Updated January 20, 2015.

At two months smoke-free, David is beginning to get a handle on the empowerment that comes from making choices that support the smoke-free life he's building.

I have put two months between me and my last cigarette.   It feels like it has been a really, really long time since I earned that first star.   

For me, the first month was about survival and getting through the day without smoking... sometimes getting through the next 15 minutes without smoking.

   I felt like that first star was earned in battle.

During my second month, I started learning how to deal with life without smoking rather than just getting by.   I started to realize recently how I allow my circumstances to define who I am and what sort of person I am and the sort of person I was defining myself to be was someone who smoked.   Someone who smoked when things didn't go well, when people were upset, when the Arizona Cardinals lost (and they lose a lot).   

I have shared in this forum about my design project at work and how in February we had a lot of things go wrong.   And even today, we have a new problem with the design, and its another serious setback, and my mind starts to drift to a place where I am somehow not good enough or lacking some ability or virtue and that's why we have this problem.  Its a place where I can justify smoking because in that place my life and my contribution don't matter that much anyway.  

And that makes me ask the question... why do I have to live in that place that makes me want to smoke?

   And the answer is, I don't have to dwell in a place of self-pity and sorrow... I actually have a choice about it, regardless of what is happening around me.

Now I don't always feel like I have a choice, but quitting smoking has provided me with the motivation to question some basic assumptions about myself and to see the thought patterns that lead to me smoking.   And I have been able to stop my mind from going down some dark holes lately.   I am starting to see that I can define myself independently of my circumstances... it doesn't have be automatic that if things don't go well I have to feel bad or be down on myself.  

I am starting to see a bigger picture and I am making better choices.

David