Commitment:
I had four cigarettes left in my pack at bedtime on November 14, 2012. But I was smoked out for the day so I had one choice. I stood over the trashcan outside and broke each one into four pieces. “I. Can. Do. This.” On November 15, 2012 I woke up as a non-smoker. It was a done deal. It wasn’t easy. And after going through “I only smoked two cigarettes in the last 10 weeks so what’s the problem?” and then cheating a little more, and then finally going through a really horrible relapse in early April of 2013, I put out my last cigarette on April 30, 2013. Again I had four cigarettes left in my pack at bedtime. I stood over the outdoor trashcan once more and broke each one into four pieces. “I. Can. Do. This.” Four times.
I had still learned something from the previous months ‘practice’ quit so now I knew how I was going to make this work. I just had to get through each day. LOL! I knew how not to smoke in the mornings, I knew how not to smoke after I got home. I’d learned by scratching it out day after day after day, just getting to bedtime. Stretching those moments I didn’t think about smoking out a little longer day by day. It happened, little by little.
Cheating was off the table, it wasn’t an option. No matter what happened, or how angry, or frustrated, or stressed out I became there was going to have to be a different option. So I made an alternative plan for every cigarette I knew I’d want to smoke! (Angry! Morning! Coffee! Break time! Driving!) And when that crave hit me I’d pull out my list and get up and do something. (“I’ll just go do this first and then see how I feel.”)
I learned from past quits that sleeping was my reset. I just had to get to bedtime every day and I could do this. I knew in the mornings I’d be ready to do another day. And THIS time I was willing to accept a few things. Tomorrow: Acceptance.
