We do this blog every Wednesday afternoon to offer encouragement to those in No Man’s Land -- months 2-3-4 of a quit, give or take a couple of weeks. This community has chosen to put a big, bright spotlight on NML – we’ve chased away the shadows, taken away the mystery, and put a lot of effort into bringing people in NML together. Because we understand that quitting isn’t over in a month.
Everyone who goes through NML blazes a trail for those that follow. You are not alone on this journey, and you never will be!
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This week’s topic: Fear of Forever (aka “Stop Poking Yourself in the Eye!”)
There are lots of milestones and “ah-ha” moments along the quitting journey. Most of them have to do with shedding the lies of addiction one-by-one, and accepting some simple truths. This is not easy, it’s a long, emotional process and is why No Man’s Land can be such a tricky place.
We touch on this topic in another recurring NML blog (The Forever Quit); here we’ll take a slightly different road. Along with the lies of addiction (I can have just one, I enjoy smoking, etc.), we must also cope with some basics of human nature: change is scary, forever is a long time, and we don’t like being told what to do.
When we tell ourselves (or are told) that we HAVE to quit smoking and we can NEVER smoke again, we start putting up some defensive walls. We may agree to quit, because logically we know that smoking makes about as much sense as poking ourselves in the eye with a stick, but that fear, that sense of dread that “forever” evokes, can be very hard to overcome.
Here is my confession – I spent No Man’s Land telling myself that on my 80th birthday, if I still wanted to smoke, I would start again. That late in life, why not? At the time this thought gave me comfort, but now I see it for what it really was – fear of forever, fear of having something taken away from me, defiance against being told what to do.
Now, with NML long gone in my rear view mirror, I can see how silly this fear was. Being afraid of never smoking again was about as silly as being afraid of never poking myself in the eye with a stick again.
Smoking wasn’t taken away from me, I am willingly walking away from it, rejecting it as an option in my life, saying “NOPE, smoking is simply no longer important to me.”
Reach for this milestone, for the “ah-ha” moment when the thought of never smoking again gives you a sense of pride, not loss. When you do, your fear of forever will disappear.
Quitting smoking is a journey, not an event. Never go backwards, success is ahead of you! Keep moving forward!
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If you're in NML right now, give a shout! Reach out and find each other!
Click here to read the original No Man’s Land blog on Dale's page:
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/blogs/jonescarp.aka.dale.Jan_2007-blog/2011/05/24/no-mans-land-da...
