Revelation!!!
Ok, ya’ll are allowed to laugh at me. To a rational person, this is
probably the most obvious… OK, let me just tell you what happened.
Weekends are tough for me, because hubby is home with his cigarettes
24 hours. He always leaves them out in the garage, and particularly
when he naps or something, those suckers can start to call to me.
So I was reading Saturday, and the thought of those things popped
into mind, as well as the thought “I could go smoke one.” (Yes, I
know, mind game. I’ve always had problems with those.) Ok… well, I
can at least delay. I threatened Pam with an ABC to grade; this
weekend stuff is one of the intended topics. Let’s do it.
A. (situation) It’s weekend, there are cigarettes in the garage, I
want one.
B. (beliefs) <okay self, why do I want to smoke? Um. Because I like
to? No, this particular cigarette right now. What will it do for me?
Um… I dunno, I just want it. Ok, but WHY? I have to write something
concrete here. What symptoms will it ease and/or what pleasure will
you feel from it? (blank) What are the expected results? (blank)
After going back and forth between A and B for a while (because A is
pretty lame too), a bolt of lightening strikes me in the middle of
the forehead. It was like waking up. I DON’T expect it to do me any
good. Why do I want it? Well, I DON’T anymore!!! :-))
Hey lookee! Without even having made it through B, I have an
effective C1. LMBO!! For the rest of the weekend, the question “what
will THIS PARTICULAR cigarette do for me?” was enough to put an
instant and painless end to the mind game. I’m sure I’ll be asking
myself the same question many times over the next months, but I
finally feel that I’m on terra firma. 
So…. my humble suggestion on what to do about mind games is to deal
with them on a cigarette to cigarette basis. Instead of telling
yourself you can’t, or you shouldn’t, just analyze why you want this
particular cigarette as if you were writing an ABC. (No, I do not
know why this never occurred to me before. I’m just happy that it
finally did.)
Thanks for listening,
Nyniane