We hear it from the formerly obese, from ex-smokers, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. We hear it from people describing their past romantic liaisons or relationships with toxic relatives or friends, now blessedly left behind.
When we stop doing the things that are hurting us, our lives only get better.
Only when we’re out of a bad situation—the one we elected to stay in for reasons that make no sense anymore—will we be ready to admit how bad things were, how poorly we felt, how compromised our situation and safety were. When we were in the middle of it, we were in denial of just how bad things were.
Non-smokers like me who literally gag on the stinking secondhand fumes that those who arrogantly claim they have the right to expel their poison excrement into my and everyone else’s breathing air, cannot comprehend how anyone would intentionally choose to continuously suck in acrid toxins and searing heat, tar and smoke hour after hour, day after day. Even long after they quit, many ex-smokers whose lives, relationships and health they admit have greatly improved due to their stopping, contrarily speak of their past grotesque habit in ecstatic tones. Such is the stuff of addiction.
My mother broke her leg when she was in her 70s. She had made excuses all her life for never exercising but when faced with either going through rehab or being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, she chose rehab. And she loved it. She talked of all the benefits this new pastime was bestowing upon her, the new friends, how great she felt, how much weight she lost, how much more physically strong she was, how her stamina and breathing had improved. Then, once her rehab was completed, she stopped, dropped the gym like a bad habit, despite my reminding her of all her stated benefits. She slipped back into all the old deficits she claimed to have left behind.
Well, at least she didn’t start smoking again.
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