"Becoming willing"

Willingness takes an enormous amount of courage.  I pray for it sometimes.  Much depends upon what it is we're attempting to do - me?  I'm battling with my  last two addictions.  Nicotine, and spending.  I'm so tired of it.  It seems we almost have to be broken, to let somethings go.  I have yet to comprehend this.  Especially when it comes to my smoking.  Why a person does something over and over, that knowingly is harmful, is oblivious to me.  Well of course, we know it's addictive - and despite my internal dislike, I do it - over and over.

A slave some would say.  Perhaps I am.  I look at my trash can, and it's full of spent monies - that I'd really rather have gone elsewhere.  Burning up money -- that's what smoker's do.  It's actually quite insane.  It isn't even pleasurable any longer.  So the veritable question remains, why do it?  The only answer I have - which may not seem reasonable to many, is: because my brain tells me to.

Willingness:  The quality or state of being prepared to do something.  This is the definition.  Prepared??   This puts a new slant upon it.  I never thought about it that way.  I'm not prepared, I suppose this is the problem.  It requires action.  Guts.  I have that.  I've done this before, I just cannot stay quit.  I guess that is not quitting, it's just stopping for a period of time.  Truth be told.

I don't know if there is (yet there has to be) anyone else out there like me.  I'm such an addictive personality type.  I admit this, yet I've (with God's help of course) done tremendous amounts of work on myself.  I no longer struggle with (praise God) chemical addiction, nor alcohol - but it has managed to finagle it's way into other parts of my life.  I don't like this.  I don't like it, at all.

There is something I'm not trusting - or surrendering.  If it were not so, I'd be free from it all.  I've noticed in the past, removing the nicotine brings up feelings.  I know that my spending covers my feelings as well.  Goodness, how I hate emotional pain.  I guess we all do.  I've had enough of it in my life.  However, as long as we live, and live an open life - we will experience more.  We cannot experience beauty, joy, nor enlightenment without heartache and pain.  They just come in equal measure.  It is just how life works.  Without rain there'd be no flowers.  If there's no risk, there is no reward.

I have a few weeks before college starts.   I miss the energy that I had when I stopped smoking before, and I am really tired of the headaches that the smoking gives me.  Somehow, someway - I have to find it in me to let this thing go for the final time.  I need to release it's grip on me.  I have to surrender to it, somehow.  That's the  only way I'm going to win.  I can't beat it, I'm powerless over it.  Surrender is the answer.  It's always the answer when dealing with an addiction - one must turn it over to something greater than oneself.  It's a spiritual solution.  This is where the willingness to quit comes from, as well.

One would not think that a stick of tobacco could become one's friend, but that is what has happened with me.  The relationship with smoking is very intimate.  It is always with you, and you take it in your very breath.  It doesn't get much more intimate that this.

They've always been there for me, or available when I needed them.  (I realize to the average person that this must sound insane, but there has to be one person that this will resonate with).  They've never let me down.  Therein lies the madness.  This is what the addiction tells you -- like a separate voice in your head.  "They're your best friend....." alas, my worst enemy.  The juxtaposition is bizarre.  The  light at the end of the tunnel is becoming clearer.  I actually hate these things.  I don't use that word, rarely.  However, cigarettes have stolen thousands of dollars from me, over the years.  Perhaps it took writing about it to get clear.  They've stolen energy, money, time and motivation.  It's given me nothing.  Stress, strife, and stench.

Perhaps this blog is totally for me, and for that I apologize.  However, this writing that I do, is therapeutic in nature for me.  My hope is that it inspires someone else.

I've just written and became willing -- albeit perhaps angry - but it is a start.
I'm trying to save for a car, and smoking is so futile.  In any size, shape of form -- it is wasted money.  I deserve to treat myself better.  My body is a temple.  I've not be treating it as such.  It's time I did.