Good morning EXer’s!!
I hope all is well with you as you continue your climb on the path to freedom. There’s a lot to sticking to the path. And somehow the path can seem so hard to follow because our clouded and addicted minds want so badly to stray from the path at times.
The addict within whispering sweet little lies in our ears like, “One puff couldn’t hurt anything. Come on. Just for old times sake.” or perhaps, “This stressful situation we’re in requires a little nicotine to make it easier. After all, it’s alway worked before now hasn’t it? Remember how much calmer you were in these situations when you smoke?”
At times the whisper can seem like our minds are shouting these things at us. Compound that with the fact that we’re learning a new lifestyle and I could see how some could be tempted to stray from the road of life. Thing is, it’s up to us to decide what actions we take in those weak moments when the addict within seems to be speaking the loudest.
First off, we know the words of our addictions are based in lies. You see, they have to be because it makes no sense for it to be otherwise. Over the years while we calmly fed our addictions the nicotine that it needed, we also had to justify to ourselves why we continue to slowly kill ourselves.
As such I think we invent different ways to look at our smoking and at the same time, we continue to train the innermost parts of our minds to accept the addiction as something it is not. I mean really, the body rejects the noxious smoke the first time we ever try it. In most cases the body rejects it violently and yet we continued to train ourselves that it was a pleasure anyway. You see? The first day we ever smoke we’re forced to lie to ourselves in order to keep doing it.
So what makes us smoke that second cigarette when the body so violently rejected the first one? If we could find the answer to that one question then I think we would know the very foundation of our addictions because at the moment that we smoked our second cigarette, we have to lie to ourselves again. We have to invent a reason why that second cigarette is more important to our minds than the reality of a slow, lingering death that we do to ourselves.
In my case I think it was rooted in insecurity. I’m not horribly insecure but there was enough of it there to get me to smoke that second cigarette. To join the club of the addicted willingly because somehow I convinced myself that this one stupid act would give me the security I needed to achieve a happier and more confident life.
Now how could this make any sense at all? The reality is that it doesn’t. But that’s the root of addiction. A compulsion in the mind that has no basis in rational thought and yet has the ability to get the body to do something that in the end harms it.
And once we take that first step. Once we create the idea within our minds that it’s OK to smoke then the addiction begins to ratchet up a notch. Once we surrender to our addictions then we begin feeding the addiction and in a very limited amount of time, the body begins to demand that nicotine fix as we train our receptors to find the stimulus pleasurable.
We have to continue to lie to ourselves so what we do is find reasons why smoking is a better option than never smoking in the first place. I think our pleasure centers begin to respond to certain stimulus throughout the day. This creates our triggers. But I think it’s our own minds that make our craves so intense.
To me, the cravings are a physical manifestation of the addiction that we ourselves add power to by our thinking whenever we get one. Over the years, we surrender to the crave and teach ourselves that this is the normal reaction whenever we get one. The repetition of our actions begins to cement the cravings into the innermost parts of our beings. It becomes a natural part of our day and over time we don’t even think about it anymore when we light up.
We become comfortable in our belief that what we’re doing is actually making life easier. All of this is what I call the mask of addiction. The deception of our own minds. I think the fear we feel when we think of quitting stems from the fact that we’ve given in to our addictions and we don’t want to put a chink in the addictive armor that we created over all of those years.
When we first think of quitting and think of it as a reality then the mind rebels just as it did way back in the beginning when we created this mess for ourselves in the first place. So how do we get ourselves out of this? By first listening to the lies of our addictions. Really once we do that then we begin to see just how irrational those thoughts are and once we do that we begin to see through the smoke screen that we have set up to continue feeding our addictions.
Understanding is a key to getting out of this because once we understand something and see it in it’s true light then we can start building our internal weapons against it. This is why preparation is so important to a quit. We need to build some of those weapons before we ever quit. We need to understand how and why we created our addictions in the first place and then we need to face the realities of what we built in order to tear it down.
So no matter how long it takes. No matter what kinds of strange thoughts we might be feeling. The key is to stay true to yourself. To remember that each day we live smoke free we come closer to the truth and lose just one more piece of the addict within. It does take time but it’s time well spent and most discover this as soon as the mask of addiction is lifted.
So keep up the fight! It takes a little time for a reason but in the end if you can keep your eye on the prize of freedom than you will be standing on the other side of your addiction. And when that happens. When we begin to feel the peace. When we finally see through all of those lies of addiction then this will be the first day of the future that we started fighting for so long ago . . .
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
