Markus

Quit Date: 02-19-2008

Posted October 28, 2018 · IP  (edited)

I haven't been around that much but I was here yesterday and was glad to see all of the long quits. I haven't written in a few years but would like to post a few thoughts about the quit process.

Looking at the new and young quits, and the never-ending fight to gain a foothold on the sticky quit, I just wanted to let the newer quits I see on the QT know, that you'll get there too, by sticking to your plan and what you will learn as you stay quit.

This is only a mind game, where your self control is being tested constantly. It wears on you as you overcome the triggering of craves through attrition, trying to process them simply as your mind/body healing itself naturally through recognition and reaction. That someting so elementary is so taxing is hard to understand sometimes.

It really requires no action other than acknowledgement of the particular craving and the processing of it.

Repetition is the key. The first triggers and craves that you will defeat are the ones you encounter the most. The most infrequent ones are the last to fall, and they do, through repetition.

If you will just keep doing your normal daily and nightly activities sans the nicotine delivery, eventually you'll roll over the addiction and leave it behind. Sounds overly simplistic reading this but remember that you will trigger and crave and try to understand what caused it. Don't be alarmed and dont make a hasty judgement, because sometimes you can't put your finger on the particular cause to your effect.

Could be romancing the cigarette subconsciously and missing that old smoky life, since things have changed and you don't know who you are sometimes. I mean you were this... smoker... and now maybe scared and are wanting to go back to what you see as normal. That is when you get tough and remember that you control your own mind and heart and that you call the shots. It's okay to feel weak, but know that you didn't get this way in a few days so it will take a few months of honest work to get out of the hole.

You will make it, even if you feel like you won't. This will not kill you but it will make you unbelievably strong if you'll just stick to your quit plan and your back up plan, and allow yourself some time to heal.

So be militant anti smoking, and  remember that you are in a fight and that you are unwinding your whole being from the addiction so walk like it and act like it.

Once smoking and cigarettes were every part of you, and now...well now they are not. That hurts and that is painful, but it is the work you have to do, so let the process work. Pay it forward, and stay as strong as you can as you use what you have learned.

And if you fall, it isn't the end. You start again. A dream becomes a wish, and that wish becomes your reality as you work the quit. Time is on your side now, so dont give that addiction any more of you. You're in control of your mind and body and you've taken the chains off. Don't put them back on.

KTQ

Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/11327-the-rear-view-mirror-and-years-quit/