Cognitive Quit Smoking

I just joined this group. I’ve been thinking about quitting again for
quite awhile, I was able to quit for 3 pregnancies and breastfeeding,
but somehow got sucked back into it.
My two older kids (ages 6 and have been on my case for a couple of
years, they learned in school about the dangers and are just terrified
that something bad is going to happen to me. Yet, somehow, that wasn’t
enough to motivate me. This is what just happened, about 5 minutes ago:
I was sitting at my PC, checking emails, etc. My kids were in here
with me. I had just gotten one of those “touching emails”, about a
little boy who’s mom died when he was little, and to make a long story
short, he grew up to do great things because of a special teacher. I
read it, thought “gee, that’s nice”, and stepped outside to have a
smoke (we don’t smoke in the house). My kid’s followed me and talked
to me through the door. Here’s how that conversation went (you’ll need
to understand that we’ve been trying to make my son understand that he

makes certain decisions in life, like doing schoolwork correctly and
neatly or not, and he has to live with the consequences of those
decisions):
dd (age 6): Mama, what are you doing?
me: I’m smoking, you should not be around me when I smoke
ds (almost 8): Why do you make the choice to smoke?
me: because I really need it right now.
dd: well, it’s gonna make your lungs black, then they break, and they
you die.
ds: Do you want to get sick or die, mommy? Plus it really smells
yucky, even outside.
dd (who now has tears in her eyes): Mama, who will take care of us if
you get sick or die? Daddy works too much, and now grandma lives too
far away. We can’t take care of ourselves or <<3 year old ds
So, now I feel like the most selfish person in the world as I sit here
crying my eyes out. They are absolutely right, and I never saw it
until just now. I WAS choosing to smoke over better, healthier
choices, and I WAS completely disregarding their well-being and their
feelings. They have been expressing their desire for my dh and I to
quit for several years, but it never sunk in. Somehow, in my mind, up
until this moment, I had rationalized that I was making a decision
that only affected me, and I completely disregarded how this
influenced my children and how absolutely terrified they are (and must
be every time they see me smoke or know I’m going outside to smoke).
So, even if I feel the urge to smoke (and I know I will), I will just
remind myself of this conversation.
Thanks for reading if you got this far. I’m going to go re-read the
document on the website now.
Barbara

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 5:14 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.