Nancy Edwards: The Dancing Grandma

Smoking 101

loved you in the morning, loved you in the evening, loved you at suppertime………be my little honey and love me all the time…………

My cigarettes were my closest friends for about twenty-five years. They helped me manage every kind of emotion: fear, anger, anxiety, confusion, joy and depression in general.

As long as I could “smoke” my feelings, I never had to face them or figure out their true origins.

Worked for me!

Smoking 102

As promised, there's lots more to say about having cigarettes control one's life.  This will be the advanced course on smoking........

In 1982, in my first of two efforts to quit, I thought I had it all figured out.  My mother had just had a stroke and was told to quit smoking immediately.  I told her I'd quit with her.

I then got a part time job at a smoking cessation clinic.  This is a story only those with strong stomachs can handle, by the way!  The program was based on "aversion therapy".  This meant making everything about smoking so disgusting that no one could stand to continue it!

SMOKING 103

As promised, this will be the third lesson on smoking. It won't be as funny, but it needs to be shared.

Four years after my aborted attempt to quit by becoming an aversion therapist in 1981, I once again decided to quit smoking.  This time, the impetus was having turned 40 and having the nagging sense that I had a choice to make:  continue smoking and see my life stay much the same; or, pull the rug out and cast my fate to the wind.

I didn't do this for the usual reasons of health or social acceptibility.  I did it because every fiber of my being told me that real growth and change could NOT exist inside this gripping addiction.

I was so right.

SMOKING 104

Hi dear readers!  If you're struggling with giving up cigarettes, this final post on smoking may either help or hinder you.  Be forewarned.

Previous posts on this have been somewhat humorous:  this post will take a more serious look at this heinous addiction and how it impacted my life.  The primary reason I wanted to quit was not liking knowing that anything, especially something inanimate, could control my every waking hour.  Smokes
determined who my friends were; which classes I took in grad school (smoking allowed); whether or not I could even sit through a play or a movie; and so much more.

The reality that cigarettes had played a major role in managing all my emotions for 23 years hit hard when I finally gave them up...