Ok, you guys – this is a big one. At least for me, it is. Though those who’ve gone before me on this path, both those who were successful and those who failed, agree it was a big one for them, too.

It’s had it’s hands around my neck since I was 23. I’m turning 46 in June. That’s a long time to be in the grip of something without a gun being held to your head.

Good Lord – it’s almost too much a risk to type the words: I quit smoking.

In fact, I’m not even telling people that. I say “I’m not smoking” instead – feels more like a conscious choice. Quitting feels too permanent, too insurmountable, too impossible to actually pull off.

So, yes, my risk-taking friends…I haven’t smoked a cigarette since Thursday evening, April 15th, at 8pm central time. Now, Saturday morning, I have more than one full day under my belt, and I lived to tell about it.

I am chewing gum like a mad woman, and when it gets really bad, I remember my secret weapon.

I have one cigarette in the house. One.

It’s hidden in my bedroom, so I don’t have to see it, but I know it’s there. So, when my monkey-mind wants to run away with me by obsessing about a cigarette, I quell it by saying, “Ok, you can have one…in 10 minutes. If you still REALLY want one in 10 minutes, you can have that one you’ve got in your room.”

So, I look at the clock, figure out when it’ll be 10 minutes, and then look for something to do while I wait.

Of course, you know what happens. I get all absorbed in whatever it is (and trust me, there’s no lack of available things to get absorbed in over here) and I look up and 30 minutes have passed.

Monkey-mind says, “Yay! I get my cigarette now!”

I say, “Hold your horses, girlfriend. 10 minutes was at such and such time. You missed it. But, I know you really want one, so tell you what…if you still want one in 10 minutes, you can have one.”

That’s how I got through yesterday. 10 minutes at a time.

I didn’t get a whole lot of anything productive done yesterday, but I didn’t snap at the kids, kick the dog or threaten to take anyone out, either.

Right now, I’m just thanking the good Lord above that I seem to be able to drink my morning coffee without making the cravings worse. But then, I never usually did have my first cigarette until sometime between 10am and noon. Things could be a lot worse. If I had to give up my French Vanilla coffee, too, I’d probably cry.

The day looms large in front of me. Lots of 10-minute increments and gum. But my youngest said she’s proud of me, even if I don’t make it more than a day. So you know I have to do this. Even if I just make it one more day…every day.

I hope I’m back on May 17th bragging about how it’s been 32 days since I’ve had a cigarette. But here’s one I can already say, and thank you Laura for pointing it out the other day when I was merely contemplating this: I have been a non-smoker for more of my life than I’ve been a smoker.

Yes, Laura, that’s a powerful motivator for me, and you might have been influential in my decision not to wait until my birthday, because it’s already true and keeping me going.

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Suzanne Bird-Harris would like to say she made the leap from Corporate America to web coach / WordPress developer on her own terms...but no, she lost her job after the CEO ran off with the 401K funds and went to jail. So, she started her own business with 3 kids, 2 dogs and a cat in tow on Dec. 6, 2002. It's been a wild ride, worth every risk, and she now proudly deems herself "pyschologically unemployable".
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