What is your goal when you quit smoking? Easy question, huh? Not so fast.
The simple answer is that we quit smoking!! Duh!! But what does it really mean to quit smoking? Do we quit for our health? Do we quit due to family/social pressure? Do we quit to prove something to ourselves? What is our goal? Everything we do in life is done to achieve a goal, some goal, any goal.
I believe the true goal of someone who breaks an addiction is control of their life.
Think about it. When you left the womb, you gained control. You breathed for yourself, you gained nourishment for yourself, you lived independent from your �host body�. That was your first taste of being in control of your life. True, it took a bit before you could feed yourself, but all in all, you were now an independent person in control of a certain number of things that resulted in your being alive.
So when did we lose control? The first time we puffed a cigarette. At that moment in time, nicotine entered our bodies and took up residence in our brains, ensuring that we could not function without it. Or so it thought. And it has succeeded for a good amount of time in most of us. We became dependent on a chemical. We wanted our �fix�. When we didn�t get it we got downright ugly.
Enter: The Goal.
Somewhere in the life of a smoker, the thought comes to us that we need to quit smoking. Most of the time this thought first occurs with our first nasty cold or bronchitis. Many people actually make a feeble attempt at a quit at this moment. However, once we can breathe so-so, we are right back to getting our �fix�.
But then time passes.. breathing may get more of a chore. We may develop COPD, or just be winded all the time. Somewhere along the line the light bulb comes on. The Goal becomes real. We want control back in our lives. We don�t want to be a slave to a chemical. This is the moment that the true quit comes about. We want our life back. We want our health back, or at least, we don�t want to feel any worse. �Any worse�. Sad, isn�t it? So many wait until they have permanently destroyed their health before they see The Goal.
Look around you. You see family and friends enslaved by nicotine. On another quit site that I�m a member of, a new lady joined a couple of weeks ago. Her sister, who lives next door to her, has ridden her tail about her quitting. This is an excerpt from a post from her..
[color=blue]My sister, who happens to be living right next door also smokes like a train first thing in the morning. So as you can imagine, I am avoiding her like the plague, but I already told her I would yesterday .....she doesn't want to quit, and told me straight yesterday she would die a smoker and she had not a problem one with it....and I replied with ... yup denial is a great thing when it's still working, I told her wait till she can't breathe anymore like me.......and you know what she said, "Oh you're not that bad " and my jaw bout hit the floor..... I mean without dramatizing it here, I sound like someone twice my age, ya know what I mean, whizzing and puffing just to walk.....OMG....I said to her how bad does one have to get before you'd support them and encourage them to quit....IN THE COFFIN?"[/color]
Here we have the perfect example of someone who has found the true goal, and someone who is lost, and most likely will die a premature death. Quite an extreme. This one passage points out, quite poignantly, how smoking destroys lives. The woman who so desperately is quitting is only 37. Hopefully not too late.
Lesson? Quit for your life. Quit to take back the control you gave over to a worthless weed, hell bent on killing all who fall victim to its allure.
Find The Goal. Find The Truth. Listen only to your true heart. Take back your life.
[b][color=Purple]Be Strong. Be Smart. Be Quit[/color]
[color=black]Joe[/color]
[size=3][color=Blue]Knowledge Replaces Fear[/color][/size]
[size=2][color=purple]Hoping for success without hard work is like trying to harvest without planting.[/color][/size]
[size=2][color=black]Illegitimus non carborundum est[/color][/size][/b]
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B]5/15/2005
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 790
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 19,750
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1,935.50
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 141 [B]Hrs:[/B] 22 [B]Mins:[/B] 59 [B]Seconds:[/B] 50
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Quit Meter
$36,372.80
Amount Saved
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Quit Meter
Days: 9778
Hours: 21
Minutes: 20
Seconds: 5
Life Gained
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Quit Meter
45466
Smoke Free Days
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Quit Meter
363,728
Cigarettes Not Smoked
