Good morning EXer family! Well, it's Friday, and it looks like the weather is going to be simply magnificent all weekend long...oh boy oh boy....don't think for a minute that Pops isn't going to be outside with the sunblock on, the tunes blaring, the wind blowing in my face....yep, I am going to "live" some of that newfound freedom that we have been given since we put away those foolish nicotine ways....
As most of you already know...I have taken over the pledge page for the time being....as you might have noticed the cute little megaphone next to my avatar...;-). In case you are wondering why I would want to do that...well, I feel that the pledge page is a very integral part of the quit process that I was taught to implement into my daily routine early on in my quit. On a couple of my earlier unsuccessful quit attempts...I was taking a bunch of shortcuts, and was NOT giving my quit the nurturing care that it needed to stay a viable part of my lifestyle. I soon found it was more of an inconvenience to me to stop in and share my experience, strength and hope with the community, and soon began skipping days, and then weeks without stopping in and checking in on my friends here.
I was being pretty selfish, and certainly was not being appreciative of the people that had helped me so much up to that point. It was like, "okay...I needed help, you gave it, now I'm okay, thank you very much...and now I'm going out to live my life again." Not very grateful that's for sure...
I was taught years ago that "gratitude" is an action word...it's not merely a feeling....it is an action or a physical gesture made to express or convey a feeling of gratefulness as a result of someone or something that has helped me out @ an earlier time.
The needed ingredient for that grateful action was me believing that my "quit" was precious and deserved my vigilant attention. The type of attention that a parent would invest in their children's' well being. If you have kids, you certainly wouldn't turn your back on them would you? Well, it wasn't until I began to value the health of my quit as much as I value my own child, that things began to finally take shape. That shape was emerging as a "lifelong" and healthy quit.
I also learned to fortify my quit by pledging daily to myself and someone else out loud....that I was NOT going to smoke for a day....hence the need to become active in the daily pledge page.
I obviously will plug the page here and hope that you can see and feel the magic that I have found in reaching out and being there for other addicts in recovery, and to pledge to keep doing it throughout the day....so Please....come and join me at least once a day for a couple of minutes and nurture your quit....feed it some more strength, and who knows, that just might be the needed amount of reminder @ just that time to tell yourself, "No, I don't do that anymore! Not one puff EVER!"
Pops 381 DOF https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/community/celebrations-events/blog/2017/06/01/the-daily-pledge-ju...
