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THE BREAKTHROUGH COMES
Repost From gummer on 9/13/2006 1:54:42 PM
The breakthrough comes...
... not when you stop craving, but when you stop seeing smoking as a solution to the cravings. It happens when you come to the conclusion that smoking (rather than NOT smoking) is the source of your misery.
At that point you will start to see the withdrawals quite differently... no longer as a desperate need to be filled... but as a side-effect of smoking, as damage to you caused by years of smoking.
Because this yearning to smoke is no different from other effects of smoking... it is damage, plain and simple, just like shortness of breath, or poor circulation, or gum disease. And as with all smoking damage the only hope you have of ever reversing it is by NOT smoking.
So when you feel that craving to smoke, try to see it for the damage that it is, rather than any deprivation of your needs. That urge to smoke does not necessarily mean that YOU want to smoke. It is not a natural and voluntary reaction... it is involuntary and a byproduct of the addiction.
It is an effect, a symptom. It does not need to be satisfied. Once you see this, quitting no longer feels like burden.... not smoking will actually feel like therapy, like you finally ARE doing something to counteract this burden, like you are in control again.
And that shift of perspective is a huge breakthrough that can finally turn the tables in your favor.