Its October 1st. I have vowed to myself to become a non-smoker starting today. After spending the last week really being conscious of my smoking, reducing how much I smoked each day, feeling the nicotine cravings, feeling the agitation in my mind as it feels it habitual blanket wearing away, I believe that I am ready to do this. Sure, there is some anxiety about it, a little bit of uncertainty in my decision and in my ability, but overall, its exciting.
I have bought gum in large quantities. I do believe my jaw will be cramping before the first week is up, but that is still better than the alternative. Smoking is a nasty, nasty habit.
As I was falling asleep last night, I was trying to get my head into the right framework to begin this new journey today. I wanted to get down to the core of my nicotine addiction thought processes. The weird thing is that all I could find was the belief that smoking has got to be the most disgusting, useless habit I’ve ever encountered. This is not a new thought. I’ve had it for quite some time and have continued with the habit anyway. ??? How does that happen?
Ok. I know how that happens. It is addiction. Knowing you really don’t want anything to do with the thing you are addicted to and doing it anyway. During this past week, there were times when I would be smoking a cigarette and decide to put it out because I didn’t want it only to catch the partial cigarette in the ashtray out of the corner of my eye minutes later and feel compelled to light it up. Stupid.
Today, I am going to have the mantra of “I am a non-smoker, I am a non-smoker, I am a non-smoker” to see if that helps me make it through the cravings a little bit easier. If nothing else, perhaps it will help me change the mental programming. Either way, today is the first day of being a non-smoker. I’m looking forward to being able to say its been a week, a month, a year of being a non-smoker, but right now, I’m looking forward to be able to say tomorrow that I have 1 day as a non-smoker and working on the second day. Deep breaths, here we go!!
Dragonfly Gypsy USA 