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Give and get support around quitting

MichelleDiane
Member

Time off for good behavior

On my way to work today I had the strangest thought.  Yes it was thoughts related to smoking, but not in a way that I wanted one.  When prisoners get time off for good behavior they earn their freedom, so why is it that when we quit smoking we (not everyone.  Speaking really for myself, but it may apply to more than me) want just one knowing that we are going to become prisoners.  Dialogue usually goes "I've done so good one won't hurt".  We all know how that one ends, yet the the irrational part of us is saying "I've been so good that I can give myself time off for good behavior"  Prisoners are dying to get out of jail and we are just dying when we smoke.  Just a thought.

21 Replies

Those thoughts will diminish further into your quit and the more you understand your addiction.

Bonnie
Member

Michelle, I remember reading that prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps, when they were starving, would trade food for a cigarette.  Being a fellow addict, I get it...

AnnetteMM
Member

If I knew I had only one day left to live, the first thing I'd do would be buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke all of them.

I really hope one day to not want to do that.

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YoungAtHeart
Member

I am pretty sure you will stop feeling like that - at some point.  If you REALLY think about inhaling that noxious smoke now that you are are not regularly doing it, horking up a lung (which you would probably feel like) is not what I visualize in my final moment!

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AnnetteMM
Member

Quite true, yes.

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Bonnie
Member

When I was "romancing" a cig last night, I followed it through til the end...getting dressed, going to the liquor store when it's dark (I don't drive well in the dark), going to the store when creepy people are there (I swear they have some kind of illegal "side business"), spending TEN DOLLARS on my "organic" cigarettes (nothing but the BEST for me, LOL, who lives on a very limited income right now), already NOT really wanting the cig at this point, but I've made the commitment, right?  Getting home, realizing I don't have a lighter or matches...lighting it on the stove (already regretting my decision), taking a DEEP DRAG (not a "puff"...heck, if I'm going to blow a quit, I'm gonna do it ALL THE WAY), and it tastes really awful, and I get really dizzy (which I used to like with that first drag), and I fall down and hit my head on the floor and am unconscious, the lit cigarette lands on my kitchen rug and sets it on fire, and they find me in the ashes of my little mobile home (I've been told they burn really fast), gone from this world, with an almost-new pack of cigs in my hand--only one gone--which I would have smoked because I DON'T LIKE TO WASTE $$$....and I would have blown my goal of dying as a non-smoker, and it all came about because I AM A NICOTINE ADDICT....

AnnetteMM
Member

Now that's what I call taking it to its natural conclusion.  Good job! 

I don't usually get past the going out part, because I'm too lazy to go out for just one thing.

Mandolinrain
Member

I remember feeling that way....it will pass as you grow in your quit by stacking up the days , I promise

elvan
Member

Those are fleeting thoughts and clearly you know that there is no such thing as just one.  How about a REAL reward, mani/pedi, milkshake, bubble bath with music and candles, a watchathon of a favorite show.  I cannot say that I would see a cigarette as a reward any more but I do remember that feeling.  

You are doing GREAT, kid, keep it up.

Ellen