Admittedly I have tried to quit before, actually quit a few times this year before and after the birth of my first child. I know I have always been in denial about smoking. But this time is different, it has been six days of no nicotine, each day reading Joel’s or Johns guides and actually finding the scientific articles (I am a scientist) reading them (not that you need to as they are technical works, but i have a technical brain) - to drum it in has really been successful to not let craves continue for me. I am finding it good taking things one day at a time. There have been a few crave times – but there doesn’t have to be much reasoning within my mind to think of something else. This is different from before – before I would for some reason entertain such reason, but now I know it is futile, there is no logic in entertaining such thoughts. I feel like I am getting the upper hand of my life back. I have also reasoned that the only reason that one stops smoking is for oneself, not for someone else per se. Although I stopped after the birth of my daughter, it wasn’t really enough, she wasn’t seeing me smoke… or some kind of blind reasoning – not that it was necessarily that reason. But I do understand that we don’t do it for anyone else – it doesn’t work ultimately.
Thing is before I started smoking I use to be really concerned about looking after my health. It was then an off an on struggle, like I had two parts of me, one who was reckless and a smoker and the other intelligent and healthy and this went on for 17 years till now. Before when I had stopped smoking I had that “just one” usually when drinking out with friends, then sure enough, even if I didn’t smoke the next day, or the day after that, I would eventually and be back to the levels of before. I can’t really rationalise with that person who relapsed before anymore, and reading through Freedoms pages have really helped for that transition for this attempt this time, that is one day at a time.Chris

