Good day EXer’s!!
I was just thinking about those hard days of a quit. One would think that the first day is the hardest. Personally, that wasn’t how it was how it was for me. In hindsight I realized that this was because I was ready for that first day. I was actually excited to put our that last cigarette after my long months of preparation.
And when I woke the next day a non-smoker, I was still excited as I applied the first patch and got moving for the day. I’d already beaten my trigger of smoking in the car during my preparations, so I knew that wouldn’t be a problem for me. Also, I’d used separation exercises to try to separate the triggers from the urges.
Once I understood triggers, I simply didn’t allow myself to smoke for an extended period of time when I faced one . For me, this took away the power of the trigger, or so I hoped. On that first morning as I had for over forty years, I wanted that morning cigarette. I wanted it badly but because it was my first day, I expected this. To me, the first day wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d expected it to be.
Really, in the first week it was easy to fight my way through my withdrawal. Really similar for the second week. I was fighting and arguing with myself like we all do at first, but I never lost sight of my goal of freedom.
I came here all I could to blog in those first weeks and months. But at times it just seemed like this journey was dragging on. Like there was no end in sight. At times, I’d feel my resolve slipping, but I continued using my tools to fight my own minds mistaken thoughts. The ones that I knew no longer belonged to me.
The long journey can indeed become frustrating simply because we want it to end right now and cannot understand why it doesn’t. We become focused on the misery of it all and slowly try to convince ourselves that what we’re doing is wrong, when in reality what where doing is right for a thousand different reasons.
We become frustrated as our divided minds continue to argue with themselves, one side demanding a smoke while the other side fights it’s own thoughts. It’s crazy! And also at times can be hard to understand.
We become angry that we cannot calm the screaming child of our addiction and yes, eventually the thought creeps in that tells us that there’s only one way to make all this go away. All we need is one little puff to end the misery.
And at that moment if we forget to ignore the lies of our addiction, we begin to believe the addicted side of our brain. Some of us are completely shocked when we first see the crack in our resolve. Others grasp that thought and allow it to torture them. And sometimes we just give in and the moment we do, we realize once again how much we’d been lying to ourselves. We realize that true calm can only come from freedom, and usually, we’ll try again.
For me, whenever I saw this crack trying to open in my resolve, I found blogging here at EX to be an excellent distraction until I could get my mind straight. Typing keeps the hands busy and the mind engaged in something besides the endless argument. And eventually, my mind would calm.
My point is that we all have tools to save our quits in the worst of times, and yet some of us don’t use them and lose our quit. We have to be always vigilant. We have to be able to focus on all we’re gaining rather than what we’re losing. And we have to believe in those reasons enough to keep on the path.
Once we become blinded by freedom and have no room left for the negative, then we become free. Once we accept that the world will never be the same as it was when we smoked, then we become free. Once we decide once and for all that this new life is exactly what we wanted all along, we have reached the summit of Mt. Freedom, and I can tell you that once you do reach that wonderful goal, you’ll feel no doubt. You’ll feel no fear. All you’ll feel is a kind of calm that you’ve forgotten ever existed. It’s there for the taking. All you have to do is fight to get it!!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck
