crookedq's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Changing old habits. Rewiring. Changing old habits. I know all about quitting things. Mind over matter. I’ve got an iron will... sometimes. I promised myself I would quit smoking by the time I was 25. In part because some guy I knew said if you quit before you’re 25 that your body still has time to truly recover and you won’t carry its effects into adulthood (his doctor told him this). In part because I thought 25 was old and forever away from my 16 year old promise making self. That doctor was wrong, and so I was I. 25 came much faster then I could have imagined and it also didn’t seem so old anymore. But I quit anyways. I would never promise something to somebody unless I felt pretty damn sure I could follow through. Something about the concept of a promise has always held much weight for me. I figured if I couldn’t keep a promise to myself, who the heck could I keep a promise for. I will also note my mom being diagnosed with terminal Cancer helped with my motivation and I butt out my last cigarette outside of Buddies while out celebrating my 25th birthday, less then a week before I turned 25. I haven’t had one since. Some 3 years later in the worst relationship dissolve I had ever been in I found myself facing a lot of puzzled doctors and feeling my body failing me. I was a mess. It felt like everything was making me sick. I was heavy, and ill and sad, sad, sad. Beer was starting to reject me... And quite frankly I wasn’t making the best decisions topped up with the stuff so I quit. I quit it all. I all but stopped drinking all together. For the better part of 3 years I didn’t drink, and when I slowly faked my way though a glass, I was most definitely not getting drunk. My partner of 5 years has still not really seen me drunk. The lack of alcohol in my system helped with the healing of my belly. It helped with clarity. I started dating Douglas Coupland books and finding my way back to myself, but it was hard. It wasn’t that it was hard not to drink, but rather that it was hard to face that kind of sadness and loss of self totally sober. It was hard to be out in social situations and pretend I wasn’t broken. I felt boring and antisocial and a shell of myself. Not because I wasn’t drinking, but because I didn’t have the drink to camouflage it all in social settings. I wasn’t much fun then and I knew it. I started to stay home more and more. But can I say dating without the aid of a couple of drinks was painfully sweet. I did find clarity. I found myself again. I found love. I even found a better path to health. It all went pretty well. Now I stand at the edge of a different kind of habit to break. Some frustrations in work have found me pessimistically viewing things from a perspective I don’t enjoy anymore. Its time to return to a positive spin on things. My recent trip overseas has helped with this. The trick is carrying this momentum and good intention into a permanent way of thinking. Not entirely sure how to do that yet, but I’ve a hunch I’m on the right path. Rewiring. 12:41 P.M. - 22.09.10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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