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So what have I learned so far: NICOTINE is addictive It changed my brain It changed my DNA I needed a fix every hour It hurt my lungs, my heart, and other body parts Cost me a fortune Took a lot of my time Controlled much of my life I spoke to my daughter and she said of course I am addicted to nicotine. She gave me examples and now, what she had been telling me for years now made sense. I was not in control of when I had a cig, it was in control of me. Why was I resisting acknowledging that I was an addict? I always "prided" myself with the "fact" that I was in control. Yet, with an addiction, one is not in control. Yet it is obvious to me now, that part of me is out of control. I have given that power and that control to nicotine. I AM AN ADDICT. While that was difficult to admit to myself, it was paramount to be able to begin my healing, to come to a place where I really wanted to quit...forever, where I realized the lies I told myself to rationalize my addiction. For now that I know and acknowledge I am an addict and out of control with this addiction, the choice is for me to leave that part of me out of control or do something about it. I choose to do something about it. I choose to heal my addicted part and become whole. I choose to take back the power I gave to my addiction. No more fear. Each time I have the urge to Smoke, I will face and challenge the urge and absorb its power. And before long, I will have accumulated the power over my addiction and the addiction will lose its power over me. I look forward to each urge. I look forward to becoming whole again at to becoming free. NOPE

Ok. So it is the smoking that is making it a "little" difficult for me to breathe. the nicotine is ok...it is all that other stuff i am smoking that is bad. I can quit smoking and the nicotine patch will help me not smoke. Good we have such caring big tobacco companies that provide patches and stuff like that. My quit date is set. I got the patch. And...i am happy, ready to go!!! Put the patch on and I am off. No problems, no withdrawal, no smoking. I am learning to live without a cigarette, no withdrawal. I knew I wasn't a bad addict. Besides, smoking and nicotine is LEGAL!!! Then I join a forum on day 4 of my quit and someone asks me (not mentioning any names...saz) why I am using an nrt to put nicotine in my body. Hmmmm. My rationalization abilities are pretty good if I do say so myself. My goal is to quit smoking, the patch will make that easier and take edge off withdrawl. Made perfect sense, right? But...another crack. I begin googling about nicotine and I begin reading about nicotine receptors in my brain that have hijacked my normal receptors. What? And these nicotine receptors demand nicotine; if you supply the nicotine you relax and can focus and get dopamine, if you don't you get increasingly more irritable and stressed. No dopamine. What? You mean the nicotine receptors caused me to get stressed and irritable? when I had a cigarette, it appeased the nico receptors for about 1/2 hour. Ahhh I was relaxed and happy. But then the nicotine receptors would demand a fix again. What a vicious cycle. Ok. Nicotine is addictive...but I am not an ADDICT. Well, not a "bad" addict. I'll just take off the patch. Yes, i am afraid of the big bad withdrawl. I am in fear of what will happen. But, Saz says I am stronger than a crave. At this point, i was Beginning to think maybe..no way...could I really be an addict? What does that really mean?

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.

As joyful and as awesome as Saturday was for me, Sunday was that much of blah. It’s a roller coaster ride. I found myself missing smoking at several times throughout the day yesterday. I guess that’s romanticizing smoking...thinking of the enjoyment of it, etc. I had to remind myself to just live in and be present in this moment; to decide not to smoke right now. I have some PTSD-like things that come up every now and again and while i manage them much better than I used to I still get a little lost in those thoughts sometimes. That had a hold of me yesterday too and was probably why I thought more about smoking. When im emotionally or physically weak that’s when the smoke thoughts come on strong. A reminder to take care of me. Anyway I think that to recognize the feeling or emotion that makes me think about smoking is good but only if I can kind of examine it from a “distance.” That’s tricky but it goes to controlling how I respond to an emotion - or trigger. I also have to be willing to let that emotion or trigger go. Each time I do It (acknowledge, accept, let go) i get stronger and it gets easier. It becomes my new habit. A healthier, more positive, and socially acceptable habit. I think that a main reason to quit smoking and stay quit is because I can and it’s an accomplishment and success that feels good... like look at me: i won this mental battle today! It’s like it’s own reward. I am proud to have 1 week of practice under my belt. I can keep doing this. I got on this roller coaster by choice and I don’t have to be afraid. Today im going to start a 21-day core fitness challenge. I hope that writing it here where others can see will help hold me to it. ?