KillTheCan.org Accountability Forum
Community => Introductions => Topic started by: Seneca on December 02, 2014, 09:38:00 PM
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I would first like to say how thankful I am to have found KTC. I need not tell any of you that this group is much more than an online forum. Thank you to all those who came before me to give this place its vibrancy, compassion and authenticity.
My story is probably very similar to many of yours. I took my first dip when I was 14. By the time I was 16, I'd reached full-on nicotine dependency. Twenty years later and the addiction was still receiving daily feedings.
Over those two intervening decades virtually everything about me changed: education molded my mind; military service made a man; and a wonderful woman made me both a husband and father. What remained, however, was the habit -- the ever-constant need to feed my addiction.
Incongruence is an odd thing. Webster defines incongruent as "being in disagreement or lacking in harmony." That pretty much sums up my habit: this one glaring weakness that simply was not in harmony with the person I'd become. And there in lies my own personal challenge with quitting: dipping is abhorrent to me, yet my 20-year nicotine addiction has heretofore received constant sustenance. The magnitude of the quitting task (" . . . can I really reverse two decades of deeply ingrained behavior?") can overwhelm the strongest resolve.
But that is why KTC is genius. This website instinctively understands that temporally distant concepts like "never again" to the addict can create an over-powering anxiety. The promise of one day -- today -- is far more manageable. Here, we need not concentrate on the future. Our concern is merely in the present -- promising to quit for today. That simple insight, I believe, can help all of us remain free from the habit that has enslaved us.
I took my handle from a well-known Roman stoic, Lucius Annaeus Seneca. (He was a great thinker, and I would encourage all of you to read some of his writing.) One of his maxims is this: "It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” That is so true of the mentality that kept me dipping far longer than I ever should. But now, with the support of this group, I hope to slowly move into the back-half of that sentence: daring to quit for one day at a time.
Thank you, and I look forward to being your brother
SENECA
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In the words of the great ancient NFL philosopher Al Davis, "Just quit baby!"
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Good shit Seneca.
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Good stuff Seneca. I'll quit with you EDD.
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In the words of the great ancient NFL philosopher Al Davis, "Just quit baby!"
Maybe I'm just not that smart and I'm ok with that. This quote makes way more sense to me.
Seneca, I see where you are going with all of that, but it reminds me of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indiana meets two swordsman on a path, they twirl there swords about in an attempt to intimidate. Indiana pulls out his gun and just shoots them. To me, quitting is pretty strait forward. Post roll and become active. Make friends and be a man of your word. You're obviously doing something right though, Day 11 is a helluva job; keep it up.
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In the words of the great ancient NFL philosopher Al Davis, "Just quit baby!"
Maybe I'm just not that smart and I'm ok with that. This quote makes way more sense to me.
Seneca, I see where you are going with all of that, but it reminds me of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indiana meets two swordsman on a path, they twirl there swords about in an attempt to intimidate. Indiana pulls out his gun and just shoots them. To me, quitting is pretty strait forward. Post roll and become active. Make friends and be a man of your word. You're obviously doing something right though, Day 11 is a helluva job; keep it up.
Whether you choose the sword or the six shooter....just quit.
And I'll quit with you.
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Gets it! Stay with the plan Brutha and you will succeed. Good luck.