Greetings Fellow Travelers
We all come to this addiction through different doors but we are all residents of the same house. All quits take on a different tone but there is a central melody that is shared by all. Fear is certainly a common element of the entire process.
I am guessing here, but from what I read, it seems as if many are anticipating the withdrawal demons to come before they have appeared. That will make your journey toward cessation more difficult. It is of no use to picture ourselves in the future reeling from the loss of our cigarettes. Those kind of images only enhance our fear and cause us to accept defeat before we have found our way through the maze.
I would advise everyone contemplating cessation to take a deep breath, speak kindly to yourself and anticipate nothing. This journey will not be about your family, it will not be about what others think of you, it will not even be about fear. It will be about you. It will be about you taking your life in hand and making it better. It will be about realizing that you have the power to change for the better.
Smoking is about more than the physical act of inhaling rolled up weeds. It is not a passive activity. It is not about loss. On the contrary it is about gain. At this moment you are thinking, without my cigarettes I can;t do this or that or the other thing. In short you believe that you cannot "get through" without cigarettes. But I tell you now, if you challenge yourself in a positive way, one day you will wonder why you "needed" cigarettes at all.
Take a deep breath on this one, stop looking down the road and look down at the road that is under your feet at this moment. The road on which you now stand is the one that will take you to freedom. The other road that your mind's eye imagines is nothing more than a projection of your fears. You can do this, but you must begin with a single step on the here and now road.
We all grow into cessation, no one leaps there. For me it was a slow steady learning process that made me look more closely at myself. In my experience, the key to cessation lies within the individual. Once we begin to comprehend the why of our addiction, the how of our freedom comes into sight...
stay well
nonic
