You have to WANT it.
I am speaking, of course, about quitting smoking.
The first time I quit for 3 years. I quit with a partner who still doesn’t smoke and was very disappointed in me when I started back up. The reasons for me starting back up were extensive, but I’m not going to get into them now. I struggled with the cravings almost every day of those three years. I had regular dreams about smoking. I didn’t really *want* it. Not then.
The second time I quit for 6? 9? months. I quit because I didn’t want to be harassed anymore by my (then) boyfriend. I didn’t want it at all, thus, it didn’t take.
This time:
First off, I wanted to quit back in October. I was all set to quit on Hallowe’en, but then I realized that I would not successfully make it through the holidays. After the Thanksgiving fiasco (which we are *still* not talking about), I know that I would have started back up THAT DAY. So, to start with, I smoked for a full two months longer than I actually wanted to.
Several years ago I had a conversation with my mother about how her harassing me to quit didn’t help, in fact, it just made me smoke *more*. I explained that I would quit when I was ready and that her interference didn’t make me want to ditch the habit any more, it just made me angry at her. Once she backed off, I was able to – slowly, over time – find reasons for myself to quit.
I didn’t tell very many people about the Smoke Out. In fact, I only told the people who would be around me that day and the people who read my blog. I didn’t tell my family until after it was over. I didn’t tell very many people about the date I set to quit smoking until it was about 2 weeks away. I didn’t want people to unintentionally sabotage me by trying to convince me to do it sooner than my planned schedule.
You see, I really wanted this, this time. I finally got to a point where I was DONE smoking. At least part of this, I’m sure, has to do with the fact that the *vast* majority of my (local) friends DO NOT smoke, so there’s a really large amount of support in doing this, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on things because they’re going outside without me (or because I can’t go to someone’s house because they smoke there).
I was talking about this with an Imaginary Friend of mine and he concurred with the overall concept that you have to want it. The problem is that people want it for different reasons. For him, it was the day that his daughter decided to emulate him by sticking a butt from the ground into her mouth. For others it’s a sickness or death in the family, for some it’s something else. For me, I don’t know that there was one thing, I was just finished with it.
I won’t lie, I miss the smoking. Not the cigarettes, just the smoking. In fact, one of my crutches is smoking parsley (really!) just so that I have something that I can inhale. It’s nasty, though, and I don’t do it very often. I’ve only felt (really) a couple of serious cravings and usually it’s more about the act of smoking than about the cigarettes themselves. I’m doing really good and I honestly believe that this is it for me.
I don’t think I’ll become a vehement anti-smoker, though, like so many recovering smokers do. I know all too well that you have to really WANT it, and that’s too personal a thing for someone else to shove down your throat. People make choices, not all of which are good ones, but that’s not my issue and it’s not my business.
So if I start going off on the anti-smoking rants… someone just needs to point me to this post. Deal?
~FG };^>