SmokeyMountainExpress – Path of Least Resistance

Through out my life I have chosen the path of least resistance.  School came relatively easy for me.  When a subject or class was hard I would find a way to do the minimum to pass, and let the easier classes grades balance out my GPA.  Same thing with sports.. in youth sports I was one of the better athletes, but as other kids hit puberty and competition got harder I chose to pack it in.  In my career/job history I have excelled in the beginning level jobs, and have always moved up to Supervisor or even Management.  When things are easy for me I excel, but when I get to Management and it gets hard I always find an excuse to go back to a lower responsibility job.

Don’t get me wrong I am not as lazy of a person as I am making it look like, but I do realize I am not living up to my potential.  I only bring this up because taking the path of least resistance has made quitting nicotine almost impossible for me in the past, and realizing I was doing this has helped me get this far.  Every time I have stopped using nicotine in the past has been on a certain day like the beginning of a month, year, or holiday so I could track my progress and brag about it.  I would always try to inflate the success to look like I was trying to my wife and family.  But somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew I was caving, and just trying to make it look like I was really giving it my best.  But when I met resistance my addict brain would justify a cave.

Here are some of the more popular reasons I would use:
1) I am gaining weight, and I would rather die than be fat.
2) I am going to get a divorce from being such an asshole to my wife
3) So and So isn’t quitting and they don’t think using isn’t that big of a deal.
4) I can quit anytime, but right now I enjoy using it.
5) I am not affecting anyone else… at least I don’t smoke anymore.

There are plenty of more reasons, but you get the point.

This time when I quit I just quit.  No hey look at me I am one day quit and trying to do better.  I just quit for me.  I was tired of being controlled by a can, and it was just time.  I was aware of this sight and signed up soon after I quit, but didn’t join a group or start posting roll.  Reading everyones stories along with all the information on the main KTC page helped tremendously.  To tell you the honest truth my memory of the first couple of weeks isn’t clear.  I started suffering from severe anxiety, and swollen gums, and throat soon after the first couple of weeks.  One night out to eat with my wife I ended up going into my first panic attack ever.  It was the worst feeling I have ever had, and landed me in the emergency room.  Eventually my panic attack subsided, and then I started taking a bunch of tests to find out what was up with my throat.  Long story short…. I have been through a lot of tests, and everyone came back normal.  I could go on and on, but if you want to see my journey I have an intro I started around day 60 when I started posting roll on this site. https://ktcforum.org/index.php?topic=16231.0

I am sitting at day 122 right now and am coming off the best stretch of my quit with 4 or 5 good days in a row.  I am very happy about this, because before this stretch I had some of my worst anxiety, fog, and cravings.  But I have the tools, and my mind made up that I am done with stuffing shit in my lip.  Making the decision to join a group and start posting roll around day 60 of my quit was the best decision I have ever made.  For me the most dangerous thing to my quit is getting complacent, and forgetting that I am an addict to a drug that is hurting me.  Waking up every morning and posting my promise keeps my quit a priority that I will continue to feed.  I need to actively keep my addict brain from finding a way to take the path of least resistance, and fucking up my progress.

No pretty bow to close this up.  Just that I am PTBQWYA and am thankful to all that have helped me.

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