Change Can Happen in Tough Times: Stop Smoking Today!

Challenging times can mean increased sales for cigarette companies but scary stuff can also bring folks into the light, catapulting them back to basics. There are, after all, exciting endorphin-producing alternatives like healthy exercise, both singularly and in groups.

Our communities already have low-cost and free support systems in place via local nonprofit agencies, churches, synagogues, youth groups, support for families, seniors, and folks with disabilities. These neighborhood facilities - more often than not - include help to stop smoking.

Tough times can offer real opportunities to see what's truly important to us both individually and collectively. We can choose the light, i.e., embracing core values while shedding detrimental.

Or we can scoot back into the corners of our existence, pull ragged drapes across our opportunities for a new beginning, smoke cigarette after cigarette, swill alcohol, and consistently reply "yes" to "you want fries with that?"

Happily many of us cigarette addicts are choosing to hug life and eschew death. Folks are aggressively, passionately seeking support to stop smoking in the here and now.

We feel better when we exercise moderately, regularly, and we feel more alive when we're a part of something we individually perceive as meaningful. There's lots to experience outside the dead zone.

I've been out and about since '93, after arresting my 30-year active addiction to tobacco; I halted my alcoholism earlier in '78.

I discovered - way back when - that it's up to me to find and ignite meaning in my life and that cigarette addiction impedes this process.

Smoke-after-smoke interferes with intimacy, jubilant expression, carrying groceries, bicycling, changing a tire, presenting a bouquet of flowers to a friend.

Isn't it great to experience those little "a ha!" moments, e.g., when you feel the laughter of a child at full value; when you are more OK with who you are.

Cigarettes don't fill the bill. Cigarettes aren't an extension of who you want to be, and, in your heart of hearts, you know that already.

These tough times can offer us a surprising serenity when we allow the simple, sweet things a chance.

Cigarette addiction is, after all, madness: It also endangers others in our environment, it makes tough times tougher.

I encourage you to aggressively seek support to stop smoking now; there are resources aplenty on this very web site. Reach out and reclaim your life!

Contact me at jchristopher.thcn@gmail.com. I look forward to being with you again next week.