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After much reading and much advice, I understand there is a method or process to become free, to become whole, to heal from an addiction. While I no longer want to smoke and have made the commitment to myelf never to take another puff, I also want to heal in all areas. So from this moment on, I am taking full responsibility for any choice I make; I will lead a conscious and caring life. With each crave I overcome, I will regain inner power i have unconciously given away to my addiction. Yes, each time I grow stronger and it grows weaker. This will be one interesting journey and strangely enough, I am looking forward to it.

While this is so obvious to me now, a couple weeks ago I the thought never entered my mind. I smoked since I was 15 and I am now almost 65; I graduated from college, have a successful business career, raised a wonderful daughter, was a good mother and wife, was married for 35 years, etc. See, I didn't have to Smoke, I enjoyed smoking. I liked it. I could quit IF I wanted to, but why would I want to? It released my stress, calmed me Down, helped me maintain my edge in being a quick thinker and I liked smoking...it did me no harm. For 50 years, I rationalized my addiction and clothed it in beauty and gave it so many wonderful attributes, I really believed smoking was beneficial to me. I don't really know how or why, at this time in my life, a crack in my rationalization occurred and from there, all my wonderful rationalization began to unravel, stich after stitch, thread after thread. It all started because I wanted to breathe better on my next vacation, climbing up the mountainous stairs to various places in Japan. Ok, doing good on incline on treadmill to prepare for next year, but...darn breathng Was taking a long time to improve. So I decied Not to Smoke until I got up to 5 miles, incline 10, speed 3 mph for 3 miles. That was the first crack...wait did I just admit to myself that smoking was causing me harm? Was it impacting my breathing? So I set a quit date and the closer the date got the more panicky I became. Oh dear me, I was fearful of the withdrawal and thought I was too weak to quit on my own. But never fear, nicotine would help me get through it. Now everything in my rationalization of smoking came tumbling down.