Maybe I'm just an eternal optimist - maybe, just maybe, every single time I run toward the football, Lucy will swoop it out of place and I'll fall with a klunck right smack on my back! And maybe just maybe I'll spend hours believing in people more than they even believe in themselves - EXplaining to them patiently once again how I became a 6%er and that they can, too - just to have them come back at me with, "You don't understand! I'm not like you, it's harder for me, I relapsed too many times, I never "tried' to quit before, I smoked more years than you, I'm a closet smoker, I'm a chain smoker,..........I'm different!" And then they swoop that football right out from under me and -klunck/smack - here we go again!
But I just don't give up! I believe! I believe in you, Newbie! i know - even if you are determined to prove me wrong - that if you really want to quit and do your homework, you don't really have to quit 6 - 8 times - you can do it the very first time!
I know that each of us is an individual with our own personal quit history but it doesn't change the Law of Addiction! The Law of Addiction doesn't even know or care who you are! It's an equal opportunity law, like the Law of Gravity! The Law of Addiction says "Administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance." It applies whether you've been hooked for 2 weeks or 50 years and everything in between! It applies to the social smoker just as it does the closet smoker and the chain smoker. It applies to the 15 year old and the 60 year old. It applies to the healthy and the ill, to men and women, straight and gay, religious and atheist, all of us equally! Bottom line - the only way to quit smoking is to Not take One Puff Ever!!!! N.O.P.E.!
N.O.P.E. is not just a mantra - although it is, it's not just a slogan, although it is. N.O.P.E. is a way of LIFE! LIFE is what we're all about - your LIFE! No less! LIFE free from Addiction! LIFE healthy and happy and unhooked from a deadly, albeit legal, EXtremely Addictive Drug! N.O.P.E. is the foootball that you, Lucy, er Newbie hold in your hands - that you jerk away from the successful punt again just to prove that you're Special!
Lucy, YOU ARE SPECIAL! That is the very reason I believe in you and I'll continue to run, klunck and smack myself around trying to prove it to you! Because, maybe, just maybe, one of these days you'll keep that ball lined up and you and I together can SUCCEED!
Never Quit the Quit! I won't quit believing in you!
