A Change in Attitude at Two Months Smoke-Free

A Change in Attitude at Two Months Smoke-Free June 24, 2019 Brad More in Addiction Coping and Recovery Personal Stories Methods and Support Overcoming Addiction Alcohol Use Addictive Behaviors Drug Use Nicotine Use As time goes by, it can be easy to lose sight of the reasons why you put out that last cigarette and made the decision to quit smoking. After two months, you might forget how much you hated smoking, how it made you  cough, and the shortness of breath you had to deal with. Its also easy to begin feeling sorry for yourself or think about how miserable you are without cigarettes. It happens to many people, especially after the first few months because we begin to romanticize the good old days of smoking. This is called junkie thinking  and it is a potential pitfall that most ex-smokers will face while recovering from nicotine addiction. Without an attitude adjustment, junkie thinking can easily lead to a smoking relapse.? Brads story below is a great example of an aborted junkie thinking slide. Like so many others who grow weary of the recovery process  that can unfold slowly, Brad was in a slump and starting to feel sorry for himself. Through a chance encounter, however, he found an attitude adjustment that put his priorities back in order. Brads Story: Two Months After Quitting Today marks two days since I quit smoking. Yesterday I was thinking about what I was going to put in my two-month milestone post in the smoking forum I belong to. It was not going to be an optimistic posting. No, what I had planned was pretty much a pity party. A full tilt God, I feel awful. Ive not smoked for two months and I still feel like crap. Will this misery ever end? diatribe. Then I was going to sit back and wait for all the comforting, reassuring replies that I knew forum members would send my way. Kinda pathetic, but its the truth. Then last night happened. The Attitude-Changing Encounter One of the things Ive resumed since quitting is going to yoga classes. I go three to four nights a week. Last night was pretty crowded; I guess a lot of people were getting a session in before they abused their bodies on New Years Eve. It was not a particularly good session for me. My mind kept wandering. I was thinking of the party we were going to that night, wondering if anyone there would have a cigarette, if it would be the moment I was going to slip up, etc. At the end of the class, I noticed an attractive young woman (probably early 30s) that I had never seen before. She was talking to the instructor and I overheard her saying that she was from out of town and was just visiting family for a couple of days. We walked out together and made small talk. I asked her how she came to find out about the yoga studio. She said she hadnt done yoga in a while, so on a whim looked online and found the place. She asked me how long I had been practicing. I told her that I started again when I quit smoking. Then I said I had made it almost two months, and that it was a very hard (theres the poor pitiful me part, again). She looked at me and said, Yes, Ive heard from friends that quitting can be really tough. Good for you for quitting. Then she added, You know, this is kind of an anniversary for me as well. Yeah? I said, What anniversary is it? She paused and looked directly into my eyes for a second. It was just about 5 years ago that I had a double lung transplant. It was like someone had hit me in the back with a sledgehammer and all the air had gone out of my lungs. Did she really say double lung transplant? I just couldnt get my head around it. You read about things like that, but to actually meet someone who had gone through it? It seemed impossible. Really, I said, a double lung transplant? She smiled at me. Yes. I have cystic fibrosis, and without the transplant, I would have died. I stammered around trying to think of something intelligent to say. She was very patient, I guess she had been through this situation before. After a couple of minutes, I got up the courage to say, What does the future look like? She said that after five years, the average was that she would have about a 25% chance of making it another year. But thats just an average. Ive had very little rejection issues, and Im feeling great. We talked for another 20 minutes or so. She runs a non-profit animal rescue mission in Brooklyn. She is director of a non-profit dance company. She has a full-time job. She has a significant other. She is living her life. Im not a religious person. I like to think that I have some degree of spirituality, but there is no organized religion that I would be a part of. However, when she said goodbye, all I could do is say, God bless you, April, God bless you. I can never tell you how much it has meant to me to have met you. And I gave her a long hug. Were Making a Choice Like I said, Im not a religious person, but all day Ive been thinking about her. Its sort of like that movie, Its a Wonderful Life.  As if an angel had come down and tapped me on the shoulder. Almost all of us who are quitting are doing it as a matter of choice. It is tough, it is miserable at times, but we have a choice to continue doing damage to ourselves or do everything we can to beat this awful addiction to nicotine. April does not have a choice. She can only deal with the hand that fate has dealt her. There I was, feeling sorry for myself for being miserable about quitting smoking, and someone who has facedâ€"and is facingâ€"mortality every day came and graced me with her presence. And did it with courage and class. A Word From Verywell Quite often, true freedom from something like an addiction is a state of mind. Pay attention to the positive cues that life sends your way, and work to change what smoking means to you. Give yourself time to heal the habits youve developed around nicotine addiction and you can find lasting freedom just as surely as anyone else has.