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. We avoid discussion of political issues. If you are quitting or even thinking about quitting, please -- join us! GUS Library at dKosopedia is organically evolving, and stocked with free-range information: quit-smoking links, helpful GUS diary writing tips, and the GUS buddy list.
the divine miss d was all ready for last year's playoffs ... i'm sure she's ready for this year's playoff's too.
sports playoffs ... make me nervous LOL. the spurs in particular. i was there when the team was originated in san antonio, i knew the iceman, and all the others. lost touch with most of them, although iceman and i still exchange greetings on occasion.
i have memorabilia from those early teams, and new stuff from the current team. great players, all.
remember those old sports arenas with a haze of smoke? i do, heck, i remember movie theatres and the theatres i performed in with hazes of smoke, more often than not, i added to that haze. the problem enters when memory of good times enters the memories. our brains are wired so that we recall so many good things when we smell something that triggers a memory. when the memory is good we love that smell, when it's a bad or painful memory, we tend to shy way from the smell. my problem? i've smelled so many things, decay, death, pain, abuse, all associated with memories, some good some bad. cigarettes have always been a way to erase or soothe some of those memories and are associated with good times. the smell of the theatre, the smell of the arena or ballpark, the smell of good times with family all had that overlay of cigarrette smoke which is why i find it so difficult to keep to a quit when things get rough.
the companies did a number on our developing brains. generations (at least two or more) grew up with the association of cigarette smoke with good or tolerable times, and also associated with bad or painful times, but, in my case, the associations with bad or painful memories were that the smoke was soothing since everyone i grew up with used cigarettes to self medicate even if none of us understood that at the time.
how is my quit going, well, it has its days. new doctors have been helping. a new pain management specialist, a new pulmonologist (i haven't yet seen him and he's going to yell, i just know it).
i cannot smoke anymore, that's the bottom line. whenever anyone tells me i cannot do something, well, my nature is to rebel. that's where i am. still rebelling, although i now understand the mechanics of this complexity, it's no easier than when i didn't. in fact, it may be more difficult because my own brain can so easily delude me into believing excuses, rationalizations and plain old lies. all our brains do this, which is why we are still stuck in medieval belief systems.
my salvation? i'm a skeptic. you must prove to me, scientifically, that something exists, is believable, provable and real. therefore, while i want to believe in angels and life after death, due to the fundamentals of my natural skepticism, no proof equals no belief.
it's been proven to me time and again that cigarettes are horrid in every way. this is the truth. i believe it, i know it, still, fuzzy thinking often enters the picture.
how is this like a sports playoff or sports battle? i know these people are extraordinary, i know they exist, they play well, they are a team and play excellently as a team. still, there's always a team out there that may play better, get better breaks from refs (i think nba refs are entirely too powerful! LOL) they may be injured or outplayed.
still, they maintain confidence, they still show up for every game and give it their best. it is all we can hope for, our best, to conquer or obtain what we want. ya gotta want it. that's where i am, wanting it. so here i go again, getting it. am i nervous, absolutely! do i hope medical science can help, of course! do i understand, however, that i must continue on a positive course to semi-health? yes, i do understand that, on a conscious level. so, i will, like my spurs, continue, year after year, with changes and training and growth, i will retrain myself. it's happening every minute of every day!
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