A whole week and a day has passed since I stopped smoking… and what an incredible week it has been. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than a week, actually. But, I suppose that is a good thing. The more time that appears to pass, the better I should be feeling, huh?
I started this blog on my own, and now I’m writing it for a very cool publication, Naked City Wichita… I’m really excited and have gotten some really amazing feedback from people as they’ve read through the evolution of my writing and my mindset throughout the past 3-4 weeks since I started writing. For anyone checking this out – I just want you to know how much I appreciate you taking the time to read and support this endeavor. For the 11 years that I smoked, I thought errantly that I was not addicted, that I did not need to smoke (I merely “liked it” or “loved it”), that I could quit any time without any problem, and that it wasn’t something that was going to affect me.
People talk about teenagers/young adults having that “immortality” complex… where they don’t think that anything they do is going to affect them long-term, and they certainly don’t realize that it’s going to kill them. For 19 years I didn’t smoke, and I believed that I was too mature to encounter this feeling of immortality. I didn’t realize that it would hit me subconsciously, and that it would be something that I always KNEW could cause harm.
Smokers and other addicts might not tell you – they might even state openly that “these things are going to kill me” – but the idea that this thing that you LOVE, that you need, hurting you is outside the realm of possibility. The problem lies in the exceptions – a few extremely well-known people who smoked their entire lives without ever getting sick – and you’re able to convince yourself that you are the next exception.
This feeling of infallibility, immortality, leads to continuing risky behaviors that lead to further addiction issues. So as I’m considering all of this over the past month or so, I realize that I DO indeed have a smoker’s cough again… and I don’t know how long it’s been there. I realize that before last years 5 months without smoking I was having other, more serious indications that perhaps my smoking was catching up with me. But I ignored them. I choose, consciously or not, to believe that they were false. Even though the fact, the feeling, was staring me in the face.
More on this as we continue this exploration. Leave a comment or send me questions if there are things that you would like me to talk about or just want to know more about. I’m happy to do whatever I can.
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