Penquin,
Even today, the thought of being quit "forever" seems too much for me. Actually, it makes me want to run out to the store and go buy cigarettes because I'm just not sure I can do "forever." I too had problems in the beginning with the "one day at a time" thing because I was smarter than that! I knew that even if I just stay quit today, I still won't be able to smoke tomorrow if I want to stay quit!!! So I had a hard time convincing myself of that.
But, the time when I finally got it that we only quit for "right now" was after my very first slip back in July of last year (before the quit I'm on now.) I'd smoked that day and I was planning on going to the store and buying a pack and smoking 3 out of it. In fact, I even posted here that I smoked 4 cigarettes even though I'd only smoked one because I had planned to go buy smokes and smoke a few more. I mean, if you're going to smoke, what's the difference between 1 and 4, right??? Well, I told myself "I'll go in 5 minutes." And then in 5 minutes, I thought "I really don't want to go out right now... I'll go after dinner." And then after dinner, I thought "there's a show I really want to watch, I'll go when it's over." Well then I thought "I want to watch this show too." And the final thought was "It's time for bed. I guess I won't go buy any afterall." Without even knowing it, I'd used the "quit for right now" strategy, even though I'd already smoked that day! I didn't even realize that I was using a quit smoking strategy!
So then later on, I realized that that's what this "quit for a day" or "quit for 5 minutes" is really all about! It's just about right now because we have no control right now what we will do tomorrow. Tomorrow, we can control tomorrow, but the only thing we can control is "right now." Congrats on those 4 days! You're doing great! Keep it up!
Crave the Quit!
Pam
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B] 10/28/2005
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 366
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 9,165
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1511.58
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 26 [B]Hrs:[/B] 14 [B]Mins:[/B] 33 [B]Seconds:[/B] 49