Day 16
“I discovered I always have choices
and sometimes it’s only a choice of attitude.”
-Judith M. Knowlton
Today it is time to explore the traps surrounding that “just one cigarette thinking.” These are some ways ex-smokers get themselves back into smoking. Hopefully, you will look ahead for these traps and won’t fall into them.
One common trap is too much confidence. When the craving to smoke seems to go away, you start to feel like smoking no longer has a hold on your life. After all, you think, you would only need a couple of cigarettes to satisfy you now. What harm could there be?
A second trap is feeling sorry for yourself. You find things don’t seem to be going your way. You’re feeling badly and looking for something to give you a lift. There it is—a smoking ad on the billboard. Suddenly, all of the good memories come back about smoking (none of the bad ones, just the good ones). It seems like a cigarette is the answer.
A third trap involves a crisis. Perhaps you have a major exam you didn’t do well on or maybe a loved one or good friend dies. It is usually some kind of difficult event that causes you to reach for a cigarette in the hope that it will somehow ease the pain. You start smoking again, though it doesn’t really help you deal with the crisis. Worse, you’ve now gone back to smoking and experience feelings of guilt-more pain to make things worse than they were.
If you see these traps coming, you can prepare for them and reach your goal of becoming a non-smoker for good. Keep up the good work.