Recovery Rationalizations

“I’ll stop after the next pack, next carton, next month, my next birthday or New Years’ day” - Oh really? Can you count on both hands and all your toes how many times you’ve lied to yourself with such nonsense? And which pack, carton, month or birthday will give you the best chance for success? Why did I limit myself to always purchasing only a one-day’s supply? Because tomorrow was always going to be quitting day and I couldn’t see me throwing away a carton. · “I don’t even know if I’m hooked, I’ve never tried stopping” - Some of us never made a serious recovery attempt, but why? What easier way of never having to admit chemical dependency or experience defeat than pretending that evidence of a problem simply doesn’t exist? · “I’ll stop next week” - Some of us pretended that we’d be quitting soon. Some went so far as to actually set a date. Doing so would always make today’s nicotine fixes far more tolerable. · “I’m waiting on a painless quitting cure” - Don’t hold your breath. The day science can make our mother’s death painless, so as to avoid our sense of emotional loss, is the day it will be capable of erasing the emotional loss associated with ending the most dependable chemical relationship we’ve likely ever known. · “The vaccines are coming!” - The next generation of pharmaceutical products will be the vaccines. Four to five vaccine shots over six months will cause the body’s immune system to create large antibodies which quickly bond with nicotine molecules, making them too large to cross through the blood-brain protective filtering barrier and stimulate dopamine pathways. The problem appears to be that there are simply not enough antibodies and up to one-third of nicotine fails to bond and crosses the blood-brain barrier. Early reports suggest that more than 80% of vaccinated participants are relapsing to smoking within 9 months.