If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I quit essentially cold turkey, though I hadn't really planned it that way. Yes, "essentially." By essentially, I mean that I chewed two pieces of nicotine gum in the first two days of quitting. At the time, I didn't really have a strong opinion about whether I was going to use the gum or not. I always had some around for long flights, so I didn't need to actually choose to get some. The first piece got me through the 11 hours of travel on day 1. The second piece got me through day 2 at my desk. That's when I decided that I wanted to go without. I had read that the nicotine essentially leaves your body after 3 days, and I thought, well, if I keep on with the gum, 3 days will never get here, so I'll give it a try.
My deal with myself was simple: carry the gum with you; if you're tempted to actually smoke, then chew some (I haven't yet). After about two weeks I stopped carrying the gum with me. It has now been two months and it still sits on my dresser, just in case. I promise I'll blog about it if/when I throw it away. It's sitting right on top of my prescription for Champex, which I also obtained before quitting as a backup plan, just in case.
There's a lot of "just in case" in my story of quitting; there are a lot of deals that I've made with myself.
Why, exactly?
Because I'm old enough to know that plans fail. Simple as that. Like relationships, governments, or the banking industry, sometimes plans just fail. Being able to redirect in those moments of failure, though, that's the key to getting through. The truth is that I wanted to quit smoking. I didn't really care how I did it, as long as it was the easiest route that was available to me at the time. It's like navigating in a strange city: you look at the map and you figure out a reasonable route from Point A to Point B. Sometimes your route works like a charm; sometimes though, you need to improvise on the way because the map only tells part of the story. I had an idea about how to get from Point A (smoker) to Point B (non-smoker), but I needed to know that I could change my route if I suddenly found myself trying to cross a freeway on foot.
It's not just that plans fail though. I needed my Plan Bs and my Plan Cs and all of my deals with myself as a way of preserving a sense of choice. I'm a woman who likes to feel like she's in control of her own destiny, and creating options is one way to do that. You see, I need to know that I can, and then I can choose that I won't. Can't just doesn't work for me. Never has. I know myself well enough to know that my immediate, visceral reaction to "you can't" is "watch me." Right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant, that's just who I am and that's what I had to work with.
So instead, I created a world of "you can"s. If you need to, you can do this. If you need to, you can do that.
Twice, I needed to. Twice I did. Big deal.
I'm not invested in exactly how cold my turkey was. I'm just invested in creating the conditions that make it easier for me not to smoke. The way I figure it, the more conditions I create, the better my odds are.
