It’s All About Choice
Six years and a couple of days ago I woke up, stood in front of my bedroom mirror, looked myself in the eye and said, “I am a nicotine addict. I cannot afford to feed that addiction. Not even one time. So, today, I choose not to smoke”.
As I waited for the coffee to finish brewing, I sat down at my desk, opened my brand new quit journal and wrote those same words on the first page under the heading, “11/19/01 - Day One”.
Later on, what I came to think of as my “mantra” expanded to read:
“I am a nicotine addict.
I cannot afford to feed that addiction.
Not even one time.
So…
Today, I choose life!
Today, I choose health!
Today, I choose strength!
Today, I choose self-control!
Today, I choose freedom!
Today, I choose not to smoke!”
As it turned out, on most days, that was the entire entry in my quit journal, but I still wrote it out every morning for the first 500 days of my quit. And I stood in front of the bedroom mirror first thing every morning, looked myself in the eye, and recited my mantra. And every night, just before I went to sleep, I’d give myself a pat on the back and congratulate myself for living up to that choice one more day.
Because it’s all about choice.
When I was ten years old, I made my first in a long series of choices about smoking; I chose to try it.
It burned my throat, it hurt my lungs, it made me cough my fool head off, it made me feel dizzy and sick to my stomach, but in spite of all that, not too long afterwards, I made my second in that long series of choices about smoking; I chose to do it again. And I continued choosing to do it, over and over again, until I became addicted.
Never underestimate the power of repeated conscious choice.
After a dozen years or so, I got tired of being controlled by what I thought of then as my smoking habit, and so I made a different choice about smoking; I chose not to do it any more. Unfortunately, “kicking the habit” turned out to be a hell of a lot harder than I’d anticipated, and pretty soon I made the deliberate conscious choice to start smoking again.
Over the course of the next 25 years or so, I quit and relapsed countless times. And every single time I started smoking again, it was a deliberate, conscious choice: I chose to go to the store and buy a pack, or I chose to bum one off a friend, I even chose to “steal” half-smoked butts out of ashtrays. Then I chose to put those cigarettes into my mouth, I chose to light them, and I chose to suck down a chemical cocktail of 4,800 different poisons (69 of which are known carcinogens) to feed my addiction to nicotine.
Finally, in November of 2001, my repeated conscious choices to smoke “paid off”; I was diagnosed with an advanced case of emphysema. I remember my doctor telling me that a third of my lung tissue was already dead, and that, if I continued choosing to smoke, I’d wind up on oxygen 24/7, and then even that wouldn’t help any more and I’d suffocate.
I took that as a wake-up call, and started choosing not to smoke, just for today, every day. One of the ways I made that choice was by looking myself in the eye every morning and reciting my “mantra”; another was writing that same mantra in my quit journal (I eventually filled 3 of them).
I don’t do either of those things any more (I have other ways of recommitting to that choice now), but I did them consistently, every day, for the first 500 days of my quit, and I’m still free, 6 years and a couple days later.
Never underestimate the power of repeated conscious choice.
