Quit Smoking

Alright, I’m back on the wagon. I won’t think about failure. I won’t think about the possibility of me relapsing. It won’t happen. There is no point in thinking that it might if I will not let it happen. I am going to work hard so that when stress hits I will know I have done everything in my power and there is no point stressing over it. This is the moment of embarking. All signs are in place. All or nothing. No chance of failure. No opportunity either. No going easy on myself. No thinking twice about what must be done. It is only do. It is only me and my will to make things happen. Nothing can control me except for myself. I have complete control over my actions and my life. Smoking is void. It does not help me grow in any way so I will not use it. It has no purpose. Same goes with drinking. I am who I am. I am not worried. I do not worry about that which I can’t change. I can only do my best. There is no hope either. I do not hope things fall in place. I just do what I must to the best of my abilities and move on. If things don’t work out the way I planned like water I dig a new path. I am good. I am strong. I am completely ready to start my life. To live it fiercely and without compromise. Smoking no longer exists. Drinking no longer exists. All that matters is me doing the best job I can to support my family and myself.

So. I didn’t fail in my promise. I did not promise I would not drink or smoke. Repeat. I DID NOT PROMISE I WOULD NOT SMOKE OR DRINK TODAY OR YESTERDAY. I let my stress get to me. I slipped up. Alot. It was like the snowball effect. I did smoke and then I smoked more and then I got wasted. And today I smoked and smoked and drank. And a big part of me wants to give up. Throw in the towel. Decide that there’s no point in trying because I will never succeed. That I will always be weak. But I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t give up. I would rather be miserable without smoke or alcohol then be happy with it. I am back to square one. But you know I grew wiser. Rather than (check previous posts from 3 months ago) thinking ” see, I can handle it!” or “hey, a slip up every now and again is inevitable” I KNOW the truth is that (despite my feelings on the issue) I will never be able to control it. I didn’t give in thinking “maybe just one more” this time. I gave in to past bad behaviors (i.e. smoking when stressed or angry, drinking till I feel happy). There was LITERALLY no thought behind it. I let my stress take hold. How do I avoid this? Live RIGHT. Live HEALTHY. Pay NO attention to the crazy thoughts in my head and the negative thoughts and letting myself feel there is no hope for me or my roommate regarding life’s trials. Again, how do I avoid this? By DOING. Aside from running 2 miles a day and whitening my teeth there was no other doing on my part. I have to surrender my laziness, fear, addictions, bad habits, etc… and replace it with a well-rounded, smart person.

This was a very trying day. And pretty much every day is trying because of my work. I want to smoke badly. But I know it’s not going to help a damn thing, in fact it will only make it worse. Smoking even once will bring my motivation down, make my fitness level fall. But is this how every day will be? Me getting stressed and craving nicotine or alcohol like crazy? Cuz if things keep going like this I am going to break. But I don’t want to break. I really don’t.

I realize now how truly careless I’ve been. And I don’t want to stay quit. I’ve met people who embraced this healthy lifestyle who were half the person my smoker friends were. I don’t know what I’m saying. Right now, I’m angry with myself. Really pissed. My carelessness just screwed over someone I love and pushed away two of my greatest friends. I’m stuck here in this self-created hell. Can’t call, can’t talk, can’t say shit. All I can do is just marinate in my anger. And now I realize how fucking deep nicotine’s foot was in my life. I know I should go for a run. Live healthy. But that makes me feel plain selfish. Like, why the fuck should I even live healthy? Loved ones are suffering because of me. I should be fucking smoking. All the stress my loved one is feeling is due to my indiscretion. My thoughtless actions. And all these promises I wanted to keep, I want to throw away. They’re not a priority anymore. Not right now. I don’t give a shit about them. I just want to right these wrongs in my life or face the full consequences. That is how I feel right now. I just thought, though. I have another goal I want to achieve and that is to trust that emotions cannot create me. I am about to let emotions create me. I am about to lose control of my actions and forfeit them to emotional thinking. If I don’t gain control. I am angry at myself. Anger is a sign that there is something in life that needs attention. In this case it is me. My actions, rather. A day ago I acted three times without thinking of the potential consequences. And I am going to accept them. What I need to do now because I cannot change what I’ve done or erase the results is to remember to think before I act. Also, I need to be more aware of situations. To not think about it and then be faced with further problems helped create the mistakes of yesterday. Which of course has presented a bigger problem. None of this can be changed. It is fixed. No effort on my part will make it better than it is now. Now, I need to apologise and move on. I need to pay attention to what we have now. My emotional mind still wants to be angry and say I should have thought about it earlier and that now I must be miserable. No. I shoulda, coulda, woulda. The past is fixed. Unchangeable. Regardless of what I should have done I am only directly effected by what I DID do. And the truth in life is that there will always be times when you make a friend or family member angry at you. This is certain. The only thing you can do is to do the right thing from then on. No, I will not smoke and I will not drink. Not today.

