Re: Waiting for the other shoe to drop

[Guest guest]

How was that inhaler for you? I have had a terrible time quitting smoking,

even with the patch. I'm okay on the 21 mg patch, but as soon as I " step

down " to a lesser dosage, I go nuts. No one wants to be around me, I start

eating all the time (which is not good for me considering I had an eating

disorder at one time), and I am just a nasty person in general.

The last thing I would ever try would be the twelve steps. AA is where I

started smoking. I'm still really mad about that. Everyone else was doing

it. I was so young and naive compared to a lot of AAers, I thought it made

me look like more of a bad ass. Within a month of starting to smoke, I was

up to a pack and a half a day. But at least I fit in!

Any advice would be helpful. So much of my life is in order these days. But

I'm still puffing away.

Joan

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

> Good evening or morning,

>

> I wanted to share a recent experience with just how insidious the

> hand of the 12 steps extends itself.

>

> I quit smoking ciggarettes a year ago and after about a month,

> decided to get into cigars. I justified this by thinking that

> smoking a cigar would be sexy and add to the mystery that is me. It

> didn't take long to discover that I hate cigars. One day while in

> the cigar store, my buddy turned me on to Clove Ciggarettes. Those

> things are like smoking candy, I loved them. I was soon up to almost

> a pack a day and smoked those things up to about a month ago.

>

> I quit smoking a month ago with the assistance of a subliminal tape,

> nic gum and the nic inhaler. I have been doing very well. Over the

> years, I tried to apply the 12 steps and all the jargon to smoking to

> no avail. I always felt like I was a victim to smoking and that it

> was God's will if I was to stay quit or not. Since deprogramming

> from the 12 steps, etc, I know know that this time, I can remain a

> non-smoker if I just CHOOSE NOT TO SMOKE, period. I don't look at it

> like one day at a time either, I never want to smoke again and I am

> thinking of myself as a non-smoker, not a recovering smoker,

> recovered smoker or a smokalholic.

>

> I joined a couple of online groups for quitting to gain the insights

> of others. When I joined one of the private groups, I had to post my

> e-mail address every time I posted. I posted one time and some guy

> wrote to me and invited me to join a 12 step quit smoking group. In

> the past, I would have asked, when, where, how, now. This time, I

> found this offer offensive. I found it offensive because I am so

> sick and tired of seeing so many 12 step groups for everything and

> everyone.

>

> I wrote the guy back and said that I was going to use my own

> WILLPOWER, thank you and added that I had allot of experience with

> the 12 step thinking and I no longer bought into it. He never wrote

> me back and most likely prayed for my soul.

>

> I realized that the entire time I believed in the program, I was

> always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I believed that I didn't

> have any control over anything and that WILLPOWER was a dirty word.

> For so many years, I gave up my personal power and it's nice to be

> learning that I do have personal power.

>

> Life is usually about actions and consequences, pretty simple. In

> the case of smoking, if I pick up anything to smoke it, I will be a

> smoker again. If I don't smoke anything, I will be a nonsmoker.

>

> This might sound simple to you guys but for me, it's a revelatio, a

> wonderful one.

>

> Thank you all for helping me to think for myself. I feel like the

> scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, I had a brain all along.

>

> CAG

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