A couple of days ago when I announced that I had quit on my quit of 132 days, one of my comments from @Guilia, really got me thinking that she was right, I needed to say more and let others know why I had chose to loose my quit. Here is what Guilia had to say to me:
@Guilia "I was the one who made the choice. That is all I have to say."
That's not good enough, Sharon. That's not good enough for me and others, especially new people, who need to understand WHY you made that choice.
"I made a conscious choice to pick up that first smoke" WHY? Since you know all there is to know about excuses? Why? Since you know what this addiction does to our bodies? WHY?
You need to be able to understand the WHY for yourself and tell it to us too, so we don't make that "conscious" decision to put a cigarette in our mouths like you did.
I'm not letting you off the hook here, Sharon. This isn't the first time around the block here for you in the relapse area. Yes, I want you to take responsibility for yourself, but in a way that will get you past the point of no return. You need to find out what it is that's giving you permission to put a cigarette in your mouth. And if you have, but don't care, then you will never have a successful, long-term quit.
It is known that I have been having health problems. I nearly lost my life Jan. 9th when I was rushed into emergency surgery for a hernia strangulation, I’m still recovering as my wound still is not completely closed and I still have discomfort from the surgery. Then there is 2 knees that both need replacing. My right knee at this time is the worst and I am using a walker for stability. For years I have had an unknown problem with my left foot that no Dr. Could seem to figure out, so over the years left unattended, I have a deformed foot that I can barely walk on for the pain. The ankle is now involved and tips inward towards the floor. The latest podiatrist I’ve seen won’t even recommend surgery foe there is just no bone left to build up and the ankle is full of arthritis.
I’ll sum that up now to simply say that the morning I gave up my 132 day quit, I was staring down a wheelchair that I knew I was going to end up in. I had a pity party claiming “what’s the point in having knee surgery if I can’t walk anyways because of the foot. I was facing the fact that my freedom, my independence was slowly being taken away from me. My freedom of choice was dwindling away as I faced having to depend so much on Jake to take care of me lately. I was the care giver around here, always have been a care giver, and it was all vanishing before my eyes as I sat there crying in pain.
And through it all, I got angry and wanted my old friend back because at that point I just didn't give a crap. Thus I smoked and I liked it and I hated that I liked it. More pity party. You see, I know there are so many people worse off than me and before God I have no right to complain. No right!
Did smoking help change anything? Of course not and I knew that when I allowed my addiction to have its way with me. Our good friend @Chuck-Quit wrote a long conversation not long ago on how he came to achieve his forever quit and I printed that out. I'm going to use his example to quit again. I set a new date of April 6th because that is my birthday and I felt it a monumental day for a quit. I will follow the steps Chuck outlined in “are you Ready” in Conversations.
I’m not giving up, I can’t give up, I’m just having a very tough time with acceptance right now. It has not been worth it to have thrown it all away, I hope any knew quitter will understand that all or any excuse is unacceptable if you want to stay quit. I felt my best while I was quit and I want to get that back and I shall. Thanks for listening.
Here is a little poem by @mandolinrain that really sums things up:
“If I have just one, I’ll be right back where I started
where I started was desperately wishing
I was where I am today”.
