After thirty six years...

Today I want to celebrate the joy of being free from the slavery of a nicotine addiction. What am I saying today...I intend to celebrate this freedom for the rest of my life.

My newfound freedom is due, in part, to the practice I got from quitting at least once a year for the last twenty years. Those trial runs, with the added help of a former smoker named Allen Carr who wrote a book called The Easyway to Quit Smoking clinched it for me this time.During my years of attempting to end the nicotine addiction I found that nicotine replacement therapies like gum and the patches didn't work for me. In fact, I found the replacement therapies upped the amount of nicotine I needed to meet the needs of my addiction; for the non smoker that means I needed more cigarettes when I started smoking again, not less.

There is a lot of information in The Easyway to Quit Smoking that was helpful. For me, the most effective counsel was to focus on the joy of being a non smoker instead of focusing on the cravings of a smoker. By practicing this not so slight attitude adjustment I find that the cravings are easy to walk past because they've become occasions for me to congragulate myself on being free of the slavery.

Three short weeks later without poisoning myself and I can run up and down the stairs again, my circulation has improved, and the menopausal night sweats have almost disappeared to name but a few benefits. Best of all, I am free and I feel like a million dollars, for free. I didn't even buy the book, I borrowed from a friend.