No, I can do this on my own without professional help. But I do notice something that is going to become a problem. My thoughts kind of circle around smoking. I get smoking urges everywhere I go. It might have to do with me still getting through the first two weeks but in my last serious quit it became a problem later on when I wouldn’t stop thinking about it. There has to come a time when I can just accept I am quit. Embrace being quit and just live life without thinking about it. Y’know? That is something I need to start working on. Just not thinking about it. Just living well and not worrying about how stress will affect me. Not thinking “oh god am I going to smoke when I get stressed next?” but having a firm grasp of who I am. I am not a smoker. I do not need to smoke. I do not need addiction. I am someone who thrives on an, (albeit puritanical) extreme living ethic. I just need to gain that perspective of who I am. That I’m not destined to fail. That all I need to do is remember my promise that I will not smoke or drink and remember the reasons why. What are the reasons? It’s really just one: I can’t do either and be in control of myself. Ay, I need to chill.

God I came close today. I almost fucked it up. I nearly fucked up royally. I got stressed. Angry. Stressed. Furious and stressed. My roommate was yelling at me. I was yelling back ofcourse. But she kept getting the word in. And I wanted to smoke soooo bad. And drink myself into a coma. And I kept saying “Fuck it I’m smoking, I’ll start back tomorrow” “Fuck it I’m drinking, I’ll start back tomorrow”. But… I didn’t. I kept telling myself “No, MK you made a promise” and even though my addiction said “I don’t care I’m breaking it” I didn’t. Frankly, as I try to explain what the fuck kept me from caving in I find myself speechless. Why didn’t I cave in? My thoughts were screaming ” I don’t care about promises, I need a cigarette”... but I didn’t fail in my promise… Why? What stopped me? I was falling for it. I was reeled in but I still didn’t do it.

Too be quite honest I have been quitting every week for the past month and a half. I’d quit for 3 days smoke for 4 and then repeat. Now, I’m taking it serious. And I’m aiming further than I have before.

My nicothoughts say to the previous post “I wish I would quit smoking on labor day” lol. Basically so I could smoke again. But I won’t. Some days I just don’t want to go any further. I want to quit quitting. I want to fail my promise. But no matter how much of an addict I am I am first and foremost a human being. I believe in myself. I know that at my core I want to be done with the arrogance and ignorance of smoking. At my core I just want to lead a life with open eyes (and lungs) and a strong spirit. Work hard, play hard, embrace life (exercise, love, laughter, compassion) and not embrace a life less than living (smoking, drinking, jadedness, superficiality). Instant gratification, conformity, not caring whether you become the best you can be. Always a cigarette in hand wishing for things to change and never taking action. Sizzled out like the end of an extinguished cigarette. Not for me. Too tragic :).

I’m not a bed of roses today, the 5th day quit. But I made my promise. I’m still going to follow through.

So finally life without nicotine is materializing. And I don’t even want to remember it. Life as a smoker. Because I’m still so newly quit I fear I will not be strong enough to remember it. I’ve had my moments where if I had given my thoughts any more support I would have just said “FUCK IT!” and had a cigarette. But I have worked hard and felt great. I have invested serious bucks into dental hygiene (^_) and basically walk out of the bathroom every chance I get with a mouth smelling like Listerine arctic mint. My roommate thinks I’m funny. I’m always asking her to smell my breath. I have, in essence, created a new thing to look forward to in the morning: brushing my teeth. I would highly recommend it to those looking for some sort of substitute for the morning and evening smoke. I wake up and hardly can wait to begin my teeth cleaning experience hehe. lol. Listerine is so amazing. So… energizing! I look forward to fulfilling my promise today of not smoking.

Four hours from 4 days quit smoking and drinking. I’m, to put it finely, feeling like for once my promises are starting to mean something. Yes, I wanted to smoke today. Today was somewhat stressful. But I stayed true to myself and my convictions. And this fills me with pride. Sometimes, when you are about ready to lose it it is best to just do anything that will keep your mind off smoking (like snacking for instance). I did plenty of that today. But I also reminded myself that I am hitting the peak of my withdrawals. And so today, I knew, was going to be hard. It was not going to let me off easily. Not to say the previous days have. But today I felt angry, sad, etc… A plethora of emotions at once that can only be described with the word: confused. I wanted to work very hard at work and to a degree I still did very well. But I felt like half-assing it. I was tired mentally. And I hate that. The point is, if I want myself to grow I neeed, needneedneedneedneedneed to do what I KNOW is right and to do what is healthy. I could have helped my coworker more tonight. But I decided I had done my bit and I’m just going to leave (which is true, I did.). However, what I know would have been right is to do everything in my power to help and to go the extra mile. For me life is not about being great. It’s about being the best you can possibly be. Constantly learning and improving. Constantly going the extra mile no matter how small the task. This betrays a discipline and commitment that most would not care to work for. But I do. And I have an ego at work. A new girl at work really worked hard and I had to pull myself over and remind myself that learning comes from all angles. And that what I thought was anger that she was getting us to do things was actually anger that I hadn’t worked as hard as she had. Humbling, to say the least. I didn’t realize the ego I had. But I was humbled today. And I should be happy for that. Nonetheless I was reminded painfully today that I can and should still improve.