That's a photo I snapped last night of the paper tag dangling from the little string attached to a bag of herbal tea. Naturally, I thought of my EXmates here.
Know yourself: I was a morning smoker. Each day I woke up, I stretched, yawned, grumbled...and then realized it was time to get out of bed and go enjoy my mentholicious cigarettes. And I wasn't a cup-of-coffee-with-two-cigarettes kind of "casual" morning smoker. No, I was a chain-smoke-three-cigarettes-before-the-coffeemaker-was-even-finished-brewing kind of smoking monster. Then, once the coffeemaker beeped, it was two cups of coffee and another three cigarettes - per cup!
Why do you smoke? How do you smoke? When do you smoke most? What kind of smoker are you? Where's your weakness? Please, know yourself. Only then can you focus your quit energy on your targets.
Love yourself: Care about your time here. Do the work - as prescribed. Learn (because if you knew every answer already, you wouldn't have signed up here, right?) Then, share. Contribute. And, when you're not sharing, listen. (Not everyone here will speak in ways that you understand or appreciate, but that only makes room for others who do. It's okay.) Love yourself enough to be present and involved - here and now. Because this quit attempt could be the quit attempt you've been praying for. You'll never know if you don't love yourself enough to see it through.
Trust yourself: When an Elder assures you that "it gets better", they speak from a place of personal experience that's far ahead of where you are now. Trust that we aren't broadcasting false hope. We know that quitting is not only possible, but it's doable over the long run. We've proven that! And we know that an ongoing recovery isn't a daily heartache. Trust yourself enough to believe that your moment will come, too. Your breakthrough will happen. You have absolutely no way of knowing exactly when that will happen, but trust yourself enough to stay the course so you can find out.
By the way, in case you're wondering, my breakthrough happened on Day 120. After mastering a vicious sweat-and-tears-inducing urge that lasted a full 20 minutes, I knew that nothing could cause me to smoke again. So, when will your "magic moment" happen? No one knows; therefore, no one can tell you when "it gets better" for you. Trust yourself enough to find out.
Be yourself: You have no idea (yet) who you're supposed to be. Seriously. The smoker that you were when you signed up? Yeah, that's not the real you you were destined to be. That's a suppressed version of you, and you're here to say goodbye to that. And the person you are now? Grieving over the loss of cigarettes, struggling to keep the strength to overcome he urges to medicate with nicotine, wondering how in the world you'll ever be normal again without the repetitive rituals of smoking? Yeah, that person is working through a transformation, the purpose of which is not to get stuck in a cycle of challenge and trial. The transformation is leading you to be reborn as someone who looks like you, but doesn't feel like you do now.
Dear EXmate, you have no idea yet who you're going to be! You really don't! But, I promise you, you ain't gonna be a suffering smoker. And you ain't gonna be an exhausted quitter. You're gonna be someone who has evolved beyond both of those. You're gonna be the you you were supposed to be before cigarettes took you away on a ____ year detour from your original path.
That person is waiting for you. And - oooooh! - what a reunion that's gonna be when you get there to meet...you!
Storm
Day 1,800-something
