it brought a smile to my face for you see, some very valuable lessons were learned along with some observations.
First off, I realized that I had accomplished something that we all strive for. And that is a dissociation between the urges and the nicotine. What I found interesting was the fact that my mind still received the urge at all. And what was more interesting was my reaction to it. As an unidentified part of my mind that was influencing my day. A part that I learned so well in the past and then dismissed when it was no longer needed.
I never once had a desire to smoke during this day. The only way that I even realized what was going on inside of me came from something I always do when I’m a bit out of sorts. When I want to change my focus or the way I feel on a given day, I always look inside of myself and see what I can change to improve my day. This is because I believe that our world and the situations that we encounter in this world are not static. The circumstances we face in life might be out of our control but how we react to these events is certainly for us to decide.
And so, once I found the root of my problem, I was able to change that part of my thinking. I once again told the addict within that I’m aware of it’s presence and that the message was received. With this simple understanding, I not only changed the outcome of my day or at least the way I perceived the day and at the same time learned some very valuable lessons.
We can never forget how we win each and every day of our quits because there might just be one day when we need that knowledge. But we don’t have to dwell on the quit. We still can live a wonderful life of freedom for you see, there was never a desire within me to smoke. Not even a little glimmer of a thought. There was only the physical manifestation of what used to be an urge.
So I guess what I’m sharing here is that for me, I now know I’ve won not the battle but the actual war. Only I can change the events of my life and I know that one event that I’ll never allow to change in my world is to become a slave to tobacco again. I simply won’t let it happen!!
And so, armed with this new knowledge, I progress on in life more confident than ever in my ability to be master of my emotions. To be master of the addict within. To live my life happily free of the ball and chain of addiction.
And just think. Soon all of you will be here, where I am right now. Free of the slavery. Free of the desire to go back to that nasty world of addiction. Free to live life how we want to live it for you see, once we see the life of freedom and feel it for what it really is. Well, we just never have the slightest desire to return to that sad and addicted place that we once knew and knowing that brings a kind of internal peace that can never be shaken!
See you on the summit of Mt. Freedom!!!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
