When we think about addiction, we see weakness. We see a kind of insecurity, and pretty much the whole time we’re addicted, we see the reality of it all and teach ourselves to brush it off. To pretend that it doesn’t exist. After all, we all want to feel that we’re in control of our lives, right?
But how did it all start? How did we find ourselves in this strange world of our own creations? Perhaps it was an accident. Something that we never intended to have happen, and yet it did. But the reality is that it was no accident. We actually had to work to become addicted. I mean, does anyone ever have a memory of how delicious that first cigarette was? Does anyone have a memory of wanting to devote our lives to smoking?
Of course not! After all, the one thing our addictions all have in common was that our bodies tried to tell us from day one to stay away from those cigarettes. Our bodies hacked and wheezed and made us want to get every last bit of that noxious smoke out of our bodies the moment we inhaled it. I mean YUCK!!
And yet we smoked the next one, and the next, training our minds and bodies that this was pleasure as our nicotine receptors began to awaken. Before long, without even realizing it, we became true addicts! And no, it was no accident, it just seemed like a convenient excuse to explain what we did to ourselves.
And then day after day, we taught ourselves that what we were doing was OK. That the risks that came with this addiction only happened to everyone else. That life would be meaningless without this wonderful new thing that we’ve chosen to do for ourselves. We built the lies one day at a time and soon, the tentacles of addiction were intertwined into every part of our beings. Everything became about cigarettes. No thought could complete without thinking how it might affect our wonderful little habit.
That’s how we got here, but life can be quite different if we choose to see through the lies that we created for ourselves. I think a big part of the key is to understand that we’re not victims. So long as we choose to see quitting smoking as a monumental task that we don’t deserve to face, we see ourselves as victims.
Every morning that we wake and feel anguish that we must live this unfair life without cigarettes rather than understanding the wondrous future we’re creating, we fail ourselves. We again decide that we’re victims. That we don’t deserve this huge new problem in our lives.
When we quit, that thought has to change. We can no longer see ourselves as a victim in our lives. We have to know that it was us who got ourselves into this mess and we can only get out of it by ourselves. We have to know there’s no magic bullet to save us from ourselves.
Losing an addiction is a process, but one that has so many wonderful rewards. During my quit, I always tried to see my future without cigarettes. When I could see myself in my mind's eye, smiling without a cigarette, then I knew I was ready. I had created the mental image of freedom in my mind and I knew that this was key to success.
So never believe that you’re a victim in a quit. Never believe for an instant that you can’t win the war with yourself. The key lives inside of all of us and it’s different for everyone, but it’s definitely there! All you have to do is seek it out!
Always look to the future. That’s where your freedom lies. There’s a wonderful new world waiting for you just over the horizon. All you have to do is take that first step into your future! It’s not easy but it’s more than worth it!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck
