Physical Addictions

[Angie G]

Hello!!
I am very nervous about posting this question but I have been struggling with smoking for over 2 years (since I found out I have lung issues). Shortly after this discovery, I began listening to Divine Truth and over time I think I have been able to figure out why I smoke:
a. I started very young, about the time my father left us, so I know it was partly a suppression of my grief. That was also the time I began using alcohol and drugs (which I now know is also a part of that suppression). I've been successful in staying clean and sober but I really, really struggle with nicotine.
b. AJ says that spirits who smoked will "hook in". Recently I prayed about this and had a dream about an aunt who died when I was a young adult. She smoked and drank her whole life and died in her early 50's.
c. I also feel that it's a form of self-punishment

I've been able to cut back but not completely stop. When I attempt to completely stop, I become very enraged and my kids get the brunt of it. That reason alone has stopped my attempts as I am trying to feel thru the damage I have already caused them (I have two grown and two teenagers). I am again watching the Assistance Group videos from 2014 to re-learn about addictions and facades. I also found the video about the man with lung cancer helpful but I have yet to find any video specifically for smokers.

Is there anyone who has been successful in this area? I would really appreciate any feedback or videos that I may have missed that address this unloving behavior.

Angie
PS. my nervousness is fear of looking stupid or making a "mistake"

[catherinej]

Hi Angie,
I am new here and I don't think you look stupid.
But I understand that fear.
It seems you might have just given yourself a clue! Or rather written one that I saw as a clue. You wrote: ' When I attempt to completely stop, I become very enraged'. That seems like a very good step. Not the part that your kid's get the brunt of it of course, but that if the emotion of rage is triggered when you stop, it could very well be or lead to the causal emotion release and/or other addictions associated with the smoking addiction.
It seems you are cutting off your emotions of rage when you continue with smoking. The rage might help you to 'feel thru the damage I have already caused them'.
How are you feeling through the damage you have already caused them if you can not feel your rage because you cut it off? The very rage and anger which may be a reason why you have caused damage.
Wanting specific videos on smoking I feel is seeking an intellectual approach to the addiction. The core is in the emotions that lead to addictions. Videos on anger and rage rather than primarily videos about smoking and/or facade could assist as well. Anger is your guide is a good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d62Wf4HJNS4
The very first 10 minutes , markers: 3:46-6:44
To paraphrase;
"the parent has an emotion that the parent denies, the child then acts out the emotion. Then the parent punishes the child for acting out the parent's own emotion. So here you are a perfect young reflector and instead of being allowed to reflect an emotion back to your parent - your parent's emotion - the reflection of the emotion is repressed through punishment/anger/rejection of the child for acting out ...Their emotion. The consequence : bottling up huge amounts of emotions in us.. and the only way to access those emotions is to go through the bottled up anger that was there as a child. And into those other bottled up emotions that were there even before the anger arose."
'anger will wreck your body and your life, and in the spirit world do the same thing, unless you decide to experience it'.
So much easier said than done.
I recently observed the rage in me with my mom and I's dynamic during the holiday. Perhaps that is why I was attracted to your post. I was in her presence and there was so much rage in me that I am still trying to gain clarity on.
I know this anger goes way back and although it has not caused a smoking addiction, there are many other layers of addiction it has caused equally as damaging to my body and life.

[Nicky]

Hi Angie

Just a quick note to say I felt it appropriate to move this thread that you have created into the "Addictions" section of the forum.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks
Nicky

[Geo]

hi Angie,

I used to smoke many years back. for me i wanted to stop. so a friend told me only way to stop as he had tried various ways is first you must want to stop of course and second say to yourself "NO, not one more pull." so basically i taught myself to stop. it became a habit. You stop for 21 days they say and its become a habit. I had urges up to a year after.. but "NO not one more pull" helped me pass them.

Well not till some years after not smoking as i was praying a realization came to me about smoking. Lots of crying of course as i realized what i was doing to myself.

What i learnt from all this is sure it was good to break the habit, but just breaking it can mean you fall back into it. Having the realization on the other hand helps you not to fall in that again. Sure you have free will to do what you want.

Hope that helps.

Geo

[Eva]

Hi Angie,
I have read your post about your wish to stop smoking.
I remember that I once read something specifically about smoking that Jesus has written in a letter. The letter is called Emotional Clearing, written in June 2005. You will find it on the Divine Truth website under Downloads / Event Type / Letters /scroll down to 10 Jun 05.
The part about smoking begins on page 5, in the chapter called Observing Our Own Behavior.
I have found this letter to be so beautiful and clarifying in many ways.
I hope this will be of help to you.
With love
Eva

[Mianoel]

hello, my name is Mia

Cigarette addiction: CLEARED
Coffee addiction as a substitute I took on a few years later: working on it.
Causal emotions driving all this: Not there yet
Advice: based on my experience of successes and failures, WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.

