Hi Cathy, good to hear from you. Thanks for updating where you are at in your quit. A lot of smokers need to (or feel they need to) find a shining moment to quit--a great discovery of courage or insight that leads them to feel positive they are going to quit. I wanted that too. Seven years ago, I found a different reality for myself--I was willing to quit, but it took all I had. I didn't like that. Also, I was pretty upset--ate a lot of junk food, felt awful, questioned reality, wondered if I'd ever forget smoking and on and on. It was really hard. A lot of Exers say that--because for a lot of us it is hard to quit. Even in reading The Easy Way to Quit, a lot of quitters here at Ex say that it still was a lot of work.
The addiction makes smoking seem so unbreakable. But it is not. Thing is, it takes a good amount of time to wake up from dependency. The first year is about walking the walk in a very strict way, no matter how I felt, I refused to turn back. This was not heroism. I was furious. I wanted out. And with each day that arrived and did not feel better, I felt equal amounts of disgust and resolve to not give up. What a tangle!!! But I didn't smoke. Time, time, time is a cure. Smobriety--walking the walk at all times is the way to get there and stay there.
Today, I don't suffer to stay smober, I relearned life--and so I don't think of smoking as my everything. I once did. Give yourself the time to lose your addiction. A week, a month, six months are good, but only a start. The next time you quit, try to remember, the addiction doesn't just go away, it takes time walking the walk to seriously subdue addiction.
We all can do this, so can you.
