..just BAM and the smoke smells way to good.

The smell of cigarette smoke is doing me in.

My main question is: why now?  Why now am I feeling so vulnerable when faced with the urge to smoke.  The urge that for months has been completely absent and is now rearing it’s alluring inviting enticing ugly head?  Before all I had to do was remind myself how hard it was so stop, the health benefits – both immediate (ability to breath) and future (life itself),how unfair it was to keep smoking after my finance quit, how much I wanted to do this for my father.  Once I reminded myself of these things the desire to smoke would vanish instantaneously.  Now as I sit here I find myself wondering what all the fuss was about.  I miss it.

The funny thing is that I have always been really firm in my commitments to stop something.  Too firm at times perhaps.  It has gone so far as to take on a defining quality.  I AM that person who is strong willed, hard headed, and stubborn.  Who can set her mind to anything (self control wise) and just do it.  Once I concede that it’s time to give something up – well that’s it – done, finito, gone.  But therein lies the problem.

I have become so internally defined with my ability to limit and restrict that I can’t stop.  I have come to thrive on (or rather suffer from) my personal, epic battles of will power.

But now I am left asking: in constantly ’taking away’ from myself with goals of raising my own personal bar, what am I going to be left with?  Life is slowly but surely loosing the fun, the carefree, the enjoyable.  I actually once considered myself SPONTANEOUS.  Where have those days gone?  According to the records I am only 21 years old after all.

Can you understand how unsettling it is to have such urges to smoke?  If I were to give in to such an urge, where would the cycle lead me?  How would I define myself?  How would others’ view of me change?  If I started smoking again and told myself that if I quit once I could do it again – what would stop me from starting everything else I have stopped with the same justification.  What would stop me from winding up back in my car, family and friendless, with drugs as my sole desired companion.  Drugs and words anyway.  I have always believed a saying I once heard, something that has always stuck with me: The first time you try to quit, it’s easy. [ I take that to mean relatively so - in other words, don't throw away your one 'free-pass'.  Not that it is exactly 'easy' the first time, but I sure as hell don't want to know what the non-easy subsequent tries are like.]

I am leading this refined and sifted life that I (non-religiously) imposed upon myself.  For me it has always been all or nothing.  Entirely ‘out there’ or entirely ’here’.  Entirely absent or entirely present.  For some reason there is no give and take in me – it’s entirely give or entirely take.

Why the sudden insecurities?  Nothing bad, nothing troubling, no real bout of depressive thoughts – just BAM and the smoke smells way to good.   

   

comments…

For some reason I have been a bit of a comment junkie of late.  Something to do with not wanting to deal with the minor details of my life – I have been scrolling through the blogs of others looking for ways to offer encouragement, hope, or anything I have to offer.  To me, it seems to have all the hallmark signs of an avoidance tactic.  [Don't deal with your own things, try to help someone else deal with there's...]

For better or for worse:

I came across a blog (online journal entry) in which a mother was desperate about her young son and his psychotic behavior.  (He had just decided to get married for the 2nd time..baby from 1st marriage at her house..misc details…).  The details are not important.  What I did want to share with you is the message I sent her – hoping to offer some glimmer of hope.  Her name, by the way, is Andrea as well.

“Andrea to Andrea. While I can only imagine what you are going through, I have been in the position of your son. I have abandoned everything and everyone close to me in the pursuit of “love” and drugs. I hurt so many people – but what kills me inside is how my parents would look at me. How they would look at me when I slept through Father’s Day and the anniversary of my brother’s death. How I could take all the love, support, and friendship I have always had with them and throw it down the drain.
The reason I am telling you this is because today I have that amazing relationship with my parents – and everyone else I truly care for – back. It has, and will always be, a long road to regain their love and trust. I speak with my mother daily and have moved back to within 5 mins. driving distance because in truth, she is my best friend. While I am still with the same “love” that I was back then, we no longer enable each other to do anything except relearn how to live soberly and responsibly. My parents, who at one point despised him so vehemently, have seen in him a ‘fine’ young man and one who has moved mountains as far as they are concerned. [In so much as how he has changed and is caring, responsible, respecting, etc.].
I don’t know that this will ever happen with your son. I have not read through all your posts to glean every little detail I can. What I want you to know is that it is possible. I once heard that ‘people never change.’ Well then maybe C and I haven’t changed. We have only found who we once were. Who we were before each of us, in our own way, got off track.
Good luck in life. Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, Andrea.”

 I posted this because there is always hope and always individuals in need of hearing it exists…