Often people with a chemical dependency find it very easy to point to external circumstances as the cause of their problem. While this is an understandable coping mechanism, failing to take responsibility for our dependency makes it virtually impossible to successfully break the habit.
I’ve met a lot of people who…
Probably wouldn’t have started smoking in the first place if their older brother hadn’t smoked.
Had stopped smoking for a few months, but then when a family member passed away, well they had to smoke to cope with the stress.
Can’t quit smoking because everyone they know smokes.
Are you getting the idea? It’s easy to point to other people or circumstances and place the blame for why we started smoking, or why we can’t stop smoking.
The truth is such behavior is nonsensical and counterproductive. Unless somebody put a gun to your our heads and forced us to smoke cigarette after cigarette until we were finally addicted we must assume responsibility for our own dependency. And unless our family is being held hostage by terrorists who insist we continue to smoke, we must also own up to our continued nicotine use. You are the cause of your own smoking habit, and I am the cause of my former smoking habit.
Accepting this reality is actually a big relief. Once you stop trying to deceive yourself you’ll feel as if a weight has been lifted. The fact is it takes less energy to go ahead and shoulder the blame yourself than it does to constantly try and pin it elsewhere. And once you stop pointing to external influences you can start the important task of dealing with your dependency.
I don’t recommend you spend much energy trying to figure out why you started smoking and why it’s so hard for you to stop; it’s easier and more productive to just admit you have a problem that needs solving as soon as possible. A person could go mad quickly wondering just how addiction works and exactly why they are afflicted.
The point of this article is to help you break free from the delusion that anybody or anything other than YOU is at the root of your smoking habit. You smoke not because of who your friends were in high school, or because of recent tragedies in your family, or because of the weather, or because of any other external factors; you smoke because YOU have chosen to do so.
The good news here is that since the problem is your doing in the first place, it is within your power to change direction and stop smoking. I recommend you get as much support as possible from other people when you initiate your smoking cessation program, but in the end you alone can be held accountable for the success you seek.
We can find help in support groups, motivational books and audios, and even nicotine replacement aids and hypnosis. But ultimately it is you who will determine the outcome of your effort to stop smoking, just as I determined the outcome of my program several years ago when I stopped smoking for the last time.