Dr. Seuss

[Ladybug--7-3-12]

You say you really want to quit smoking (or substitute the word vaping for smoking here as applicable; the same addiction & habit rules really DO apply no matter what others may tell you).  

You say you don’t want to make excuses for smoking but you just couldn’t handle x, y, or z problems so you chose to smoke because it helped you cope in the past and felt familiar and so … ya … understandable maybe, but still excuses.

You don’t like it when people give you advice that you don’t want to hear, feel that “they” just don’t understand you or what you are going through, and that they may come off as being self-righteous & even mean.

Has doing it the same old way helped you get quit or stay quit?   If you have it all figured out & feel that you can still do it “your way” then what is the point in even asking for help or sharing it with the community?  Communication IS a two way street which involves taking turns speaking but the change & growth I have personally found is in the hearing & listening to someone else other than myself.  

Being frustrated or angry at yourself or even lashing out at others, although understandable, will not get or keep you quit.  Making excuses or doing the same ‘ole things over & over again when life events happen to you, will not get or keep you quit.

The definition of support does not mean someone agreeing with every BS thinking or action you have taken & want to continue to take when you say you want to get yourself quit or to stay quit.  

In order to make any changes to yourself & your life, which includes smoking, you really do need to change your behaviors (smoking IS a habit & a behavior as well as being addictive) and then keep them up so that they become your new normal.  If you want to quit smoking you do have to actually quit smoking.  If you want to learn how to go through life events without smoking you really do have to not smoke through them.    

The only way to achieve any changes in your life is to quit talking about the “want to” and to actually “just begin”.  Forget about the “trying” to and focus on the “doing” of it.  That’s how we learn to not smoke … by doing it no matter how we feel, what we think or tell ourselves, or what happens to us.  

Nobody can do it for you.  You have to do it for yourself.  But then you are the one who will benefit from having made the changes so it sounds fair to me.  Your choices.  Your life. Your rewards.  Your consequences.  All yours.  

We all have our own life circumstances but it really is what we choose to make out of those circumstances that really defines us & creates our own life.  To paraphrase an old saying, “ The same boiling water that softens the potato also hardens the egg.  It's about what we choose to make out of our circumstances, not necessarily the circumstances themselves."  

It’s doable for you too.  It is.  Just make better choices and then keep making them.  Best Wishes.