Post by Ann on Aug 31, 2004 11:47:59 GMT -5
After doing some thinking and some reading, I finally feel I know the secret of staying quit. You must let go of the idea that smoking does anything good for you. Not only is there no excuse to smoke, there is no reason to smoke. It does not relax you. It does not keep you slim. It does not make you more charming, or sophisticated or cool. It makes you stink. Do it long enough and it may kill you or damage your health so much that it shortens your life.
I still believe the phrase 'once an addict, always an addict'. I do believe I will always have a weakness where cigarettes are concerned, which is one reason I know to never take another puff. However, I no longer have any desire to smoke, and only in times of high stress does the thought even cross my mind. And the thing that has changed for me is when the thought crosses my mind, I immediately think, 'Yuck! Why would I want to smoke?'
OK, so maybe it took me 4 years to get here, but as I've always said, I am slow to recover. Listen to my advice. Start teaching yourself about the real evils of tobacco and quit longing for a time to smoke again. Begin learning that smoking holds nothing for you, except a chance to ruin your health.
Too many people come here and quit and leave without realizing it is harder to stay quit than to get quit. I understand when you finally quit, you don't want to believe anything is harder than what you've just been through. We all want to quit and get back into the real world and on with life. No one wants to stick around for the next course...how to stay quit.
If you only learn how to avoid your triggers and how to deal with cravings, you are missing the most important part. You need to learn that no matter what you face in the future, smoking is not the answer. People may get 6 or 10 months down the road and have a new crisis arise, or more stress on top of a crisis and they reach out and pick up a cigarette. Old habits are hard to break. You must learn the answer is NEVER a cigarette. It took me a while to believe that. I figured I could just keep saying 'no', but after a while I knew there had to be more to it than that.
When you know and accept that a cigarette is nothing more than dried tobacco leaves, with lots of added chemicals, wrapped in a paper tube and has no power to change your life (except for the worse) then you will be free and your quit becomes easy. I no longer fear or worry about relapse. I never 'needed' to smoke and now I know that is true.
The view from 4 years is astoundingly clear. Life is better than ever without smoking. Come and join me.
Leejay
found on Quitnet
