Perth Thread

[grue]

First time I quit smoking was for all the wrong reasons. I was coming down from a summer binge where I completely wrecked myself over a few weeks. I fell to a point where I was hating myself for dropping so low, and also hating myself for knowIng I was doing it and not stopping myself from doing it. In a weird way cigarettes were a good thing that were helping me through it, and out of self-loathing I decided to stop smoking as a way to get a grip.

I stopped smoking to punish myself. So really, I stopped doing a harmful thing as a form of self-harm. And it worked, for a time, but of course the whole premise is unsustainable, so after a year I started feeling better and the addict mind kicked in, like "hey why don't you smoke some to celebrate? punishment over" so I did.

My most recent quit was much closer to do with self love than self hate. But the bad is still there, creeps in, draws me back down. It's ok - like I said, I'm learning to accept that that's a part of me rather than fight it.