Message from Linda Mustafa

It’s the 4th of April and I’m celebrating 6 years of smoke free yeahhh
Do you mind if you share this little post on EX for me please and say hello to everyone

Hello everyone on ExFamily .
I hope that you are all well and coping in this situation .
For people who don’t know me I’m Linda and I live in London .
Today I’m celebrating 6 years of smoke free free from poison , addiction and potentially a lot of damage to my health if I was still addicted during this pandemic situation.
Every doctor has been advising of the dangers and harm the Corona virus can do to the lungs so for me and all of you guys our decision to stop inhaling poison into our lungs might just save our lives .
I must admit , although not sure as to why but I’m guessing the time nearer to the big anniversary as it sometimes happens during those occasions I’ve been thinking of the past and that did include my addictive past and there was somewhat a tendency to entertain the thought which I quickly diverted to the reality as something nonexistent and not doable at all from my part .
The brain does fully understand that the addiction is in the past yet the pandemic situation has brought up a situation that was extremely new to me and to the rest of us and all of a sudden the anxiety , fear , uncertainty have risen so much that the other senses -the coping mechanisms were alerted and hence the various thoughts came back because as we know we’ve used our addiction to cope even though at the time we probably weren’t aware of it .
To begin with I couldn’t understand why but then as I was thinking about it I was sure of it and remembered when Dale at the beginning of my quit used to say that we have to experience everything once or twice for the behaviour to change so I guess we are experiencing this new thing now as full on as anything else we’ve experienced.
All of us are going through this together no matter the country , race , gender -we are all in this together and we will get through it .
Stay strong , cherish your quit because it’s literally saving you , try and be positive , don’t read or listen to a lot of negative news , try and enjoy your time at home perhaps doing things that you never had time to do in the past or learning something new .
My best wishes to all of you and especially to my dear EXFamily friends -you all know who you are -I love you , I miss you and wish only the very best for each and every one of you .
Thank you ever so much for always supporting me and being there when I needed you .
Take care and God bless us all in this time of need
Linda 2190DOF
6 years of freedom