It’s been great! Awesome! I’ve actually got a regular Stop Smoking support group going over at http://www.blogfabulous.com/chantix/ .

Seriously, I don’t even want a cigarette!

Good Mommy! Good Mommy! Good Mommy!

Tracee

I’m still struggling – truth be known. But, I have faith that soon I will smoke my last cigarette and be free of it.

Truly, I need to quit. I make myself feel “less than” everytime I cheat.

Thanks for all the support people!

I firmly believe that your will can make your body do anything that it is physically capable of doing. You can quite smoking because it is physically possible for you to stop lighting up a cigarette and inhaling the smoke. But it takes faith. You have to believe that this is something that you really want to do, state your reasons for it, and firmly believe that your actions are necessary to make your goal become a reality.

It starts off like this. You don’t always believe that your goals are what you really want to achieve. Especially when tempted to smoke. When tempted to smoke, you default to the belief that either 1) one more cigarette will not hurt you, or 2) you really don’t want to quite, or 3) you think of some other rationalization that would justify your actions to smoke. I know there is a real physical addiction to smoking, but you do have the ability to overcome this addiction…and you do have the ability to overcome it psychologically if you exercise faith. Notice I never said, if you have enough faith. You obviously don’t have enough faith that you can quite just yet, but you can exercise this faith until you actually quite.

You first must have faith that you don’t have any options but to quite. You have to decide within yourself that you must make this commitment. If you leave the door open for choices, you will undoubtedly become slave to your addiction once again. You must understand that you have a very real addiction. You are not free until you have no more addiction. Smoking controls you. It forces you to purchase cigarettes at really high prices, just to place chemicals into your blood stream that your body truly does not need or want. You must tell yourself that you have no more options. Smoking is not an option because YOU are in control and you don’t want the option to smoke.

Secondly, you must try to remove yourself from as many temptations to smoke as possible. Don’t visit places where people smoke, don’t visit with people who smoke, don’t go to stores that sell smokes (which is nearly impossible, and is only given as an example – not necessarily in touch with reality), don’t watch TV if people smoke on it, don’t look out the window at your smoking neighbor. You will receive enough temptations to smoke, so you need to seriously make a conscious effort to not allow you subconscious a chance to change your mind. Christ said: Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof. Well, this is very true. Take no thought for the smokes, because your mind will take enough thought without you placing yourself into places where you are forced to think about your choices again. You’ve already made your decision – remove any chances where you might change your mind.

Thirdly, set goals for yourself. You may even reward yourself. However, you must change your mindset entirely – you must NEVER think of a smoke as a reward. You are an addict; you cannot change this fact until you think of your addiction as a crippling disease. It is not a reward. You must never allow yourself to think of it in this fashion. You must not forget, however, that you are not setting a goal to go three weeks. You are setting a goal to go forever without a smoke. Three weeks is simply a step in the right direction. You must ALWAYS go in that right direction.

This brings to the fourth step. Change your mindset entirely. You must loose the opinion that your addiction has anything desirable for you at all. You must forget about smoking as a reward or a form of pleasure. Don’t tell yourself lies that you cannot possibly believe – like trying to hypnotize yourself into thinking that smoking will cause your nose to fall off (though, this may actually be possible considering the cancer implications). Instead you must begin to view something that you have historically loved (and truly you did love this master) as something that is very bad for you. You must understand the horrible things about smoking. It’s not child’s play any longer. This is your life. You are a mother. You must live without cancer, yellow lungs, arteriosclerosis, poor circulation, physical addictions to substances, etc… You must change your mind-set that smoking is something good. It is not good. No good comes of it. It is like the ring in Lord of the Rings – no good comes from it and you are a slave to it unless you get rid of your desire for it.

The last step is patience and endurance. You must commit yourself to complete the process, no matter what. It takes lots of time. Try to enjoy it as best as you can, but it will be a while. Don’t try to speed it up or expect results any faster than they come (unless you have made mistakes, then commit yourself to eradicate the problem immediately). Learn to love your control over the substance and think positively about your progress. You will stop smoking – as you have faith that you will.