Ready to “leave”
Sharing this to really hold myself accountable. I’ve been a nightly smoker for the past 4.5 years which feels insane. It crept up on me in university, and now that I’m in grad school and turning 25 this summer I can’t stand the thought of continuing smoking. I feel like out of the last 4.5 years, 3 of those were spent trying to quit. I understand a lot of the psychology and the how-tos in theory, and I’ve had a few month-long periods of being clean, but have unfortunately continued to fall back. I think I’m having some sort of backwards psychology because I’ve spent so much time trying and preparing my life for when I quit, I can’t take my attempts to quit seriously because I haven’t been successful, or when I do have periods of sobriety it just feels like something is missing - like I’ve spent too much time thinking about the “quitting” component and not enough on the just “living, existing, enjoying” component that comes afterwards. Maybe I just resent that quitting actually takes ongoing work every day and isn’t just this nuclear moment of change I’ve been trying to experience?
I just did 3 weeks clean because I was on a trip, but the second I was home alone yesterday I went to the dispensary which is shit. I’m currently living alone as of January for the first time and I really wanted to leverage this time to support myself, but I feel like because I have been smoking since the move, I’ve imprinted poor routines on my new space which is harder to break out of when I’m just on my own. I don’t want last night to set me back, and I’ve gotten better in the past year of not smoking every single night, so I feel confident that I can bounce back.
There’s just something about quitting this time that I feel so apathetic about. In past times I’ve had more passion and grit for it - usually because I’ve smoked myself into a position that makes me so fucking mad that I get so much energy towards quitting, but I haven’t experienced that in a while and, logically, I’m not trying to wait to screw myself over again so I can quit. I’m worried the apathy I’ve developed recently is something that’s going to fuck me up if I don’t quit like right now and I don’t want to turn a blind eye to that, and would rather leverage that fear instead.
Ughh. Sometimes I fall into the trap of over analyzing too, like if I could just “understand” a bit better than it will help me quit, which just prolonged my use because I trick myself into thinking that I can better understand my use while I’m high and use that night’s high to support my future sobriety. So backwards. When I look at past journal entries and stuff, 80% are just talking about quitting and why I haven’t or why I will and how I will, and honestly that in and of itself just feels fucking ill sometimes. Like why have I spent so much time talking to myself about something I haven’t done lol.
Anyways, in terms of moving forward, I love spring and the energy of growth and renewal so trying to focus on and leverage that. I need to just remind myself that the best I have is right in front of me and around me, and that things will feel dull for a bit while I recover but there’s beauty in that dullness because it’s quite literally what I’m seeking. I’m sick of the whiplash smoking gave me, and so the “dullness” I have been feeling in sobriety is really the gift I’ve been looking to give myself and will allow me to find ways to naturally excite myself without weed.
I’ve joined my city’s cycling club and have been improving my social life so I have those things to look forward to! I’m thinking of starting the “75 hard” challenge this week to give myself something else to be working on so that I don’t feel like I’m just sitting around obsessing over “quitting”, plus it will take me to around my 25th birthday and I’m thinking I can make that a cute thing about “hard” launching life at 25. The last 4.5 years smoking have been just so tortuous and have definitely been holding me back from my full potential. Logically I’m so ready to be done, I just feel like the energetic piece was missing a bit this time, but I think that piece has made my last attempts at quitting more susceptible to emotionally-charged relapses so I guess just focusing on the logic is my path forward too.
Anyways, thanks to anyone reading this and I’ve been happy to be supporting your journeys as well :)