So I will now……. I had hoped to get caught up with all my Exer friends this long weekend, however other circumstance prevailed. My Father in Law passed away on Wednesday and I’ve been pretty tied up with that. Nothing sudden, he had been ill. He was a good man, and he was good to me. I will miss him. It has been a difficult time but nothing to smoke about. HOWEVER , this is not what I came to write about.
In my new non-smoking life, I rarely think about smoking anymore, but I do have thoughts and do like to share those thoughts about “THE QUIT”. This is what I would like to share with you today.
If you are thinking about quitting for a loved one…. Your child, grandchild, significant other, parent, whoever, then I want you to reconsider that. Don’t get me wrong. It,s not that I think that is an unacceptable gesture, I just don’t know if it is possible. Why? Well, there are several reasons that I believe that a successful quit must be for YOU and YOU first and not anyone else.
First of all, one thing you can do with all of these people when the nicodemon strikes really hard and you are thinking about giving in, is you can hide from them. If you are quitting for yourself, hiding from that person becomes a little more difficult. No matter how much you may love these people, you have to love yourself just as much or more to have a successful quit. Besides, they may not fully understand and never thank you for quitting, but I promise you that your body, mind and spirit will thank you over and over and over again!
Secondly, these innocent bystanders in our life have nothing to do with our addiction. They may never personally gain the benefits that we will from this quit, but they will only continue to suffer from our miserable habit until we do quit. As Exers, we sincerely celebrate our overcoming the addiction and we should. Our loved ones, I am sure, try to see it as something wonderful, but I can only surmise that they are thinking that we are finally getting around to doing what we should have already done, or never started in the first place.
Finally, I don’t think we can give up smoking for a loved one, because we certainly never smoked a cigarette for them. Think about it. I am pretty sure that none of us ever went out in the freezing or rainy night, lit up, and said. “ this one is for little Sarah.. I’m going to smoke this for her and then I am going back in there and breathe this nasty stuff all over her”. Just doesn’t sound familiar, does it? The smoking is/was a very very selfish habit. We never smoked a cigarette for ANYONE except our own little addiction. So while it is nice to think of the benefit for others in our quit, we cannot lose sight of how important it is for us, (me and you.) It’s way too important that we DO QUIT, and quit for ourselves, so that others in our life just might enjoy the benefits also........ Just my two cents worth on a Tuesday night. Have a great smoke free evening. George
