phaeturmonty

I WAS WRONG!
From danl1 on 3/12/2004 10:21:00 AM

I was wrong.

That does it.


That is the secret to quitting this nasty thing forever. Park the egos at the door, and be willing to recognize that nicotine's effects on our brains duped us. Played us for the fool. Made us the rubes. Smoking did not ever help us, never gave us a single good thing. All it ever did was flip the 'ooh, that was good' switch deep inside our brains, without ever bothering to actually give us anything good. Our goofball minds just connected the dots in the wrong way, and gave smokes credit for things they didn't do.

Once we understand that we've been had, we've got the tools needed to make this thing really start to happen. If there's a 'craving', it suddenly breaks in half. Half is a minor physical or mental discomfort that will be gone in a few moments. Sucks, but oh well. The other half is a thought that smoking would somehow improve the situation that smoking had caused. Oops! Error in the brain! We know it's an error, just toss it aside. Have an 'urge', thinking, "gee, a smoke would be nice" Bzrzrzrzrttt! Wrong! Another small wiring problem - hang on - there, it's fixed. In no time, it gets funny, totaling up all the screw-ups the brain has accumulated.

See? There's nothing to fear. Nothing to fear, so nothing to fight. Nothing to fight, so much less stress. Less stress, so greatly reduced symptoms. Less symptoms, so less cravings. Less cravings, so less deal with. And as we build our success, we start firing off that 'reward' switch honestly, and the brain begins to learn proper lessons. The lies are erased.

We get to decide if this thing spirals up, or spirals down. The only difference is the willingness to acknowledge...

I was wrong. About everything I ever believed about the 'good' parts of smoking, and about their power over me.

And strength, and willpower, and fighting? Not a thing to do with success. For most folks, they get in the way of success, by having them believe there is something to fight, by causing 'battle-stress' and a sort of fatigue that only leaves folks 'craving' all the more. Once I stopped fighting long enough to realize that the craving was only a lie I was telling myself, a tiny error in my brain, there was suddenly nothing left to fight.