Good Evening my fellow Exer"s! I have been quietly reading a lot of what has gone on here in the past few days. It seems there are a lot of new members, and some of the not so new, who are running into some difficulty in finding Freedom from the bondage of tobacco! It is good that they have this place to come and chronicle their struggles! "From the masses we gather strength to battle on." I don't know if anyone ever said that before, but it sure sounds worthy of quotation marks to me! I do not think very many of us came here expecting it to be easy! And for some it is without a doubt harder than others! I, for one do not lay this at the feet of genetic predisposition! I think it has everything to do with attitude and an understanding of commitment!
As I ponder Freedom from addiction, the word Freedom itself take me back to the Revolutionary War! For those of us in The United States of America, that was the birthplace of Freedom as we understand it! I marvel at the attitudes and commitment of those men who suffered discomforts that we today can not even imagine! During the Revolution there was one man who often put pen to paper in order to motivate those men! His name was Thomas Paine! At the risk of a copyright violation, I am going to quote him here! "Heaven knows how to put a proper price on it's goods: and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated." WOOOW! I am motivated! The man just told us that the Freedom we seek, from the nicodemon that nips at our heels, is worth the effort it takes to achive it! It is indeed worth the discomfort and the anxiety that you go through! Because in the end you reach the top of the mountian, and scream to the world with clean lungs(and breath): I AM FREE!!
