Directing a 5K

[laurah]

I've been busy, stressed and overwhelmed.  I agreed to organize and direct a 5K fundraiser for my organization (in addition to my regular duties and covering for two of my staff who are out for medical reasons)....I feel like I had a major lapse in judgement when I did that...But I haven't smoked.  And what I realized is that I would have had so much less time to do the things I need to be doing if I were still smoking.  And about halfway through the race i would have been thinking, "When can I get outta here and smoke?!"
 But instead one week from today, I'll be thinking, "How in the hell did I pull that off?"  I'm so grateful to be smoke free for 45 days!  Sometimes that seems like a lot and other times I feel like it was only yesterday that I quit. 

Well, that's all the blogging I got time for tonight!  Wish me luck next week!  Hopefully we have lots of runners and I maintain my sanity! 

[JonesCarpeDiem]

yep. smoking takes time and you gotta be in a place that allows it which normally

means planning where you can do it. course we never thought about all this when we smoked.

we made it happen

[jojo_2-24-11]

It's crazy when you think of all the time we wasted on smoking, thinking about smoking and planning to smoke. Have a great race and congrats on 45 days!

[Connie55]

And that my dear. is where your freedom comes in. You are no longer a slave to thoughts of having a cigarette and planning for a smoke break, or making sure you have smokes...etc. All the time consuming thoughts that cigarettes put in our heads. Your mind and body are free!

[Ex_Nancy]

WTG Laurah...you almost have 5O DAYS!  CONGRATS and keep this article from whyquit.com on hand! xoxo    

What happens to some people is that when they are off smoking for a certain time period they start fixating on a cigarette. By that I mean they forget all the bad cigarettes they ever smoked, they forget the ones they smoked without ever really thinking about them even at the time they were being smoked, and they start to remember and focus on one good cigarette. It may be one they smoked 20 years earlier but it was a good one and they now want one again.

It's a common tactic for the ex-smokers to try and tell themselves that they do not really want that "good" cigarette. Well, the problem is, at that moment they really do want it. An internal debate erupts, "I want one, no I don't, one sounds great, no it doesn't, oh just one, not just one!" The problem is that if the ex-smoker's focus is on just "one" cigarette then there is no clear-cut winning side to the debate. The ex-smoker needs to change the internal discussion.

Don't say that you don't want one when you do, rather acknowledge the desire but ask yourself, "Do I want all the other cigarettes that go with it." Then, "do I want the package deal that goes with the others? The expense, social stigma, smell, health effects, possible loss of life. Do I want to go back to smoking, full-fledged, until it cripples and kills me?"

Stated like this it normally is not a back and forth debate. The answer will normally be, "No, I don't want to smoke under these terms," and those are the only terms that a cigarette comes with.

Normally if viewed like this the debate is over almost immediately after being pulled into focus. Again, if the focus is only one, you can drive yourself nuts throughout the entire day. If you focus on the whole package deal, you will walk away from the moment relieved to still be smoke free and sufficiently reinforced to NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

[laurah]

Thanks Nancy, a very good way to think of maintianing my freedom from smoking.  I do sometimes still crave cigarettes, and it is that "just one" sort of mentality.  But truely thinking of it as a whole package--it really is just a shitty way to waste my life.  There are so many other things I'd rather be doing.  For me however I think that it is that "romanticizing" of the cigarette that seems like it would be so much better than anything else I could do in that moment.  Breathing, distraction and repeating my goals seem to get these moments to pass, without incident, to date.   I think I will write another blog about my biggest fear which this article also addresses...relapse after MANY years of freedom....