My Milestone
When I wrote this, it, unbelievably!, had been a whole year since I put out my last cigarette. I am sure that as I did, I didn’t even consider a one year anniversary. And if I had, the notion would have scared the living snot out of me. It has been an interesting year. (Remember the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times"?)
I've come to the conclusion that this quit thing is nothing so much as a learning process. And not simple rote memorization, either. You have to engage your whole mind.
How I've Gotten This Far
The first thing I had to learn was that I do not need to smoke. That should be easy; right up there with "I do not need to drink antifreeze". But we’ve all spent years convincing ourselves that we do need to inhale poison. How many smokers would still be smoking if they didn't, deep down, believe they had to?
A second big lesson learned was, I didn't "love smoking" or even like it much. It may have briefly felt good to relieve nicotine withdrawal, but mostly it was a stinky, embarrassing pain in the neck.
Third was knowing that smoking even one cigarette would be akin to sticking my foot in a bear trap to see if it would snap shut.
Those lessons didn't come easily to me, it took me 33 years of smoking to learn them.
In day-to-day practice, the hardest part of quitting was having to think ALL OF THE TIME. It's exhausting. I'm not talking about calculating the jump to hyperspace here; I'm talking about needing to think about getting to bed without a last smoke, or what that tightness in my throat meant (duh, you're thirsty!) or (I swear this is true) needing to think about where to put my tongue - get your minds out of the gutter, turkeys! Apparently my mouth was so numbed by smoke that getting normal sensation back made it feel totally alien to me.
No wonder the first smoke-free month passes in such a fog. For weeks, reprogramming the auto-pilot takes every waking moment. And you can't take a break from it; that's what's so hard. It's not that any one thing is difficult, it's just that "relaxing" means "not thinking" which means falling back to old ways, which means... foot, meet bear trap.
Eventually the "new ways" became as mindless as the old ones had been. I no longer have to think all the time. (Whew! For a while I feared my brain would explode.) I think that this is what they call "The Peace". It's not that you live in bliss, it's just that you don't have all that blasted background chatter playing in your head all of the time. You can turn your mind fully to important things, like which brand of beans to buy.
Quitting’s been an adventure. It’s been ludicrous, stimulating, depressing, uplifting, frustrating, and joyful. Sometimes all at the same time. It’s not been boring. I thank all of you who shared it with me, talked me back from the ledge, imparted a bit of sanity, and even better, distracted me with a bit of in-sanity.
Lessons Learned
That last paragraph makes it sound like I think it’s all over. I know it’s not. I know that I could stick my wrist back in the manacle... but why would I want to?That is the main thing I learned in this first year - no matter what the problem is, there is a better solution than smoking. And the reward for finding that solution? FREEDOM!
Terry Martin, Smoking Cessation Guide, says:
Thanks for sharing your perspectives, Nyniane. Your account illustrates the false beliefs that can get built up around our years of addiction to nicotine. We "learn" to associate just about everything with smoking.Once we quit and begin the work of unraveling the threads of addiction that are interwoven in every thought and emotion we have, we find we're able to identify the faulty connections and correct them.
While it can be uncomfortable to go through, this part of the process of recovery from nicotine addiction is well worth the effort it takes to do, and rewards us with lasting the freedom we're all looking for.
