When we quit, we choose to walk a seemingly long path to our destination. Along the way we encounter many things, both wonderful and downright scary. We learn what it means to be an addict and that we really don’t have to be an addict. It’s a choice that we make like everything else in life.
And at times on the path, we may wonder why we chose the path we’re on. We wonder how our minds could choose to be addicted. But the facts are still the same, no matter what we do. Creating an addiction actually takes a bit of work. After all, we weren’t born addicted. We spend a lot of time justifying our addiction and building the wall that must be shattered before we can actually even think of quitting.
When quitting, we have to be willing to deal with the hardship and the reality that it’s easy to become an addict. The hard part is learning freedom from addiction. And so when we quit, there seems to be two options to dealing with it. One option is to see all the wonderful things we’re doing for ourselves. The other is anger that we have to quit in the first place.
For me, I took the more positive road. Sure, I had days that were downright horrible, but I still always managed to cling to the positive of what I was doing. I managed to kind of push away the feelings of loss and that my life was changing.
When one is angry about having to quit, it creates a whole different quit experience, I think. Rather than looking to the positive aspects of what we’re doing, we see all the negative instead and this can lead to us feeling like a victim. In a way we are a victim, but the thing is, it was our own minds that victimised ourselves.
But the thing is, if you see the quit as some burden that has to be completed and every time you begin a new day you tend to wake up angry, and you simply give the addiction more power to mess with you. This is when the mind becomes dangerous to itself. During those moments of unfocused anger that can hit us at almost any time.
When we’re angry about quitting, it becomes so much easier to give up on ourselves. And we all know the end result of that one.
So if you ever wake up angry during a quit, take a moment to change those brain patterns before you ever get out of bed. Think of the things you love rather than the day that you think you must face angrily. Think of the peace of the future. See yourself in your mind’s eye happily going about life without smoking.
Believe in that future that awaits you. Force your mind to seek out the positive aspects rather than the negative. The mind tends to suck up positive like a sponge. If you can change your thinking first thing in the morning then the day that might have been filled with anger and urges becomes a calmer day filled with the light of life as we continue to cherish our own lives by quitting.
Happiness is indeed the end result of any quit, and even if we have to make ourselves see that, it’s time well spent. I look forward to the happiness that awaits each and every one of you so long as you can stick to the positive and cast away the negative.
Soon the positive becomes the habit so long as we take just a moment to tell ourselves what we really want. And then a quit becomes exciting rather than a burden and before long we reach that magical place called freedom!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck
