I had an interesting experience happen to me over the weekend. I was out celebrating a birthday of a friend of mine, lots of people gathered at a local park, grilling and generally having a good time.
A friend of my friend and I were talking, and she pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Then pointed her pack at me and asked 'Do you smoke?'. I immidiately responded with 'No, I don't.' We went on chatting and then others came up and I moved off, the sorts of things that happen at parties like that.
Then a while later, it struck me what had happened. I was asked if I smoke. I didn't respond with "I just quit." or anything else. I hadn't thought about it, I hadn't hestitated. I just very naturally answered 'No, I don't smoke'. I can't tell you all what a startling thing was for me to realize. It tied in very closely with the whole mantra of 'Stop TRYING to quit, and just quit. Stop telling people you are trying to quit. If you are trying, that means you aren't sure if you will succeed. You will succeed just as long as you BELIEVE you will.' Are you TRYING to quit, or have you quit?
So then that got me thinking about some other things. There has been so much useful information and so many helpful tips posted here I simply cannot thank everyone enough. There are people here who may have even said something off-handedly that has been an amazing help to myself and I'm sure others. Some of them I'm going to repeat below because they've helped me directly.
[b]"That which consumes your thoughts controls your life."[/b]
I can't repeat this enough. Heck, I HAVE to repeat this constantly to myself. The incredible truth of this statement is almost overwhelming. It's been so important to me lately. I've not only been quitting, but also dealing with some other health issues as well. At any time, so many different things can consume my thoughts. If you are constantly thinking about your quit, guess what is controlling your life? [i]If you are constantly worrying about your smoking addiction and the process of overcoming it you end up making it an impossible task.[/i]
This ties in very well with something else I read here too:
[b]"Stop being upset about quitting. Revel in it. Be happy about it. Celebrate it."[/b]
This one is still hard for me to do, b
