When a person first quits, it almost seems like the entire world has been turned upside down. It seems like such an easy thing to think about. Putting out that last cigarette and moving on. If only it could be that way!
Unfortunately, it can’t be that way. Oh no! Instead we have to spend that first day in turmoil and a kind of fear that we might not make it. We have to fight endlessly to find ourselves on the other side of a single day. And at times, we wonder if we’ll even make it.
On those first days in our mind’s eye, we still think that cigarettes taste good. We still believe that they calm us. We still believe that we’re losing something precious in our lives and yet somehow, we make it through maybe not ready to face the next day, but willing to.
We hit that second day and at some point we begin to wonder what we got ourselves into. I mean, this is hard! The thoughts of how wonderful a cigarette would be seems to race through the mind as a constant and endless thought, which makes it really hard to see the reality of what we’re actually doing.
And then day three comes along. We wake up, slightly more confident and again willing to fight through another day. At times we doubt what we’re doing. The fear of losing the quit pops into the mind. The desire for a cigarette is still strong, but we still know that we need to get through this day if we’re ever going to find the peace we desire.
There’s a lot that happens within us on those first days. And yet, though we don’t realize it yet, on these first hard days we build a foundation for our future. We begin to create the new person that we so long to see.
Every time we beat a crave, it gives us the knowledge of how to deal with the next one. And slowly as the first days turn into weeks, our minds calm. We begin to see through the cloud of smoke that we looked through for a good part of our lives and instead of seeing the misery, we start to see reality.
We start to see that everything we thought we’d gain when we quit is a reality. This point in a quit comes at a different time for everyone, I think. But when we’ve calmed the screaming addict within enough to hear reality, we begin to feel better.
When we actually think of our futures rather than the current discomfort, we begin to feel better. When we can see ourselves smiling without a cigarette hanging out of our mouths, we begin to feel better.
Sure those first day are hard. Sure, it takes what seems like a monumental effort to get through them. But in the end we all realize once and for all that we’re no longer addicts. We’re recovering addicts and that’s a big difference!
All I can say is that the sooner you get started will be the sooner that you can feel the peace. And since it’s so hard to see at first, we’ll all be here to remind you of just how wonderful the future is going to be if you can just get through those first strange days.
I look forward to seeing all of you on the other side of addiction. And I’ll always keep reminding you of what a wonderful life it is when it’s truly free! Of the peace that will be in that future. Of the thousands of gems that we pick up on the road to freedom. But those gems are for another blog. Go for it!!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
