Alright my fellow addicts.......here it is.......2 years 6 months and I have almost completely transformed myself. There are ups and there are downs in this life and I love each and every one of them. Sometimes it's uncomfortable and sometimes it's pure bliss but mostly it is just daily life and a continuous journey forward. If you are toying around with your quit then you are toying around with your life, yet it is serious business not really toying.
In the past two and half years I have done a lot of work on me. I have pissed people off and I have made people happy. Friends have come and gone as the seasons have changed several times now. I have a couple of life events left that will still be firsts as a non smoker but truly today I can say that there is simply no way that smoking a cigarette ever enters my mind as a solution to anything. I do not miss those blasted things at all.
I lost close friends to the diseases caused by smoking and I lost close friends to other addictions as well. I am watching my brother as best as I can do battle with cancer and I am watching my wife continue to smoke away her health too. It hurts and sometimes I feel guilty because I use their predicaments to strongly reinforce my resolve in the choices I am making. I have cried and and I have laughed, I have made my path forward by comparative study of my fellow man/woman and also by just setting sail, the torpedo's be damned!
I'll let you in on a little secret......It is so flipping worth it that you just can't imagine it. Some of you know what I'm saying because you helped me to get here. I am here because of that gift and giving back makes the whole thing just AMAZING! There is no loss. There is no cost. There are no regrets. There is nothing missed. I am in a position today to handle anything this universe can and will throw at me and I can even carry a couple of my fellow human beings along with me.
My daughter is THRILLED beyond compare and every once in a while we count the days just to say WOW.....that's a bunch of days! Today I know to an even greater degree that the mechanisms of addiction are not confined to any particular drug and I also know that the results of self inflicted pain, suffering, and death cause untold additional pain, suffering and death AND that all we have to do to STOP IT.......IS TO SIMPLY STOP! It is the simplest thing in the world and yet we can't see past the complexities of our learned selves that we are creating the difficulties that plague us up not the other way around!
I am an EX and I am 41 pounds lighter and I don't need anything today except to be me! THAT FEELS GREAT!
Simply STOP......then.......don't do that anymore!
YOU CAN DO THIS! I am living breathing thriving joyous proof and I will stay around to help you. Please just ask.
I sincerely invite you to come over to the Daily Pledge Group and make one each day with me. I will offer you some good no smoking advice until you can offer it to yourself!
Happy Yule to each and every one of you!
Wassail!
Papa
