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You will quit smoking completely during Session Four on the twenty first day of this program. This means that if you continue reading this Session you have commenced the process.
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There is a possibility that you are here by mistake. |
It may be the case that someone who cares about you has invited you to embark on this program without consulting you first. As it happens, you actually enjoy smoking and have no interest whatsoever in quitting. It is your view that life is too short and full of so much hardship and turmoil. The one thing you can always rely on is a good smoke, and you are not giving it up, no matter what.
This attitude is prevalent among many smokers.
But please consider one thing - it might be the addicted person that speaks for you through your voice. Otherwise, how can it be that it is 'you' who advocates the infliction of disease and premature death upon yourself?
During the next couple of Sessions you may discover another part of you that is sane in the sense of choosing good health, wellbeing and longevity over addiction to an artificial stimulant that is producing a short-term gratification which requires constant and unquenchable enhancing.
You may well come to a conclusion that you are enslaved to a chemical that manipulates your sensations and interferes with your judgments.
The following similes may provide some tangible examples:
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There's a prisoner who is incarcerated for life and doomed to die in his narrow, bare and damp jail cell, yet when he is asked about it, he says that he is staying in his cell out of his free choice because he likes it there.
The philosopher Spinoza said something along these lines: 'Throw a stone in the air and ask it what's going on. The stone will tell you it is flying of its own free will'. |
Is there a slight chance that you are like the cast stone or the man imprisoned in his cell?
Or is it that the man pretends he would rather live in jail because he does not believe that he can ever break free? Does a person like the philosopher's stone think they are flying out of free will, because it is 'easier' to live in denial?
If such cases and attitudes correspond with yours, we invite you to examine freedom as a feasible option by choosing to go forward with this program with fierce determination - a warrior's determination to break the prison's walls, gain awareness and freedom, assume responsibility, and live. | |
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