I was rummaging through my hard drive and came across this article I wrote a few years ago. Thought y'all might enjoy it.

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Over the time Ive been helping people to freedom from smoking, Ive encountered many who were on their second, third, fourth, or more quit. A lot of people would seem to be successful for a particular length of time, and then would relapse. A month, three months, six months, and ten months seem to be the most often cited danger points.

What happens at these times that would make a person particularly vulnerable? Most people have said they fell victim to the I thought I could handle just one lie. The second category was people who just couldnt handle stress and literally chose to end their quit. Finally, there are those in the group that have no idea what happened; they just started smoking without giving any thought to it (see The Limbic State article).

Across the board, though, almost everyone who was on their second, or more, quit voiced one dominant concern: Ive always slipped at this upcoming point and Im afraid I will again. They have come to see a particular point in time as a barrier that has beaten them before and will, in their mind, likely beat them again. Nothing is further from the truth.

A point in time is just that, a point in time, and nothing more. It has no substance, no power, and no control. By itself, it cannot change you, deflect you, reverse you, injure you, or stop you. Only you can give it the power to control you by allowing yourself to believe it can. Your quit will not weaken and fail at this point in time unless you allow it to. Time has no control, only you do.

I once heard a story that makes a good analogy of this. It tells of how elephants are staked to the ground. When an elephant is a baby, the elephant handler will use a stout rope to tie its leg to a stake that is sunk deep into the ground. The baby elephant learns that it cannot pull the stake up or break the rope, and eventually quits trying. When the elephant is fully grown, capable of pushing over huge trees, the handler is able to keep the elephant in place with a small rope tying its leg to a short stake pressed by hand into the ground. A lesson instilled early in its life has convinced the elephant it cannot pull up the stake, so it never tries.

Many who have had a previous failure are like the elephant. They see the time of their previous failure as their stake. If this is you, you need to know that you can pull that stake easily. It is not the obstacle it seems; that is an illusion of your mind. Dont approach the time with apprehension. Dont approach it as if its an obstacle, a barrier, or a point of failure. Approach it with the joy and confidence of someone who knows success belongs to them. Stand tall and meet it head on. You will discover just how fragile it is and how strong you are. You will break that rope. You will pull that stake. You will be free.

The only way to fail in a quit is to smoke. Pull your stake. Dont smoke.