Hi Becky. My name is Tom. I understand where you are coming from. You cant quit smoking because quitting smoking sucks. In fact, you have probably tried to quit smoking 100s of times and failed when you figured out smoking was a lot easier than quitting.
I started smoking Jan 22 1982. They all told me it was addictive. I watched my parents chain smoke for years. Of course I didnt think I would get addicted. Not me. 2 months after I started, I found it difficult to go a day without a ciggarete. After that, I have smoked for 22 years, telling myself I could quit every single day. Yet it never came true.
There hasnt been a stretch in my life where I thought of myself as a smoker. Not in my fantasies anyways. In my dreams I am always, healthy, active and a non smoker. White teeth, muscular and well groomed.
Instead, Im not well groomed. My teeth are yellow. Far more yellow than I admit in the mirror. Instead of keeping my weight down as it did when I was younger, smoking now keeps me fat, as I cannot possibly run anywhere or do any extended exersise.
My lungs hurt too much.
I stink. But I dont think I stink. My clothes, my house, my pets and my daughter all stink. My car too. But I wont admit it.
However, the truth is , smoking is a young mans game. Just like drinking, screwing around, fighting, gambling . Changing jobs every 3 months. Making the same mistakes over and over.
Its far more difficult to go out for a drink in a small town in pennysvannia , and wake up with a hang ovr in mexico when you are 42 instead of 20.
Same with smoking. Its the same thing as anything else. We know its bad for us, but since we are young and bullet proof, we didnt pay a huge price for it. The concequences came at us slowly over time.
I have come to the conlusion I have no idea how to quit smoking. The bald faced truth is if i knew how , I would be a non smoker. Quitting smoking SUCKS. It really does come down to just putting the ciggarettes down. However, we all know that putting the ciggarettes down is the first and easist part.
Keeping them down is much more difficult physically, emotionally and mentally.
We all love smoking. The good side of it that is. Just like we all loved the good side of gambling, drinking , and fooling around.
One day we realized that the bad side wasnt worth the good side. So we quit.
but not with smoking we didnt. We found it was an entirely different animal. Smoking compaines were not going to let us off the hook that easily.
Turns out, smoking is EASY , but has horrible concequences that we had ignored when we were young.
Turns out , quitting smoking SUCKS, but has life altering rewards.
I am just like you . The same drug addicted human being, living the illusion that we can quit smoking to appease ourselves each time we light up.
We are all here for the same reason. We no longer want the concequences of smoking ciggarettes, but know that quitting has dire concequences . Caught in an oxymoron, misnomer, or whatever we label it.
Time to decide.
