HOW HEAVY IS IT ?
From GUMMER On 11/30/2010
That burden you`ve been carrying around?
All those times you had to interrupt something important because you had to smoke.... all the times you did not enjoy something because you could not smoke?
All that money frittered away... all those nagging worries about your health?
That humiliating dependence... that inability to do as you please... that anxiety when your stash ran low?
Do you now realize the demands smoking made of you?
The desperate search for an opportunity, for the slightest opening to indulge, and the overwhelming relief when you found it?
Do you now understand what was really going on?
Did you never realize how all of this weighed upon you and your well-being?
How it affected others... your family... your colleagues... your friends?
And now these eye-popping withdrawals, the sharp cravings, the irrational anxiety, the mean temper and irritability, that hollow feeling... the fear of always struggling and never again fully enjoying life.
You see that part clearly, don`t you?
Are you sure?
How about that fear of failing?
The recriminations and irritation when you do... disappointing loved ones, and yourself?
The effort and focus to get back on track?
Do you realize what that requires of you
Do you see that ALL OF THIS comes from smoking?
All of it... from day one, when you took the first fateful puff, to today, smoking has been a burden.
Yes, even in those golden years, early on, when everything seemed bright and stretched out forever, smoking was a burden.
All those cigarettes you truly enjoyed... they too were a burden.
The smokes that saw you through exams, and deadlines, and job interviews, and grief... a burden, every single one of them.
How come you could not see that at the time?
This is really what quitting is all about, learning to see that smoking is nothing but a heavy burden. And that it always has been so... that in spite of what you have believed for years, smoking never gave you anything of value.
Smoking simply addicted you and made you dependent, and rode roughshod over you, and has left you here... miserable and uncomfortable and overwhelmed and insecure.
Discovering this is a process, an evolution of sorts, where the truth gradually dawns upon you as the fog of addiction clears.
But once you see smoking for what it is, as nothing more than a burden, then you will willingly set it down and happily leave it behind forever.
Success in quitting is not about stopping smoking. Success is coming to see smoking as a burden rather than a comfort...
Once you do, you will never go back. Gummer