I have "successfully" stopped smoking, in the sense that i haven't cleared the causal emotions driving the addiction, but I am no more in any doubt about smoking. I had many failures, but grew more and more sure along the years until i truly stopped.
I later took up another addiction, coffee, that i experience the exact same problems than you are describing for cigarettes.
I find the key difference between the 2 states is this:

- When stopping cigarettes, I would get angry only when i wasn't 100% sure the addiction was sin and i was not 100% sure i wanted to stop, and especially felt sure I did not want to start again. (that I wasn't going to let this go on no matter how what i would feel).
This state is characterised when we still feel we are making a sacrifice when giving it up. (the Allen Carr book really was key for me and got me to that place of clarity. I whole-heartedly recommend this book)
The anger, looking back, was ways to create an excuse to take up the habit again.
When I got to that place of having no more doubt, those anger, crisis, drama situations "didn't seem" to come up anymore. I wasn't creating them. I would feel difficult moments, extreme cravings, but wouldn't have meltdowns anymore directly or indirectly involving others, automatically.
It took many attempts to build my will (NOT WILLPOWER) to stop. Success and failures. 10 years of starting , stopping, "failing" & starting again. The difference is the will is 'effortless' in that beautiful state of having NO DOUBT. It doesn't mean it's not hard, but there is incredible clarity of intention. The willpower state feels we have to constantly convince ourselves, fight doubt, avoid being tempted, and it's tiring. We feel we are making a sacrifice by giving up the habit.
Knowing for sure our habit is SIN, is very particular: for years I thought I knew that. It's obvious smoking is harmful right? Everyone knows it.
But looking back, I can see there is a world of difference between knowing it intellectually, and knowing in as a soul-based feeling. Once that has happened, doubt is gone, and stopping the addiction is a certainty, even enjoyable (I'm not kidding). It's enjoyable to feel the withdrawal pains because each one is success, means freedom. Even though we still have the causal emotions.
The way I reached that state, was trying , trying, wanting to get there, wanting it, wanting to try again and get there (I didn't know praying yet).

- Now i haven't managed to apply the same action to my coffee addiction yet, and the main reason is that I don't want to recognise for sure that it is real sin. I am constantly swinging from one pole to another with my doubts. When i stop, I get pissed, my kid suffers, i get back on the coffee race, etc...
I'm trying not to be too punishing or judgemental on my self this time (with the coffee as opposed to with the cigarettes), because I know now this is A PROCESS, and sometimes it takes many failures to reach success. Just try again, never stop trying (as Mary says in the developing will muscle).

Keep trying, keep trying, eventually all this will be a surreal habit you once had in the past.

Book reference: The easy way to stop smoking, Allen Carr
(the only book that in detail and in practice helps you develop your WILL as opposed to your WILLPOWER.)

[Mianoel]

Hello again,

I reread the Allen Carr book and applied it to my coffee addiction and it shed light on a few misunderstandings I have had developed listening to AJ through my own injuries.

Here are a few "debuggers" concerning PHYSICAL ADDICTIONS:

- What is the true SIN when having a physical addiction? I found that focusing on how unhealthy it is, how angry it makes us with our loved ones, etc. in order to try to make myself not want to do it anymore doesn't work.
Smokers all know how bad it is. But focusing on it makes us nervous, hence we want a cigarette (our crutch) even more.
And we will just need more willpower and just have a harder time.
The real SIN to focus on is: the addiction IS CREATING all the feelings that I think the cigarette is helping me cope with.
And each time I have the addiction, (the withdrawal feelings are relieved) and I return to feeling how I used to before I was addicted, just for a limited amount of time. And the cigarette gets all the credit for this "relief". All this anxiety, the feelings of how can one live without the help of this addiction, etc, are all the effect emotions created by it. The Allen Carr book really helps to see this. Understanding this fully then means you need no willpower to stop, but your WILL really kicks in.

- "Trying to stop a physical addiction while waiting for the causal to somehow then come up, come out and only then I will be fully free of the addiction": I found this to be a dead end. It doesn't work.
Because stopping and then waiting for something "magical" to happen keeps us miserable, thinking we won't ever be free unless it happens, and so eventually we start again.
When one stops with WILL, not willpower, the last cigarette, or coffee we decide to have is the last one. When we finish it we are already free, already a non-smoker, and there is nothing else to wait for. It's done. And we go about life.
And then the body goes through a process of withdrawal, and we notice it, and rejoice in it.

Dealing with causal emotions is then another thing, that we need to develop a desire for, etc. And start noticing and chipping away at every EMOTIONAL ADDICTION in the way of that, which is now more possible because the physical addictions and it's major effect emotions are not on the front stage of our daily lives.

[Angie G]

Hi Mianoel,
Sorry for the late reply, haven't been on the forum for a few months now. I appreciate your feedback and am looking on Amazon right away for that book.
I will let you know when I'm "free"
Thank you.
Angie