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Share your quitting journey

After the Dust Settles

Chuck-2-20-2011
4 7 97

I was thinking back to a time when I’d been quit for about two weeks. I’d fought my way through the confusion of the first week and the slightly less torment of the second week. At the time I was really proud of myself. I was doing it!!

But then the third week came around and though I was doing well, I had realized that the urges can still get me and not only that. On that third week, when we feel more confident we may not pay as close of attention to the urges we’re still feeling. We now know we can quit but it’s important to remember that this is one of those times when we need to pay attention.

A careful traveller is usually the safe traveller as well. At the two week mark, be proud of your achievement but at the same time, remember to take stock of how you’re feeling. It’s the surprise urges that can get us if we let them.

We can still be proud of what we’ve achieved so far. In fact we should be. We just have to be a little more careful as our confidence increases and our fears begin to subside. The thing to remember is that we’re still addicts and as such, we’re still very susceptible to our own addicted suggestions.

We have to remember at this time that we’re still learning our new lives without cigarettes, and how we interact in the world without them. Sometimes in that third week when we begin to notice more craves even though we thought they would be less prominent, we can get discouraged.

I think a big part of this is because when we prep, we tend to prep for the beginning simply because we don’t know what’ll happen after those first days. We fight to survive the beginning so that we can learn and make it to the end of the journey.

For me, during this third week I started focusing heavily on the concept of freedom. It kept me looking forward rather than back and helped me to see that there is a reason I chose to go through this trying time of my life.

Freedom became my focus and my strongest desire because I wanted it to be. We choose what we want to focus on every morning because each day is a blank canvass, ready to be filled with the colors that we choose to fill it with.

During those weeks after the first two, I’d always assess my mood before I ever got out of bed because this is when we can rewrite the entire day simply by changing how it starts. Just like with quitting, if you don’t like it, change it.

My point is that the third week is a time where we begin to step into the unknown part of our quits and as such we have to be prepared to build on what we’ve already accomplished but at the same time, we have to be ready for the unexpected as far as what we’re feeling inside.

Over time, the unexpected becomes the expected and as more and more of our new world becomes our normal world, the old world of addiction simply fades away. At week two, the ball is definitely in your court. All you have to do is keep fighting and eventually you’ll realize that your fighting no more because you won’t have to. You’ll be free!!

ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!

Chuck

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