Breaking It Down

Some people can work their quits a week at a time. Some people can work their quits a day at a time. Some people need to bring their focus down to a smaller increment than that.

For some (quite a few actually), they experience the full gamut of how they must work their quits – having a good week, a good day, a good 4 hours. It looks to me like you need to concentrate on beating your addiction an hour at a time, or a period of hours at a time. Then when crunch time comes, you need to beat it back minute by minute.

Take those successful minutes and build on them. Minutes will turn into hours, hours into days, days into weeks.

This is not a race! Beating a craving and denying it is a great victory and a steppingstone, if not a cornerstone, in building your defenses and re-training your mind and body in your new lifestyle. Each time you beat a craving you get stronger. Little victories add up.

Looking at your quit as a whole, it is formidable. No doubt about it, no argument from me. It is huge. You can sit there and look at it in disbelief, wondering how and doubting if you will ever be able to accomplish such a task.

As trite and simple as it sounds, it can be broken down to this – One step at a time. One bite at a time.

In my teenage years I used to dig foundations for block walls in the hard clay dirt of Southern California. There I am, a sixteen year old looking at 300 feet of dirt that needs a trench 24″ deep and 36″ wide! No way will I be able to do this!

It didn’t take long until I realized that the hardest part was starting the job, and the second hardest part was finishing it! Much like quitting dip, but with different kinds of pain.

I finally approached the job in a different way. Instead of 300 feet, I broke it down into 1 bite of dirt with the shovel at a time. Bite by bite the foundation grew. I would realize, “Hey! I’ve already dug 50 feet!” Bite, by bite, it grew.

That is how you may want to try and look at your quit. A formidable task as a whole, but broken down it does not look so daunting. Take your little victories and grow on them. Build your defenses, retrain your mind and body.

Good luck.

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Remshot