From: Hillbilly(Gold) (Original Message) Sent: 6/17/2002 4:17 PM
"As long as a person feels like a smoker trying not to smoke, he or she is going to have the psychological problems and play the little mind games of a smoker trying not to smoke. When you cross over to the frame of mind that you are not a smoker trying not to smoke but rather you are now an ex-smoker--and that is what you want to be--the psychological benefit can be both powerful and profound."

The above is an excerpt from Message No. 24 in the thread Carrying Cigarettes. I read it for the first time today, and have not seen that teaching concept anywhere else in Freedom. It really got my attention.

For two months now, I have been successful in my quit by telling myself that "I am not going to smoke, just for today. I may smoke tomorrow, but today I'm not going to smoke."

Lately I have not had to argue with myself each morning about this decision, and it has become much less important to me. What I am trying to say is my mindset is changing, and I begin to look more at the long range picture of not smoking for the rest of my life. That idea has been particularly scary to me, but I have to accept that my baby steps are getting bigger.
This post that I quoted above really affected me. I have been thinking of myself as a smoker who is trying to quit. I now begin to realize that is time to begin thinking of myself as an ex-smoker. This is a major step for me and I wonder if anyone else has been through a similar experience.
The one thing I don't need to forget is the fact that I will never be an ex-addict.

Dave
I have chosen not to smoke for 1 Month 4 Weeks 2 Days 18 Hours 12 Minutes 46 Seconds. Somewhere there are 2126 extra cigarettes.

From Dave's Original Post in ...

Edited 4 times by FreedomNicotine Feb 19 10 12:32 PM.