A Freedom So Sweet Being An Ex Smoker

During my adult life, I have tried numerous times to find that special “somewhere” place where our souls reside, and with my ‘psychologically subconscious life repairing toolbox’ at hand, I sought to do some essential self repair work, only to never get to that special “somewhere” place and return result free and empty handed. Know the feeling?

Maybe you’re not like me, maybe you are. But I am someone who during the last few years or so has been trying to search for my own so-called ‘meaning of life’ and never actually got that eureka answer. You may know this activity as ‘Soul Searching’

I couldn’t particularly put my finger on exactly why in the past I couldn’t find my own soul when I embarked on a crusade to discover it. Yet strangely enough, although I was never victorious, I always sensed that I was just around the corner from finding it and actually having that personal ‘Holy Grail’ in my hand.

But the truth is that only a smaller version of ‘soul searching’ success happened to me, when I stopped smoking. It is smaller but highly effective nonetheless.

Stopping smoking will not really bring you to that elusive much sought after self-enlightenment reward that millions of people search for throughout their adult lives? No! It won’t do that, and to be totally honest with you, I don’t think it ever will. But what it has done is finally help me break free from an overpowering and smothering dark cloud that hung continuously at the back of my mind, bursting with questions that I hated to hear in my head. Also, these questions gradually became louder and louder as every day passed me by. I was in a ‘Nicotine Prison’

This cloud was always present and it was becoming thicker as I continued to smoke. This is the classic situation when all smokers know that they shouldn’t smoke and yet still they do. When you are a smoker then the consequence of this situation is that dark cloud following you around all day, every hour, and everyday hounding you whilst you dangle cigarettes from your lips. When you stop smoking and become free, it disappears. Instantly!

At first I didn’t quite feel the intense power of ‘freedom’ as such because in the beginning when I stopped smoking, I was too busy killing my ‘Drug Monster’ and therapeutically convincing my subconscious mind that I was an ex-smoker. This initially was drug addiction reversal and it was my first priority. Incidentally, it’s easy to stop smoking when you have the right information about why you smoke. I had gotten out of my prison cell but now I needed to throw the rope over the wall.

Before I finally stopped smoking on this occasion, I did something different. I studied lots of information about nicotine addiction and how it works. I spoke to many people who had stopped smoking (to get an understanding of what was to come for me during my own abstention) and what they felt after they stopped during those first crucial few days. The answers were of a variant nature, however, collectively, the best way I can describe what they said was that for everybody it was a struggle, not physically but mentally, to push open a heavy prison door that was ajar but it still weighed a ton to move. All they had to do was push it open and walk out. When I asked how long it took them to push the door open enough to get through, the answers again were different. Some said instantly, some said a few days, others said a couple of weeks. But they all agreed that the door was movable if you wanted to move it.

When I asked them did they feel free the moment they became an ex smoker or did the freedom come later, they all unanimously agreed that it was later because in the beginning they were too busy pushing that heavy already ajar door open enough to escape. But once they escaped, the overwhelming feeling of freedom was there. And it was sweet.

*A point worth remembering here. That prison door is never locked. It’s always unlocked. You just have to push it open and walk out and you will become an ex smoker.

It took me, around 3 weeks to push it open enough to get through and escape. I passed through the addiction reversal within 6 days but it wasn’t till after 3 weeks that I could finally confirm that I was physically free from smoking forever. This is the freedom. ‘The freedom so sweet’ If you smoke, it is impossible to feel this freedom; Just like it is impossible for you to relax because eventually the nicotine addiction will prove that you can’t if you think you can.

But once you escape, once you have thrown away those shackles and pushed that door open, life changes incredibly. And it changes incredibly for the better too. A complete new world opens up for you and it becomes so much more enjoyable to be alive. That dark cloud full of those annoying questions that has hounded you at the back of your mind evaporates instantly. That was such a relief for me. I can’t describe it but it’s great to know that I can concentrate on more important and significant questions about my life than questions that used to make me feel depressed and angry with myself because I knew what the answers to those questions were.

But they have gone. They don’t exist anymore. Instead of questions like: Is this the cigarette that finally gives me an illness? Or… is that pain in my chest a heart attack getting ready? I now have new questions like…what time is my appointment to test drive that new Audi A6? Or can I go swimming on Friday’.

These are the type of questions I have now and I welcome them with open arms. Don’t get me wrong, I still have days that are stressful and I have testing questions to answer. But this is life and I welcome that too. I am happy to have a stressful day now and again because it lets me know that I am alive and I am living life as a human being should live. Not getting stressed every hour of every waking day and having to run off for a smoke and start mentally asking those dark cloud questions again.

Because I don’t smoke anymore, I now have a clear mind and now I can enjoy the mornings, afternoons, and evenings of every day that I live whether it is at work, at home, or outside. I chose to do Muay Thai as a hobby and a way to revive my faltering fitness and it is amazing that I have a newfound energy constantly growing as the weeks pass by. As a smoker I used to go to the gym and swim too. But I never really enjoyed it because I was always in conflict in my mind with those questions as to why I did sports and still smoked. How can you enjoy any physical activity if you are constantly debating with yourself about the subject of smoking? When as a non-smoker you don’t have this and the only conflicts or debates you have are your goals and objectives of your chosen sport or activity.

I choose to walk wherever I can. This new energy I have at times pushes me to do so without even thinking about it. Smokers take the lift or complain if there are stairs. This is the freedom. The freedom I have now, as an ex smoker, is that all decisions are made by me and not by the nicotine addiction or a diminishing state of health. Smokers have a delusion that they are in control of their lives. This may be true to a certain extent, but ‘complete’ control? No. Impossible. I challenge any smoker to sit with me on a sofa for 4 hours without smoking and lets see who is in control. Where is the freedom when they have to get up and go for a smoke?

My freedom from nicotine addiction has made me see the world differently. It has brought new places, activities and people into my life that, as a prisoner this would be impossible without conflict or circumstance. I am not saying that smokers don’t have good lives because some do. But they are never free. They don’t have the choices I have. Prisoners only have limited choices. Freedom brings choices. Freedom from tobacco brings amazing choices.

I didn’t see this as a smoker. I only truly know this now as an ex-smoker. Whatever your lifestyle is or whatever your surroundings are, if you smoke then these may not change significantly if you stop. But what will change incredibly for the better is

The way you look at life.

The way you see life.

The way life comes to you.

The way you respect yourself and your time.

The new objectives and goals that being free from nicotine addiction brings to you.

And so much more believe me. If you smoke you can’t know this. I know this because I have been or both sides of the line. -In prison and out of it.

Trust me when I say cigarette smokers are not free.

Only an ex smoker can know and taste‘A freedom so sweet’

Good Luck

If you want to be an ex smoker then listen to...

Anthony Schneider

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