In his book, The EasyWay to Stop Smoking, Allen Carr refers to the little monster that wants to be fed.
The book helped me understand what I'd been living through for the past 20 years. And being able to see it for what it is, gave me the power to DECIDE to stop.
That was the hardest part - deciding. Only another heavy smoker can understand this. It would seem logical that we would want to quit. We tell ourselves that one day we will, just not today.
Right now, 3 hours after putting out my last cigarette (an IMPOSSIBLE amount of time to go without out a smoke for the old me), I know that I will never smoke another cigarette.
How I'm doing -
Every three minutes or so, I have the impulse to reach for a cigarette. It only lasts a split second until I remember that I am no longer a smoker, and that the cigarette pack is not right next to me - or anywhere in the house for that matter. (Before I lit up that last horrible, disgusting, filthy, stinking one, I took out all the trash - empty packs, ashtrays, and any other cigarette around, other than the one I was about to smoke).
But yeah, that's the worst of it so far - these little, frequent mental lapses when I forget that I'm no longer a smoker. That's it. For now anyway.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Toss the Heels
These are my feet.My feet have taken me many places. I was a dancer on them for many years. I love my feet. They are not pedicured. They are calloused and strong. I walk around barefoot as much as I can to feel the earth beneath me and remember that I am a human.
This is someone else's foot,
being destroyed by high heels.
They might be pedicured and look very pretty now,
but in some years, they will be destroyed -
not to mention her back and knees.
I guess dancing was always more important to me than looking taller, and I'm barely 5 ft tall. So I was saved from the torture.
How far will women go to feed male phallic fantasies?
Don't you see? The heel represents a penis.
Is this any different from Chinese foot binding?
Toss the heels, put on some combat boots, and kick the frail princess image's ass.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Free Yourself from Nicotine Addiction
It's been 20 years of a pack a day.
About a month ago, I finally started reading Allen Carr's
"The EasyWay to Stop Smoking".
When first given to me, I started reading it, and it scared the shit out of me. I decided to try reading it at a better time, and put it away. The book had been on my shelf for three years.
I was at a point where I could no longer enjoy being around other people, unless they too were smoking. I felt horribly about myself, and didn't even realize how far down my nicotine addiction was sinking me. Every other aspect of my life was great. Nothing to complain about. I don't tend to dwell on my own feelings, and am pretty good at shaking off nostalgia or angst. But over the last couple of years, the feeling took over, and there was no shaking it. I told my husband several times that I felt like crying, but that I didn't know why. In the 7 years we've been together, he can probably count on one and a half hands how many times he's seen me cry. It's just not something I do. But there was such tremendous sadness growing inside of me, and I had no idea what it was.
It was, as Allen Carr has helped me see, the terrible sense of helplessness and enslavement. I didn't even want to quit anymore, and was completely resigned to my fate - to smoke myself to an early death. I was feeling so old.
I'm 36. That's not old. And for the first time in years, I realize that I am still young, and that I can still have many years ahead of me. I was trapped by the worst trap that we have ever invented. The Nicotine Trap. Such an evil trap!
It's amazing the lies we can tell ourselves.
Well into my 30's and I still somehow believed that smokers were cooler. Non-smokers were shallow goody-two-shoes who cared more about their health and form than about sitting and pondering the universe with a good smoke.
I started smoking when I was 16. I thought the cigarette was my best friend and life-long companion. Now I know the truth and cannot believe that, as advanced as we are, tobacco companies haven't been closed down. But only months ago, I was bitching about not being able to smoke in public places. This is how much the book has affected the way I view smoking.
I know I am one of the last of the declared smokers on the planet - the shameless ones who will do the 45 minute line at the airport, during their 55 min. stopover between international flights, to run out to the parking lot for a drag.
If you are still a smoker, read the book. It will change your life. Few people can say they are the very best at what they do, but Allen Carr says it, and rightfully so. He put into words the dark and miserable hell that we go through, and the truths that we never tell ourselves because we work so hard to ignore them.
You might laugh now, after all this preaching, but I haven't quit yet. It's part of the method to smoke while reading the book, which is probably the number one reason why I even gave it a chance. I'm almost done. In a week or less I will be a non-smoker, and am so excited to be alive again, young again, and free again. I defended smoking with everything I had, no one could convince me to even consider quitting. But this book did. I'll write about this again in a few weeks to tell you that if I can do it, anyone can do it.
I was at a point where I could no longer enjoy being around other people, unless they too were smoking. I felt horribly about myself, and didn't even realize how far down my nicotine addiction was sinking me. Every other aspect of my life was great. Nothing to complain about. I don't tend to dwell on my own feelings, and am pretty good at shaking off nostalgia or angst. But over the last couple of years, the feeling took over, and there was no shaking it. I told my husband several times that I felt like crying, but that I didn't know why. In the 7 years we've been together, he can probably count on one and a half hands how many times he's seen me cry. It's just not something I do. But there was such tremendous sadness growing inside of me, and I had no idea what it was.
It was, as Allen Carr has helped me see, the terrible sense of helplessness and enslavement. I didn't even want to quit anymore, and was completely resigned to my fate - to smoke myself to an early death. I was feeling so old.
I'm 36. That's not old. And for the first time in years, I realize that I am still young, and that I can still have many years ahead of me. I was trapped by the worst trap that we have ever invented. The Nicotine Trap. Such an evil trap!
It's amazing the lies we can tell ourselves.
Well into my 30's and I still somehow believed that smokers were cooler. Non-smokers were shallow goody-two-shoes who cared more about their health and form than about sitting and pondering the universe with a good smoke.
I started smoking when I was 16. I thought the cigarette was my best friend and life-long companion. Now I know the truth and cannot believe that, as advanced as we are, tobacco companies haven't been closed down. But only months ago, I was bitching about not being able to smoke in public places. This is how much the book has affected the way I view smoking.
I know I am one of the last of the declared smokers on the planet - the shameless ones who will do the 45 minute line at the airport, during their 55 min. stopover between international flights, to run out to the parking lot for a drag.
If you are still a smoker, read the book. It will change your life. Few people can say they are the very best at what they do, but Allen Carr says it, and rightfully so. He put into words the dark and miserable hell that we go through, and the truths that we never tell ourselves because we work so hard to ignore them.
You might laugh now, after all this preaching, but I haven't quit yet. It's part of the method to smoke while reading the book, which is probably the number one reason why I even gave it a chance. I'm almost done. In a week or less I will be a non-smoker, and am so excited to be alive again, young again, and free again. I defended smoking with everything I had, no one could convince me to even consider quitting. But this book did. I'll write about this again in a few weeks to tell you that if I can do it, anyone can do it.
It's a War
Until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all,
without regard to race,
until that day...
the dream of lasting peace,
world citizenship
rule of international morality
will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
but never attained -
(Bob Marley / Haile Selassie)
without regard to race,
until that day...
the dream of lasting peace,
world citizenship
rule of international morality
will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
but never attained -
(Bob Marley / Haile Selassie)
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