I’m still here/back!
Just wanted to let you all know that I’m still plugging away and
haven’t jumped ship. 
I’ve been pretty well snowed under in work
for the past week.
Steve, I did read your last message to me(on the mind games ABC) and
I’m still mulling it over trying to figure out what it means. It’s a
big concern to me, because that very thing has blown quits for me
when I thought I was doing very well - I’m just trying to avoid
history repeating itself. Were you trying to say that, even in trying
to argue myself out of it in an ABC, I am still “playing the game”?
The need is to break the pattern entirely?
I hope everybody here’s doing well.
Nyniane
June 27th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
hi all –
well, i fell off the boat a few days ago — no excuse, just a load of
family crises at once, totally unexpected, and i really don’t deal well
with stress. i tried really hard to concentrate on my abc’s, but
obviously not hard enough.
thursday is my new quit date, and i’ll work harder. i know this will work
– i was amazed at how well it was going before, talking with warren and
sorting things into their proper places. and a bonus: my husband is going
to quit thursday too, so we’ll be supporting each other and going over
abc situations together.
cheers!
peg.
June 30th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
Hi Nyniane,
Sorry this is so long coming back to you. Truth is I haven’t known how
to answer your question till this recent rash of slips and rationalizations.
There are the occasional instances where a quitter may think “I want a
cig”. I belive that those who do not want to be smokers will choose not to
dwell on that thought. If I find myself engaged in an ongoing ‘head game’
of ‘I want to smoke/I don’t want to smoke’, then I’ve got to wonder if my
foundation statement to the effect that “I don’t want to be a smoker” is
accurate and true.
I see a very definate distinction between the two statements: “I want to
quit” and “I do not want to be a smoker”. I don’t want to go to the
dentist. It’s not an enjoyable experience and it’s expensive. However, I
*DO* want to avoid dental problems in the future so I *WILL* do whatever is
necessary regardless of the enjoyment factor in order to achieve my dental
goal. I did not want to quit smoking. No matter how you do it, quitting, as
an experience, sucks. It’s the pits. It comes with physical and emotional
cost that too often has us asking, “What the hell am I doing to myself?”
However, in spite of the discomfort of quitting, I DID NOT WANT TO BE A
SMOKER more than I did not want to quit. But that was me. You’ll have to
decide for you. It’s your choice.
Steve