GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or even just thinking of quitting, please join us! We kindly ask that politics be left outside.
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A message to ALL quitters (and would-be quitters): You don't have to avoid GUS if you have a failed quit. We won't give you a bad time or nag you. We consider the failed quits as "practice" for the real quit.
Let's start off this edition of GUS by agreeing on a few things, shall we?
If you're a smoker, or a quitter who has fallen off the wagon, you're not any of the following things:
a bad person
a failure
a loser
a mess
a screw-up
a hopeless case
doomed
stupid
weak
lacking willpower
guilty of something
unaware of the implications of your actions
[insert your own self-flogging label here]
You're just a person with an addiction to nicotine. Full stop.
It's an illness with both a physical and behavioral component, not a moral failing. Let me repeat that: it's NOT a moral failing. You haven't been "bad," your addiction is active again. You're not "wrong" for feeling how you feel; that's just the way addiction manifests itself. You're not a "loser," you're just struggling with a difficult (but not impossible!) challenge, and it makes you feel bad about yourself. It's also something that can be dealt with. That's right, folks, it's not something you're stuck with for life, even though it can feel that way, especially after a slip.
Addiction to nicotine: it is what it is.
But it can be incredibly frustrating---sometimes downright infuriating!---to realize that knowing what your issue is and actually figuring out how to do something about it are two very different things. You know it's self-destructive, yet you can't seem to stop, or even view your options in a consistent way from one day to the next.
Why?
Because even though smokers do understand---intellectually---that the self-destructive thing is counter-intuitive, it sometimes takes a while to internalize what that really means to us, and even longer to sort out what we know from how we feel about it. Feelings are messy. It's tough to separate the signal from the noise.
And that's why most quitters grapple with this issue for a while...because, of course, most quitters have been smokers for a while, long enough to let some unhelpful associations involving our substance of choice take pretty deep root. Even the coldest of cold-turkey quitters (myself included) take a while to work through this stuff.
Believe me, I do get this. I struggled mightily (and failed) for many years to detach "smoking" from my concept of "fun." Couldn't wrap my head around the idea that a party would actually be a party without them, that I could fully enjoy myself (carousing, drinking, blowing off steam, whatever) without smoking being a part of it, and that eliminating them wouldn't somehow diminish the experience or indeed even be something that I could force myself to resist. (Because naturally, resisting the almighty urge to smoke would overshadow all the other stuff. Or so I thought.) It helped to ignore that I was one of a dwindling number of people in my circle who smoked, and cling to my time with the few remaining smokers as some kind of justification for my own seeming inability to quit.
Even now, a decade into my quit, my rare smoking dreams almost always involve me feeling guilty about smoking, and they almost always take place in a "party" kind of setting. Clearly my subconscious hasn't let go of the idea that smoking is a component of having fun...never mind that I have ten years of real-live experience as more-than-ample proof that you can have even MORE fun without them (Bye-bye, ashtray mouth and wheezy lungs! So long, worse-than-they-have-to-be hangovers! Hello there, money I haven't wasted on smokes!). But hey, who needs reality when your unhelpful addict brain is around to feed you convenient lies so it can get what it wants?
Just as we don't want to let go of our stress-relieving security blanket, we also don't want to let go of our tried-and-true party/relaxation/stress-relief M.O. Consciously or not, we dig in and resist that one change to the things that we see as our relief or salvation or source of enjoyment. We conveniently forget the downside, because "fun."
Essentially, we want to not have to think about it (the way we didn't have to think about it when we were young and immortal). We want to not feel inconvenienced in any way when we're in escapist mode, or worse, we remain convinced that being in escapist mode means we cannot escape the lure of smokes as part of the fun.
It's easier to not have to think about it.
But that's only in the short-term, really. The next day, the next pack purchased, the next party "slip" and we start beating ourselves up, or worse, resigning ourselves to an endless cycle of that kind of thing.
Doesn't have to be that way. It is what it is,but you don't have to beat yourself up, or feel stuck, or down on yourself. You just have to internalize the desire to get rid of the smokes, and recognize that you have the tools to make that happen---not to mention plenty of people here who are pulling for you.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
1BQ, 2thanks, 3rdGenFeminist, 417els, A Man Called Gloom, Abra Crabcakeya, Actbriniel, addisnana, AfroPonix, aishmael, Alise, Alpha99, also mom of 5, ambeeeant, American in Kathmandu, amk for obama, andsarahtoo, angry marmot, Anne933, anodnhajo, aoeu, AoT, aquarius2001, arcadesproject, Archie2227, arodb, Arthur Wolf (in memoriam), assyrian64, Aunt Acid, awkawk, b4uknowit, BadKitties, bamablue, BARAKABETH, barnowl, b barrie, bdizz, beatpanda, beefydaddy18, betterdemsonly, BFSkinner, bgblcklab1, BigAlinWashSt, Bike Crash, BirderWitch, BJKay, bleeding heart, blingbling65, blue husky, Blue Intrigue, bluedust, BluejayRN, BlueJessamine, BlueMississippi, Bluerall, bluestatedem84, BoiseBlue, Boston Beans, boudi08, Brahman Colorado, breedlovinit, BrenP, BrianParker14, Bronxist, broths, BrowniesAreGood, bsmechanic, Buckeye Nut Schell, buddabelly, Bugsydarlin, bumbi, BusyinCA, cactusgal, cagernant, Carol in San Antonio, CathiefromCanada, CathodeRay, CDH in Brooklyn, Cedwyn, cee4, Cen Den, 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Have you had some experience with the effects of smoking, and want to write a GUS diary or host an open thread? Please sign up in the Butt Can (Tip Jar), and name the day and time that works for you. The weekly GUS Diary Schedule is below, with regular hosts in bold. There's an open slot just calling your name!
Wed PM: Vacationland (You Are Here)
Thu AM: anodnhajo
Thu PM: Open
Fri AM: flumptytail
Fri PM: Open
Sat AM: Open
Sat PM: Open
Sun AM: gchaucer2
Sun PM: Open
Mon AM: Homers24
Mon PM: Open
Tue AM: gchaucer2
Tue PM: Open
Wed AM: Homers24
If you can spare a few hours, please consider hosting GUS. It doesn't have to be a permanent slot; it can be a one-time deal or just an open thread! Not sure where to start? Just ask for help in the Butt Can (Tip Jar). Seriously, it doesn't have to include specific elements or require all sorts of fabulous diary formatting skills. The regulars will make sure stuff gets carried over from diary to diary, so if you want to just tell your story or provide an open thread and host for a few hours, that's cool too. You do not need to be perfect, you do not need to become a regular, and you would make some quitters very happy.