THIRTY SECONDS: It only takes thirty seconds to... - Quit Support

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THIRTY SECONDS

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12 years ago•4 Replies

It only takes thirty seconds to change one’s life for ever. In thirty seconds we can say words that can mean the difference between life and death. In thirty seconds we can tell someone “I love you” and in thirty seconds we can also say “I hate you”. In thirty seconds we can commit to doing an act that will change everything that we know of and hold dear and in those same thirty seconds we can say am I doing the right thing?

In thirty seconds, we can say I LOVE SMOKING but in thirty seconds we can also say I HATE SMOKING but thirty seconds isn’t enough to carry on with why I hate smoking because it has a hold over me, it is without any shadow of a doubt very bad for my health and of course it is a very costly habit. We all have good and bad habits and smoking is a bad one but I can and will change that fact and then I will be able to say I LOVE BEING SMOKE FREE and all the benefits and pleasure that will bring to/or give me.

Once committed to an act, sometimes it seems far easier to turn back and decide not to do it. It seems like extremely hard work and we are not guaranteed a happy ending, or are we? Nothing in life is ‘simples’ as the meerkats say and I do believe it is true when they say hard work does have its rewards but at what cost? Do you know what your future holds? There are some that would say no one knows what will happen in the future but, we as quitters, know that our future is definitely brighter should we kick our habit the first and foremost being that we WILL have a future.

Every action has a consequence and we all know what carrying on smoking is likely to do to us. We are well aware of the dangers and none of us want to pay the penalty because if we did, we wouldn’t be on this site. There are regrettably and unfortunately some of our members who know the REAL cost of smoking all too well. Do we really want to be in their shoes? I think not is the answer – not one single one of us wants to pay the ultimate price that being our life!

Why did we start this habit? Everyone one of us has at least one answer in common – because we were unaware that this habit was an habitual one and one that would be so hard to give up it pains us constantly. I firmly believe that it is a habit just like a baby sucking its thumb we try to stop it as people tried to stop us from carrying on smoking but unlike that baby, we have the sense to realise that we should have taken notice of what they said and now it is even harder to break away and live a smoke free existence.

In thirty seconds though we can change that habit and whilst there are some that will say, and I am one of those people, yes, I/you can we are all well aware of how simple it is to say but we all know how very, very difficult it is to do.

Ask yourself these few questions. What do we actually get out of smoking? What are the benefits of being a smoker? Why do I smoke? There are hundreds more but these will do for now.

Now I am going to answer the three questions in order and as honestly as I know how. When I first started smoking, I thought it made me look big, more sophisticated and more like an adult rather than a kid. I benefitted from the friendship of other smokers, I belonged to an elite group and I thought of myself as a rebel because I was a smoker. I carried on smoking from my early teens up to now because that’s what I did, I smoked. It was part and parcel of my life and I didn’t think of myself as anything other than a smoker. It got me through the highs and even more so the lows that happened to me along the way and it was my comfort, my thing if you like, that I was a smoker and I enjoyed it.

Can anyone see themselves in there, somewhere? We are all different but in a sense we are all the same, smokers who wished they’d never started. Smokers who wished that giving up were as easy as ABC or 123. But it’s not, easy that is, and we are all painfully aware of that fact.

So let’s look at the positives. We can change and we can change whatever we want to. We change from babies to toddlers, from toddlers to infants, from infants to juniors or teenagers if that as a more descriptive word, from teenagers to young adults and from young adults to adults, from adults into people of more maturity and from maturity to old age. All of those are the natural progression of life and even if we wanted to we couldn’t change any of it. It’s now set in stone so to speak but, to smoke or not to smoke is something that we CAN change. It is not a constant in our lives nor is it a natural progression. It is something that we have chosen to do and it is therefore something we CAN change by choosing NOT to do it anymore. It is NOT a natural progression of life, as someone said on here; if we were meant to smoke we would have a chimney on the top of our head. We CAN if we so desire and with a lot of hard graft change that part of our life that we so wish to.

Another positive is the amount of people on here who have, through their own strength and capability, stopped smoking. Some have only recently done so but I have seen celebrations on here for people who have been smoke free for a whole year. This reminds me of when I was little and looking forward to something and it seems light years away but we CAN all get there it just seems so very far away.

One thing I do know is that patience is required in unlimited amounts. Wishing we were ahead of ourselves is a tad self-defeating because we are putting pressure on ourselves when what we should be concentrating on is the ‘here and now’ the future is just that, in the future, but with grit, determination and infinite patience our smoke free future is guaranteed I am confident about that. We do however have to understand that our smoke free life is strictly in our hands – no one can make our journey for us it is up to us and only us, toturn our dream into reality.

We are very lucky as the people on here will guide us and help us along the way. They will give encouragement and will not ‘tear us off a strip’ should we have the occasional stumble. We have to learn from our past in that when we were young out playing as young children do got us knocks and scrapes and yes, it did hurt, but it didn’t stop us playing an hour later or a day later. Our resilience in our younger days is still there, it just hasn’t been used for a while and we should put it to good use in our aim to be smoke free. All we have to do is use it in a slightly different way and we are all capable of that because we want to quit, we want to be smoke free and as the old saying goes, where there’s a will there’s a way!

Now I am sure that there are some on here that are getting slightly (a lot me thinks) fed up with me and my blogs but this is what I do to help me. If it helps someone else then that’s great but they are done by me, for me because it helps me, anything else is a bonus.

At the end of this what must be a truly perfect day, I sit at this machine and think to myself, is what I am doing worth it? The answer is a resounding YES because it has given me so much more than just being smoke free it has given me a new meaning to my life. Whatever it takes, I will do. Whatever the cost, it is so worth it. My mind will take time to come to terms with my decision and my body will probably rebel at having something that it is so used to being taken away but even though I know that I am repeating myself, today is the day that I start to move forward and start my quit journey and if I have to journey on my own without aid or assistance then so be it, although I know it will be harder still without it, I am so determined to do this, for me, then as I said a few words back, cost doesn’t matter because in the long run the benefits are many and cost is really irrelevant when it comes down to one’s own health.

I will leave you all in peace now and as my book is continuing at a fair rate of knots, I intend spending tomorrow working on that so at least I won’t be on here boring you all to death and making you angry at me because I don’t know how much more of me you can take.

Have a good rest of the evening and off to watch a bit of TV with my other half and then bath and bed for tomorrow is a new day which I know will be hard but I can do this the same as you have done it before me. You are all shining examples of the fact that it can be done and done with courage, determination and a laugh along the way and you are rightly proud of your achievement.

Take care all and will catch you all (unless of course you see me coming in which case you will all disappear as if by magic) at some point during the week.

Kath.