Confessional
Any time we’re several months off nicotine and light up, we’re going to
experience that physical reaction i.e. the nausea, dizziness, maybe
headache. That’s normal reaction to the toxicity of a chemical that we’re
no long accustomed to. It doesn’t take much for a ‘used to be smoker’ to
get past that. But that’s only the physical reaction. I’m more concerned
with why did you light up in the first place? and what lesson(s), other
than it made you ill, will you take from it?
I’d agree that it was cognitive in that you were aware of what you
were doing and made a conscious choice to smoke. However, I’m not sure that
the things you were thinking (”things I enjoy now as a ‘not smoker’”) were
all that appropriate to the situation. A closer examination of why smoke
on a smoker smelled good, of what about that situation made you want to be
such a part of it that smoking was the option of choice, of what it is you
really want and the dues you’re prepared to pay to get it…. maybe these
things might help you focus on different responses. Almost seems that this
would have been a place and time to pull out your foundation statements. (I
don’t want to be a smoker. There is no situation where a cigarette is an
appropriate response. I’m prepared to be uncomfortable while I learn to be
a not smoker.)
Steve
February 23rd, 2005 at 1:17 am
Hi Gail,
and there will be
Steve
Don’t worry about your weekend in the woods. Even though you
haven’t yet done the Fall season, you are more prepared than you realize.
Gail, most quitters are precariously perched on their quits because they
don’t know how to maintain the quit with anything other than will power or
just hanging on. For those ppl, stories of other long time quitters who
have fallen can take on a ‘prophetic’ tone and, yes, become very scary.
You are not precariously perched on your quit. You’ve got almost 10 months
of working through events. The great thing about cog methods is that they
fit all events. You don’t have to experience everything once before you are
’safe’. Your safety lies in the fact that you can recreate your quit
attitude and your “cog focus” (thanks Anita) at will. I think that all
you need to do is a bit of preparation in the form of realizing that there
will be a chimney smoker (Stay upwind of your friend
the wonderful smells of fall (fires and leaves and crisp air), all of which
you can enjoy even more as a not smoker. And of this includes getting
fairly tipsy. The only way your ‘resolve’ can be effected by wine is if you
aren’t sure you want to be quit. Unless I’ve misread you, there’s no
question after 10 months about whether or not you want to be quit.
Gail, the reason cog quitters become comfortably quit is because they
are in control of their responses. You’ve been doing that for a while now.
Trust in what you know you can do, in what you’ve been doing for the past
10 months. My guess is that you’ll return from this weekend and report it
was great and absolutely no sweat. That’d be where I’d put my money.