DenaliBlues

hardtack

LOL, Jo’s not smokin but she may be a wee bit squiffy. 5. search online for fish taco recipes

NOPE!

Yes! The addiction is 1) chemical, 2) psychological, 3) emotional and 4) ritual. All tightly tangled, all warping our sense of what’s possible. FEAR = false evidence appearing real. Before I quit I was very afraid, too. Part of me truly thought I would keel over and die - or be perpetually incomplete - without nicotine. That was me being an addict, panicking about not getting my next fix. That part of my brain had plenty of tantrums when I quit, which really sucked. Still does suck sometimes. But I DIDN’T die. And I am NOT incomplete. I’m actually far more wholly myself than before. I still lurch along one day at a time. “Not another puff today” is a great way to begin to break free! You can do this!

“My love is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June…”

2. Hop on the Quit Train

Love hearing all this goodness! You’re on a roll!

@Doreensfree, I agree that quitting is a serious undertaking and requires one to actually not smoke! "Dabbling" doesn't do it. However... ...the "whole self" and "100% commitment" ideas were very counterproductive for me for a long time. It was simply too high of a bar for me for starters. I put off quitting for years because I knew full well that I was not "100% all in." I wanted to keep smoking. My nicotine-flooded mind could in no way conceive of "never" or "forever." I felt like a loser not having a stronger desire to quit. What ultimately helped me get out of this loop was to accept ambivalence as my baseline state while shifting my focus to the behavior of smoking. I stopped trying to eliminate my ambivalence and eliminated the physical act, instead - and all the wretchedness that goes with it. With nicotine no longer turning my head into a weird house of wavy mirrors, I can now tackle the longer term emotional and psychological aspects of recovery. All of which is to say, for anyone who is hovering in a place of competing longings - just try quitting. You don't have to attain a perfect state of readiness first. I wasn't convinced at the outset, but I'm happy to be learning that I can indeed experience a full and grateful life without nicotine. The longing is less powerful on most days. Hopefully it will die altogether eventually. But even if it lingers, I've got @jillar's dirt bike metaphor to get me through. Brilliant.

Hi, @11better11. Glad to see you check in again today! For what it’s worth, Allen Carr didn’t much help me, either. Each of us is different, and that’s okay - we all have our own reasons for seeking freedom and unique approaches that will work for us. Addiction gives us a very bleak and distorted view of ourselves that is not accurate. One of my own motivations for quitting was needing to break out of that trap of feeling ashamed for my “failure” to self regulate. If you’re in a similar place, know this - you are not defective. You are more capable than your addiction would have you believe. You can follow a quitting plan, or simply pick something - anything - to do instead of lighting up. (Exercise, lozenges, games, chores… whatever works for you.) Keep us posted - we are rooting for you.

marrow

+1 to what Yoda and Jillar said. I don't mean to minimize what you are experiencing or how lousy you feel, @Linda. But the whole "I'm not strong enough" spiel is a false narrative. It's the addiction talking, causing you to view the world through a glass darkly. Because that's what addiction does to all of us. It skews our perceptions of the facts - facts like the 550 plus days you were smoke free. You did not dream those days! They are part of you. You built up all kinds of coping skills during that time. Those skills and that quitting muscle memory is still inside you.

"....I do not want to forfeit my life to submission & servitude..." Amen. Thanks for the reinforcement.

Hey, Linda. Thank you so much for writing about this. It does help to see your story here. I have felt on the knife edge of smoking lately, and your words help me feel less alone, less bonkers. Did smoking for the last few days fix anything in your life? Tell me it didn't. I need the reminder! We've all fallen off the wagon before, I lost a long quit myself once. All can offer is that when that happened, I dearly wish that I had not resigned myself to the addiction again. I wish I had shaken it off and climbed back on the wagon right away. You can still remember what it was like to be free, all those quit muscles you built since Jan 2021 are still strong. They will hold you up!

Not crazy or stupid. Just addicted and discouraged. Been there. I was skeptical of success stories, too. They felt unattainable. Some people found quitting to be joyful, less difficult than expected. I salute them. But my own quit, after 40+ years of heavy smoking, was not a happy scene of frolicking unicorns and carefree rainbows. It has been a grim, white-knuckled, miserable uphill climb out of a deep pit… and I am still climbing. I need lots of creative strategies, and I used NRT as a temporary crutch. It ain’t pretty. But I am doing it, one day at a time. So can you. Haven’t seen a success story out there yet that you can relate to? Okay, write your very own. And tell us about it along the way. If I learned anything from my past relapses it’s that shame is useless. It fed the addiction and sped my slide back down into the pit, time and again. Things started to change for me when I ditched the shame and, instead, got angry about being controlled by nicotine, and got and curious about what it would take for me to quit. What will your turning point be?

N O P E

Please don’t give up, @11better11. We are not failures, we just got caught in the trap of a very powerful addiction. One that flourishes in the dark, and makes us feel lousy. But you can break free. Let some light in. Shake off your slip like a polar bear shakes off water. Post here on the Train about what you are going through. (We’ve been there, too.) Read the resources, let them sink in. Take it one day - or one hour or one minute - at a time. You can do this.

swale

spools of thread

Escovitch Fish