Day 50

It’s been up and down this week, but overall not too terribly bad.  Had a few very intense moments, but they really were only moments and easily forgotten.  Given everything that happened this week (very stressful) I was rather surprised with myself that I didn’t cave in.  My cat almost died (twice) and I was an emotional wreck all week.  Oddly, I think the fact that I never caved and didn’t smoke actually brought me some much needed strength and encouragement during a very difficult time.

This leads me to think about the ability to harness the power of previous successes in order to cultivate future successes.  It took a lot of strength to not revert to my old ways of comforting myself this week.  To not just buy a pack and site around worrying about my cat.  I believe that strength came from the mere idea that cheating now would undo all that has been done and 49 days is a lot to undo.  So I stole little moments of success from every previous day and fused them into the power to get through this week.  I kept my chin up, as they say, and weathered this personal storm with no crutches.  In fact, looking at how sick my cat was made me think about how sick I could have been.  I watched him fight for his life for 6 days.  Watched him go under the knife twice.  I watched him get so thin and look like a ghost.

Why, I ask you, would I want to do that to myself?  It may sound a little cheesy, but I feel obligated to stay clean for him.  Why would I invite illness and sickness into my body like that?  Especially after I fought so hard to keep another healthy and alive.

Think about it.  If you have kids, parents, friends, loved ones.  Would you wish them ill?  No, of course not.  So why do you make yourself ill?  So they can suffer watching you?  So they can someday care for you when you get bronchitis, pneumonia, cancer????

You can take one little step towards closing the door to illness and opening the door to possibility.  It’s not that hard.  REALLY.  Quitting smoking is difficult but it REALLY IS DOABLE.  And, truly, like everyone says, it gets much easier as time goes on.  At day 50, I estimate that I actually visualize smoking maybe every other day.  Yes, I crave the drug (nicotine) but I don’t crave smoking to get the drug.  At least not as much as I did.

This is a little gift of hope.  And, if you think you have to get to day 50 or 100 or 1000 to get it, you don’t.  It starts in week 2 and gets bigger and stronger every day after that.  So, by day 50, you are pretty convinced you can make it to 51.  And, you’ll want it to be over.  The addiction, that is.  If you are using nicotine replacement therapy like me, you enjoy it and you use it.  But, perhaps there are others out there like me who are also saying everyday, in the backs of your minds, “I just want this to be over”.

I can see the end now.  I can almost feel the end.  This is a first.  I am so tired of carrying this burden around.  This friend of mine, I now see, is really a huge dead weight.  I want to shrug it off and move on.  Months from now, I don’t ever want to consider myself a smoker.  I just mentally don’t even want to go there.  I don’t want to look back, I don’t want to even think that was who I was.  I am done.

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Quitting Smoking

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