Addiction, quit smoking

I have been smoking since I was a teenager. Through the years I have attempted to quit numerous times. I have had acupuncture, hypnosis, wellbutrin, the gum, the patch, you name it. I have never successfully quit for any length of time. The habit was well ingrained and I, quite honestly, enjoyed it for a number of reasons. I have always owned the addict as a description of myself. I have fought other more fatalistic demons in my lifetime. Survival demanded losing or replacing them. But never dare suggest putting down my smokes. Who would I be? That was just going too far and way too scary to imagine. Like walking off a cliff and feeling that falling.Give me something to hold on to pleeeeeaaaaase.

I saw Julia Workman, with i-Health, to help me put down this addiction, because it simply just didn’t fit my lifestyle anymore, a voice inside said you are not all you could or want to be because of it and I knew, rationally, it was very harmful to my health. It had become a part of me that I relied on for self soothing, nurturing, pensive moments, comfort, chill time, company. It was a friend who was very wrong for me. I was no longer this immortal youth, but a middle-aged adult pondering my mortality and what was left of my life. As an active adult, it was getting in the way of being all I could be. It became that vampire friend you can’t shake loose. I didn’t want to let it go because it held so much of my past, but it was getting in the way of my future now and, as I said, it didn’t fit who I had become. As a wizened adult, it became just stupid. So, if I could rationalize that it was so very wrong for me, why was I afraid to say goodbye. Because… I would miss it, because it was a huge part of me, because it served me in many ways.

That’s where i-Health and the Core Belief module came in to play. How does it serve me? Why did I turn to it for so many emotional answers? I could tough it up through withdrawal, I’ve done it many times in the past. It wasn’t withdrawal I was afraid of, it was saying good bye to something that served me so well through the years and was a friend. Could I function without it? What would I do with my hands, what would I do with those times when I called upon it to help me through? What was it helping me with and why did I think I couldn’t live without it?

With the Core Belief module we found what it was replacing. I had been living in a flight or flight response for years and smoking was my medication, my grounding mechanism, my safe platform. We immediately went to trauma release and it felt so right, so yes! And then to continue on to cellular release and re-patterning with the addiction protocol. I felt freer than I have ever felt. I felt stronger and more whole than I have ever felt. I felt I was finally in the mind and body I was meant to have, I was congruent with my life. I found a little niggling in my brain from time to time, that would say, time for a cigarette and the other part of my brain would say, -You don’t smoke. I don’t smoke! Who was I talking to??? I liked this new person. This was different than any other time I quit. This felt permanent, stronger. I knew this time it was a done deal. I wanted to feel like this, I have been searching for this feeling my whole life. Unraveling myself through the Core Belief work, peeling the old patterns from the beautiful core that was underneath became my new drug.

I read somewhere that the experts say you don’t really drop an addiction without replacing it. This became my new drug, unraveling myself to feeling better and better, to congruency and a feeling of soulful peace. To being who I knew in my heart I was meant to be with no excuses, shame or disgust and finally feeling wholly in love and proud of ME. It was my new drug. Let’s uncover more, let’s clean me up, make me shiny and powerful and completely equipped for all the challenges I will face in living how I want to live. I like this friend better. I like this high better, feeling lighter and stronger at the same time. Give me more. I’ve never walked in these shoes and it feels terrific.

A Very Grateful Chicagoan

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