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Roller831
Member

A Slip is not a Fall

This for anyone who may be struggling with one smoke on a great quit.

There once was a man.  He walked for 90 days.  He walked hills and valleys. He crossed oceans and deserts.  He helped many people and many people helped him.  As he was trudging along, he was collecting stones.  He planned on using these stones to build a house.  He found a lot of stones.  He knew exactly how many stones he needed to build his house.  

After walking for 80 days this man came upon a bridge. Under this bridge there lived an evil troll.  The troll did everything he could to make the man fall into the water.  The man held on to the railings with all his might and didn't fall in!  But the troll did manage to cause the man to slip.  When he slipped, he lost a stone.  Just one, mind you.  It fell in to the water.  Lost forever.  The man was frantic.  He was so upset with himself!  How on earth could he build his house without that stone?  He just didn't think the other 4,074 stones mattered without the one he lost!

He started walking again, despondent and alone.  For 10 more days, the man walked.  Ten days.  During that time he considered dropping all the stones, one at a time.  But something made the man hold on.  Those stones had cost him too much to accumulate.  He thought of those first days when the hills were steepest and the oceans widest.  He had worked so hard to accomplish this gathering of stones.  But still, the loss of that one stone caused him so much despair that he couldn't see the amazing thing he had accomplished!

90 days after the man first set out, he came across a group of his friends.  These friends helped him to see many things about his stones.  Each stone had its own value. Each one was important in its own right.  If he had had to pay for these stone, they would have cost him $869...the one he lost was less than 22 cents.  That meant he was 99.9876% successful!!

Do you know what that man did?  He set to work trying to figure out how he could make his house without that one stone!  He decided to just leave it out of one of the walls!  The absence of that one stone meant the man had a window to see through!  Oh, and the things he could see!  The opportunities he now has!

If you look carefully, you can see him now leaning out his window and talking to his friends. Without one stone, you can still build a pretty strong damn house and sometimes it even let's you see things you never would have noticed.

24 Replies

@LaylaGetinFit23 Welcome to the Ex and congrats on your quit day.    Make this quit about you and your long term health and not about one event.  Your quit will mean more to you than just making it through one challenge in your life.    There will be many more challenges in our non-smoking lives and smoking doesn't change or make anything better.

It's not to late to learn about nicotine addiction and have a plan with how you'll deal with craving, triggers, what tools you'll use and creating new associations to replace smoking. This link has some great information to get you started on the right foot.

https://www.becomeanex.org/guides/?cid=footer_community_linktobex

Hope you'll join many of us on the Daily Pledge to stay on track one day at a time.

Your fellow quitters are here to support you, so reach out anytime you want to share your experience or need some help.  Staying close to the site is also a great quit tool.  

So glad you found us.  Stay busy and stay close.

Barb

  

Thank you. That means a lot. 

Layla
Giulia
Member

Gotta be careful with slips and dropping stones.  You never know.  It might be the cornerstone of your quit.

Great blog, roller!  

Not to mention starting up withdrawal again. Hi👋

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MarilynH
Member

EXcellent analogy, EXcellent blog thank you for sharing it.

Daniela2016
Member

Beautiful blog, and good for the man, who while worried about the lost stone, picked himself up right away and kept going! Here are some more to make up for the lost one...

maryfreecig
Member

Great story for all of us. And love the reaching out to those who are struggling. Thanks.

Posamari
Member

What a wonderful parable!

Mandolinrain
Member

Love this!

Grammy25
Member

This is a really great story and I learned alot from it!!

Thank you this was really helpful 

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