I'm begining to develop a very different attitude toward "slips." It just kills me to see such wonderful people beating themselves up over them; it's like the Puritans have taken over again.
I'm a theologian (albeit an addicted one like everyone else), and I see slips and sins in the same kind of off-the-wall way: sin is our friend inasmuch as it reveals our weakness and without meaning to, urges us toward growth. "Slips" are the same thing, are they not? Do they not reveal the weakness in our own quits and show us where we ought to be spending our strength and resources?
What would happen if instead of saying, "Oh God, I'm such a loser, shoot me now," whenever we experienced a "slip" (gotta find a better word), we said, "Yippee! Now I know where the leak is; I can plug it."
We're taking the long view on this, right? We're committed to the long-term quit, even though we know we can only get at it one day -- one crave -- at a time. So in the long view, what's one slip? The cool thing is that we come back to this safe and nonjudgemental place where we can find all the help we need to fix the leak, name the culprit, and move on, better and stronger than before.
Call me crazy (and you will surely be right on the money!), but sometimes I think slips are more to be celebrated than cursed, at least for the people who come back here after experiencing one.
Just my take in a very scary and foreign territory. (The quit, not the slip.)
peteg
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B] 10/30/2006
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 13
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 692
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $71.5
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 2 [B]Hrs:[/B] 10 [B]Mins:[/B] 16 [B]Seconds:[/B] 11
