The first 30 days is simply holding on, believing in what they kept telling me. It will get better. It will get easier. Then the London fog came to sit for a few months. I couldn't remember anything to save my soul. I'd be distracted by the littlest thing. I should have bought stock in Post-Its. I sure used enough of them.
The fog finally lifted after about 2-3 months and then I was dealing with the firsts. The first birthday, anniversary, yearly cookout, holidays. Events in my life that happen annually of which I just basically smoked my way through. I had to devise new ways and new routines. I had to start a whole new playbook. I couldn't do the same things the same way but only take out smoking because I'd still be thinking about smoking. I found this amazing article one day that I thought was very informative and give just a slightly different twist on the emotional bonds to smoking (scroll to Mood): Side Effects of Quitting Smoking - What Happens to Your Body? | HealDove .
So many things are intertwined in our daily lives with our former smoking lives that are so minute that we don't realize them until it strikes. Planning ahead or rethinking the major things, I feel, are essential, but it's the sneaky trigger that gets you. Something in your wildest dreams wouldn't even be thought of because it's so small. It's actually a situation in your life past or present that reoccurs every year, but you don't make a conscious note of it.
Mine was the lightening bugs one summer's eve. I let the dogs out one night and was watching all these lightening bugs dancing over the grass, millions of them. And BOOM, a craving hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't panic. I didn't say to myself, when is this ever going to end? Why doesn't this go away? I just simply stood there, took a deep breath and thought to myself, that was my favorite thing to do at night. Sit in the backyard with my smokes and watch the light show. I continued to stand there to wait for the dogs, enjoy the lights, and then let them in and came back in the house.
There was no need to panic or have what I call stinkin' thinkin' (why, when, how). It was just a memory that was conjured up that was once associated with smoking that I at that instant was reliving. A very, very small part of my life that's unique to me that only happens at a certain time of year which at times I catch and at times I miss. That's when I decided to mix things up and start new routines. One you might consider is go to the https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/community/celebrations-events?sr=search&searchId=78734922-615d-40... every morning and post to the Daily Pledge page and post to the Freedom Train every evening. Shout out your days of freedom, no matter how big or how small.
I use my thoughts as my teaching tool, my cravings out of nowhere. They are there to make me appreciate how far I've come. To acknowledge that those are only memories being sparked by something I did in my everyday life. Just like the smell of a freshly baked apple pie may remind someone of their mother or grandmother. Those thoughts are weaved into our basket of life. We can view them as an imperfection or simply there to remind us of who we used to be.
