I think the anxiety and fear that I created about "quitting smoking" was actually much worse than the "quitting process" itself. I believed that I would not know how to "do life" without my cigarettes. Smoking had become such a part of my life. It was so much a part of my life that I can't say that I could comfortably go for more than an hour without smoking.
Hello, my name is Sabine, I am 39 years old and I smoked between 1 to 3 packs-a-day for 20 years. Why am I suddenly introducing myself in this manner? I did this so that you realize that I smoked for OVER half of my life. Quitting meant that I was going to have to rid my life of something that had been there, by my side, in my back pocket for all of my adult life. How was I going to get rid of something that had been part of my life for longer than it had not been a part of it?
For years, I knew I had to quit smoking. I "tried" to quit for 10 of the 20 years that I was a smoker. I "attempted" to quit with every method available on the market. I "gave it a go" so many times that I can't even keep track, but I would say it is close to 20 times. I failed every one of those times--ALWAYS leaving me feeling depleted, guilty, depressed, and defeated--feeling like I would NEVER be able to give up this wretched habit. However, I kept trying because I could not accept that I had been defeated by my friend, my foe again.
Toe to toe, head to head, eye to eye, lips to butt, we would continue to duke it out for years. It is a good thing that I am a stubborn person, because it is what led me to continue this battle and finally led me to the "Almighty Grail". It was what led me to the SECRET to kicking this terrible habit, this addiction, this lifestyle, this false belief system I had about smoking.
The secret is really quite simple. In order to succeed you MUST do a few SIMPLE things: 1)You must KNOW that you have the ability to quit smoking--It is your CHOICE to smoke or not to smoke.
2)You must make peace with the fact that once you crush out that last "cancer stick", you can never have even one puff ever again. Not only will this keep you from smoking, but it will rule out "just one drag"--which actually is really helpful in that it makes it pointless to "fiend" for something that you aren't going to get anyway. I always found that I was obsessed with smoking during my quits (deep down, I knew that I would cheat), which made quitting more of a "white-knuckle" kind of experience.
3)You must educate yourself about smoking and quitting. Once you quit, do everything to protect your quit, embrace your quit, make love to your quit, and always remember your reasons for quitting.
The good news is that you have all it takes to follow these three simple rules. Everything required to succeed IS WITHIN YOU. The hardest part is making that decision, the rest is relatively easy--I promise. All that fear and anxiety about quitting smoking for all this time, all these years, really is needless because quitting is not as bad as the anxiety before the quit. Make your CHOICE to quit, make a commitment to yourself and then you can take a sigh of relief and breathe. Relax, it is all over now.
