"All afternoon my inner junkie has been wheedling, cajoling, pouting and generally kicking up a racket. I know better and I'm fighting hard."
"Sometimes the only way out is through"
Hey Cindy,
Sometimes the answers are hidden in the strangest places in this big library / classroom. I'm linking an unlikely read for you below, a parade from last spring when my classmates and I were basically where you guys are now.
Couple ways to deal with the 'inner voice'. Deny, ignore, bargain, confront, banish, accept. Many ways to walk the same walk. I personally found it easiest for me to embrace & examine my 'thiggers' and accept that I would always have thoughts about my smoking activity that had built up since early childhood to near my 49th birthday when I found this place and learned how to live with my addiction to nicotine. When you think back over the tens of thousands of doses of nicotine you delivered, many without conscious thought or acknowledgement, it becomes clear that some residual thoughts will need some clean-up work. Some are very tough 'stains' that need a little more elbow grease to get rid of. Some vanish in a time or two of inspection, with absolutely no power to bother you if they do show up again.
You used tobacco cigarettes to satisfy your addiction for how long?
You've been working on living and thinking as a nicotine clean human being for a relatively short period of time in comparison. Cut yourself some slack. You are smart, you are strong willed, you know you choose to never be actively addicted again. Give yourself the time and tenderness you need to again live as you were meant to be, nicotine free.
Patience (take special note of Parker's words that inspired my last line)
Carry U THRU THURSDAY Parade (Our internal words have great power to adjust our 'personal program')
"I had to re-learn how to live life, and that meant taking things minute-by-minute sometimes. I had to keep believing that keeping away from that first one was all I needed to worry about. No matter what was happeneing, just a few minutes more and not have the first one. The minutes turned to hours. The hours turned to days. Weeks. Years." comes from I Quit Thousands of Times Then...
yqb - JoeJFree - from tobacco & nicotine for One Year, One Month, Nine Days and 30 Minutes, (405 days)
Reclaimed 35 days, 3 hours and 47 minutes to use as I Choose!
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NTAP!