What does it take to quit something that you know is bad for you, but has become part of you?
I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12 or 13 years old.
I’ve been a social smoker ever since–usually when I’m REALLY stressed or bored or I smoke with people who smoke at parties, mostly. This happens less than once a month and one or two or five smokes in 48 hours won’t kill me. Or maybe it will, who knows.
A few times in my life I’ve gone through a period of a few months where I bought several packs in a row and became reliant on the cigarette for comfort. Like last summer, when I left a relationship of almost five years with someone I knew for ten years. It took a lot of time, courage and strength to actually pick up and leave. Initially, I left to sort things out from a distance but the other person wasn’t willing or able to do that. I found myself in a precarious limbo between living situations as I struggled to manage my own mental health, my coaching business, my graduate school program and everyday things like cooking and my laundry.
I was eating really well, of course, and exercising daily and sleeping well (thank goodness). The sun was out, the weather was great and I kept doing what I knew was important to stay strong and healthy.
I rationalized that I had no other vices and was doing so many healthy things, I was allowed this “one bad thing.”
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But there were parts of me that felt very angry and sad, confused, disoriented and horribly abandoned. The years of details of what I had just come from played over in my mind and I battled very complex feelings from minute to minute, as I tried to keep my ship afloat.
The day I bought a pack of cigarettes, I told myself it would be one pack and then I would be done. I smoked one a day or maybe two and soon the pack was gone. On autopilot, I bought another and then another, rationalizing that I had no other vices and was doing so many healthy things, I was allowed this “one bad thing.”
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve used drugs.
I drink less than once a week.
I eat greens a few times a day and even in the height of summer, I eat ice cream maybe once a week.
I cultivate healthy relationships.
I do work I LOVE.
I go to therapy once a week and seek out personal development classes, forums, books and events. I run.
I pick things up and put them down, literally and metaphorically. Was I not allowed one damn vice?
I was allowed. That was the decision I made. I had just worked up the courage to make a major change in my life, a change for the better but by no means easy or fun, and I deserved a break. But every time I lit another cigarette, I was still with the grief.
I still felt the guilt of undervaluing myself.
I felt the frustration of being disrespected.
I felt the abandonment and rejection of someone I trusted for many years.
I felt the longing to be loved.
The substance or the act of smoking didn’t make these difficult feelings go away. I’m too self-aware and mindful to be distracted that easily. My Buddhist practice has penetrated too deeply and I know I can’t check out of life because it feels difficult sometimes. Duh, it’s life. I also know the truth about cigarettes and I know what they do–I can’t be ignorant about something so toxic.
I had spent a lot of time, energy and resources to evolve into the person I am, inside and out, and I couldn’t pretend that cigarettes weren’t undoing all the positive stuff I was doing.
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Probably more profound than any of these was this realization: I loved myself and my new body too much to continue. I had spent a lot of time, energy and resources to evolve into the person I am, inside and out, and I couldn’t pretend that cigarettes weren’t undoing all the positive stuff I was doing. I couldn’t pretend that the vice was going to help me.
Hurting myself by acting out was only prolonging the time it would take to heal.
I tossed however much was left of the last pack and haven’t had one since. While I can’t say I won’t have one or two from time to time, it will be a long time before I do and I doubt I’ll ever do again what I did this past summer. There’s just no need for it now—my life feels so good. I’m healing. And I don’t need or want to check out or hide or avoid or take a break from feeling anything but the complexity of human feelings that happen as part of life–because I have a lot left to live!
Originally published at DillanDigi.com.
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Photo: Monica Arellano-Ongpin/Flickr
That was a very inspiring story Dillan 🙂 Thanks for sharing with us