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Share your quitting journey

COMMUNITY

Thomas3.20.2010
0 9 18

Shared Grief is half the Sorrow

but Happiness when shared is Doubled!

 

Life often brings us to a crossroads of choices and it can be confusing as to where to turn. Somewhere along the way I have turned down many a blind alley and wound up in a few ditches. I think that's human.

 But then there came a time when I read and took in what M. Scott Peck was actually communicating in his book, The Road Less Traveled. I've read and reread at different times the message but it seemed to apply to other luckier people not to me until I realized that he wasn't writing this book for the fortunate - you know the type who get upset when they break a fingernail!

 Tommy 4 years ago came here to this Community and captured what we are all about and why we are successful in quitting smoking! Smoking is destructive and we do it to ourselves so even if we didn't set out to do it or even recognize what we were doing we had actually been self-destructive which destroys our self esteem!

When a cigarette is our Best Friend then people aren't, are they? But when we quit, we have to reintegrate into the human Community and Tommy calls that sincere, caring give and receive relationship "Collateral Kindness"! It isn't just a nice little bonus of quitting successfully-it's a requirement of learning how to become that Ex-Smoker we aim to be.

 We learn to share our grief, not with a dead leaf wrapped in paper and dipped in 4000+ deadly chemicals but with real life flesh and blood human beings (YOU and ME!) We also learn to spread our JOY not just about our Milestones and Triumphs of beating the Addiction that lives in us but in all aspects of living - of how Happily we CAN live if we DECIDE to!

Before we know it we find ourselves being kinder to Family members, Coworkers, the Clerk at the grocery store, even folks who are not so kind to us! But going through life Addiction FREE and Happy doesn't mean that our days are always without grief - it just means that we are more open to Compassion both in the giving and reception so that we know that when Life gets painful - and it will, at times- we know that we are not alone and lonely with our killer cigarettes as our only comfort!

 The more you give- the more you receive! Let's be there for each other because that's what works about this Community!

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About the Author
63 years old. 20 year smoker. 11 Years FREE! Diagnosed with COPD. Choosing a Quality LIFE! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -Galatians 5:1