Something inside of me shifted tonight.
My youngest daughter, four-month-old Elizabeth, was up crying until 1:00 AM last night, and my other daughter, three-year-old Alexandra, woke up this morning at 5:00 AM, leaving me with four hours of sleep with which to fuel my day. So when my wife got home from work this afternoon, I was too drained to contemplate dinner, and I offered to go to the store and pick up some frozen pizzas.
As I gathered up Alex into her car seat, I had a flash of intense craving. This quit has been very, very easy for me up to his point. After the initial suck and some rage and a lingering fog, I was free. No craving, no temptations, nothing. So when this craving struck, it hit me fast and hard.
I didnÂ’t spare a second before I was on the Jackal GroupMe putting out an SOS. BigKahuna and Lumberjack Tim were immediately there for me, typing up some truth ammunition with which to combat the addict impulses. I assured them that the madness had passed and thanked them for their accountability and brotherhood.
And then I got to the store. And I saw the Tobacco Display. I saw the colors, and the variety, and the logos, and the perceived prestige and exclusivity of it all, and my brain, for a second, wanted it.
And then I made the deliberate choice to hate it.
The emotion that washed over my chest in that instant that I chose to hate tobacco nearly floored me. The corners of my eyes stung with moisture and my fingers clenched tightly in fists. I hated tobacco for being so deceitful. I hated tobacco for presenting a death sentence as a fun diversion. For tricking us into thinking we could better define ourselves by the brand and flavor of carcinogen we chose. For using all the science of psychology and marketing to overwhelm our better judgment and fool us into choosing painful death over long life. For bleeding our wallets even as they sowed the seeds of cancer in our bodies.
I knew these things in my mind before I became a Jackal, but it is only because IÂ’ve dedicated the last 41 days to marinating myself in quit that I was able to make the visceral, emotional connection to my quit that I made tonight. Thank you, my brothers and sisters, vets and September crew alike, for quitting with me every day. YouÂ’ve given me new eyes and a new heart.
WeÂ’ll beat tobacco together. But you gotta drink the Kool-Aid. This site works if you humble yourself and you let it.
Never Again For Any Reason.