Incredible

I started this post on Sunday, May 14 and finished it, posting it on Wednesday May 17. I don't understand why the blog shows it as a Sunday post ( glitch in the blogware I imagine). Anywho,

EFFECTIVE Post Date: WEDNESDAY, MAY 17

Day five, (or 120 hours since any nicotine ingestion) into so called final release from addiction, and I'm not doing too shabbily. I've been in worse straights for sure, and for the most part am having very few moments of flashback craving. Since I choose to not have any current craving, any cravings that I feel must of course be simply flashbacks, echoing from my errant past. If you're not privy to what I've been into for the past twelve weeks, and most readers won't be, then you'll need an explanation of what I'm talking about here. Use of the words "nicotine" and "addiction" in the same sentence fairly well hints at a "smoking cessation program", as they are popularly called in politically correct circles these days. As the twelve step people say, I am a recovering addict.

Oh my! Now that I've said it, "recovering addict", sounds so gauche! I feel like some nasty street wino person who, though bathed, still has a nasty pal over them. Oh well, I suspect I'll get over it. Actually a "chemical addiction" is exactly how I had come to view and define my previous life as a ciggy smoker. I had come to hate being tethered to the weed, and all the nastiness of ashes and tiny burn holes in clothes, upholstery, etc. Plus, people generally acted as though it stank somewhere on a scale between a rotting corpse and a skunk with PMS.

I never realized until after having not smoked for a few weeks, just how understated most people had been in their reaction to second hand smoke. I've come to feel that there is no such thing as second hand smoke. It spews out of your mouth, nose and cigarette tips all first hand, and it all smells like a rotting skunk corpse! I choose not to smoke now, and fairly well don't like people imposing their smoke into the air I must breath. I tried to respect the air space of others even back when I did smoke. I certainly didn't realize it was the stanky air choker that it is, or I would have switched to inhaling burning incense, or perhaps burning cow dung instead of tobacco. Whatever though, I have now left it all behind.

Anywho, the past being the past and the present being the present; twelve weeks ago I stood in line at a drug store check out when the cashier had a problem with a check scan. The Walgreen's of course only had one cashier and one register open, so the rest of us with purchases ready to go, had to cool our heels while the "I'm new" cashier waited on the fearless store manager to rescue her from the errant check scanning machine. Having eye scanned every item within immediate visual range of the checkout, and still no manager having answered the cashier's panicked page, (he must have been outside on a smoke break) I turned and began to scan items across the aisle near the other, unattended, checkout. It was there that my eyes spotted the Commit Lozenges. Now let me back up a little further in time.

For some time back, I had felt the need to give up tobacco, particularly my brand of tobacco poison, cigarettes. I had tried to quit on my own several times, and always at some short term point went back to smoking. I tried the nicotine chewing gum and had wound up with a raw mouth and gum withdrawal. Cold turkey, just ran me nutty. I probably would have killed someone if I hadn't started smoking again. So my efforts over the years to kick the addiction of tobacco, were fruitless. But by a winding path to the right path, I finally connected with the solutions and the simple process of kicking addiction. Something that had been left out of all of my previous attempts, put me over the top.

Would you believe in all my attempts to overcome the addiction before, none of them included prayer? How stupid is that? Very? Well it happened! My nutty logic was that something as abhorrent as an addiction would keep me from fully connecting with God, and that the addiction had to be overcome before I could make the kind of connection or relationship with God that I sought. Therefore, it seemed to me, I couldn't ask for help with the addiction, and that I had to just kick it on my own to put God before my addiction. Okay, I get strange mind logic going sometimes without even thinking. Gratefully, I woke up, claimed the forgiveness that is always available to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, prayed for forgiveness of my addiction and for help to be rid of it in a manner that didn't make me completely crazy. That brings us back to the Walgreen's Drug Store counter, and the Commit lozenges.

Standing there at that counter, when my eyes fell on the lozenges, it was as though I heard a voice, only I didn't, that told me to try the lozenges, and said, "that's it, get those." or something very similar. The next, as though it was a voice in my head, thing that came to me I will never forget. The voice that wasn't a voice said, "You do your part and I'll do mine!". I picked up the box, looked it over and chose the lesser of the two nicotine dosage levels, and as they say, the rest is history. While I have to put in a pitch for the Commit Lozenges, I have been giving credit where it is due and will continue to do so. To God be the glory! It was simply my prayers being answered that has brought me down the path away from addiction. The lozenges made it easy on me, and I suffered not. I reached out in an act of faith, and God then did as He said He would. He did his part, and did it magnificently!

Commit lozenges are a way to deliver a type of nicotine to the human body to replace cigarettes. Replacement therapy I guess is what you would call the process. In three or four days you get stabilized on the lozenges and then begin the process of getting used to lozenges instead of cigarettes. After some weeks, you begin cutting the dosage down until 12 weeks later you dwindle your daily dose to zero. Last Friday morning was my last daily dose. Saturday I went solo, except for peppermint candy, which I promptly overdosed on if that's at all possible. Sunday I switched to butterscotch, and Monday a combination of butterscotch, cinnamon, and peppermint. Today, I have managed to not choke myself on hard candy. Do I still have an urge to smoke, yeah a few seconds a few times a day. Usually within a few seconds though, my mind is on something else and its forgotten. This has been a really slick process!

I haven't smoked since somewhere before 3:00 or there about on a Saturday over 12 weeks ago. I haven't used a nicotine lozenge since last Friday morning. The lozenge pack seemed to read like the end of the 12 weeks was the end of your cessation program. I don't think so! I am currently trying to work my way off of the hard candy that I replaced the lozenges with. When I've kicked the peppermint, butterscotch, cinnamon addiction, I'll let you know here. Meanwhile, I will continue to pray for God's grace and blessing to keep me addiction free. No I actually don't think I'm addicted to hard candy.

Oh, by the way, there is one other very important thing I must do before signing off for this entry. There is one special, awesome, amazing, sweet woman, who has supported me through this whole process, prayed for me, and kept me close. Thank you my dear! Please continue to pray for me! If the devil made me choose between your prayers and your love, I would have to pray to God for help in whipping the devil, because I really must have both, your prayers and your love! Thankfully, I don't have to choose. I am blessed beyond measure! Being loved by both God and the special someone that I love is the most awesome existence imaginable!

There looms a couple of more immediate hurdles in my life's path. I will get over them, or around them. God will open a way and use the path he guides me through for his work. Troubles will come to the righteous and the wicked alike, as to the saved and the lost, only the righteous and the saved will have the strength of God, the gift of Christ's forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit to guide them. Comfort, guidance and confidence accompany those who wait upon the Lord. When God's love is poured out, only those who hold their cup under the fountain will be filled. Love unaccepted is like sound upon deaf ears. Accepting God's love? Indescribably incredible!