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Share your quitting journey

Hitting Your Stride

JonesCarpeDiem
6 9 74

        I'm thinking at around 5 years quit, you really begin to hit your stride.

You don't think of smoking but rarely, and it's more like a loose memory than urge to smoke.

        Remember the red hot poker plant I posted about a couple months ago?

https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/gardening-lovers/blog/2020/05/16/its-blooming 

That plant had never shown more than 2 blooms at one time until this year.

         I thought it was done blooming weeks ago but just look at it today.

I think it finally hit it's stride this year.

stride.jpg

You'll hit your stride too in time.

Become comfortable in your quit. Only you who can allow that to happen,

and, why would you choose it to be any other way?

9 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.