Lerk's advice on quitting...anything

[Lerkfish]

how many days has it been since you last wore a diaper?

can't remember?

well, because you don't wear one anymore, and have no desire to wear one
again, the number of days since you wore one is completely irrelevant.

When people quit, and count days, they are providing an opportunity to
fail...because they think, I only need to quit for more days than x
days....If, however, your intention is to walk away from it, never to
return...there is no need to count days, and the only thought you need is
..yeah, that's something I USED to do. Now, on to better things...

I had to quit drinking after years of it for health reasons, and the doctor
asked me if I needed references to any 12 step programs. I said no, and just
quit because I decided it was what I was going to do. The secret to
willpower is that it isn't a magic token that you have to climb a tall
mountain to get, and it isn't something that withers away. It is merely a
decision, once made in your mind, where you lock that door and swallow the
key...THEN YOU NEVER GO BACK DOWN THAT HALLWAY AGAIN.

When you count days, you are visiting that hallway all the time, every visit is a
reminder of that locked door....soon you start looking at it longingly, then
it has become a constant temptation.

Stop counting. Start living.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. smoked 30 years

and have been "clean" for somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 year and 1-2 months... don't have an "anniversary" date as i did what you described, i just quit. great observation lekfish

[tuvor]

3. Cold turkey works for some. Not so much for others.

I just thank God that I could augment what little willpower I had with the fruits of modern technology. (Namely the gum.)

Smoked for 13, clean for 6, and no cravings whatsoever.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Reminds me of one of my favorite poems

THE Soul selects her own Society--
Then--shuts the Door--
To her divine Majority--
Present no more--

Unmoved--she notes the Chariots--pausing--
At her low Gate--
Unmoved--an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her mat--

I've known her--from an ample nation--
Choose One--
Then--close the Valves of her attention--
Like Stone--

Emily Dickinson (1862)

[A-Schwarzenegger]

25. Just saw this--fascinating connection.

Not sure I fully comprehend the connection as you see it,
but I wanted to drop a note of appreciation for your inserting
Emily into the thread.

[sandnsea]

4. I didn't quit anything that way

What works for one, doesn't work for another.

[Harper_is_Bush]

5. Lerk, with all due respect.

May I ask how old you are?

[Lerkfish]

8. 49

why?

[RandomKoolzip]

6. Yeah, but are you drunk right now?

That would explain the board-spam.

[Lerkfish]

9. don't worry, I'm leaving DU

I just wanted to post my "greatest hits" on the way out the door.


thanks for reading.

[librechik]

17. what, and leave the rest of us here to suffer without you?

You're the best, Lerk. I kinda feel like leaving the old heap nowadays, too. Talk about addiction!

I enjoyed your "greatest" threads very much. And if you happen to drop by after you make your final exit, well, you're only human.

[redqueen]

19. Wow.

Really?

[MLFerrell]

11. Anyone ever mention that you're an asshole?

Because from what I see, it's quite apparent that you are.

[RandomKoolzip]

14. Yes, many.

Oh wait...was that a rhetorical question?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. How long has it been since you lerked the board?

Guess it's human nature to imagine our way is the only way, or certainly the best way!

[MLFerrell]

12. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is this?

Did I just walk into "hate-on-Lerkfish-for-giving-sound-advice day?"

And aren't you supposed to be governing California instead of pissing around on the goddamned internet?

[RandomKoolzip]

15. Um, in case you missed it, last night Lerkfish spammed the FUCK out

of GD.

Removed from context, it does indeed look like we're ganging up, but it's just a response to the thousand-or-so threads the OP started last night in some sort of weird flameout-type gesture.

[MLFerrell]

16. Fair enough...

I was out drinking last night, celebrating my girlfriend's completion of her divorce. Thus, no time for DU.

What did I miss?

[SPKrazy]

32. Disregard #31

answered in full

"I was out drinking last night"

[Lerkfish]

24. um..no

every thread was a separate topic.

that's not spamming.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

18. Looks like granite.

How did that happen?

[MLFerrell]

10. Diapers? Ask Vitter...

I couldn't agree more about the utter superfluousness of the 12-step cultism. Total denial of something turns one into a total slave to that thing, be it booze or sex or what have you.

12-steppers are merely slaves of a different sort. They are slaves to the memory of their destructive habits. That, and utterly unwilling to accept that their sobriety (or lack thereof) is 100% dependent on their own willpower, and not some mythical "higher power". Sad, really...

Try telling the poor deluded bastards that though... They'll accuse you of being a "disruptive influence". Or my all-time favorite, a "dry drunk".

What the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway? That you don't drink, yet since you eschew AA and the like, you're pathologically flawed? What if you never drank in the first place, yet still have nothing but the deepest contempt for the 12-step cultism?

Are you a dry drunk then?

No, they hit you with the "You're not a drunk, so you CAN'T understand!!!1!!1!"

If you drink and think that AA is bullshit, you're a "dry drunk".

If you don't drink, you "can't understand".

Just like any cult, they've got an answer for any contingency, reality be damned.

Long story short, Lerkfish, GREAT advice in this post. I just hope that some of "Gawd's own cultees" realize that they are the master of their own destiny, not some bullshit "higher power".

End of rant.

[Phillycat]

20. I'll save a seat for ya.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

22. Ha. First time I heard that Waits quote was at a meeting!

[Phillycat]

23. Me too!

[Fire Walk With Me]

27. Yeah. Keep coming back.

[SPKrazy]

30. ...

SSDD with that one

[SPKrazy]

29. OMG

please just let it all go d00d

[SPKrazy]

31. have you ever asked yourself

why 12 step programs piss you off?

you don't piss off 12 step programs

and people quitting on their own don't bother me or 12 step programs

what is it that makes you so angry about it?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

34. He's asking himself where that Granite came from.

[SPKrazy]

35. ...

[Toots]

13. And the thing that people don't understand is once you do that

"lock that door and swallow the key" it becomes an easy chore. There is no longer any temptation.. The answer is locking the door and swallowing the key....

[Dora]

21. My husband forgot his birthday (quit drinking) one year.

And then when he realized that he'd forgotten it, he had to sit down and do the math to figure out how many years it had been since he'd quit.

When he told me that he'd forgotten, I told him we ought to celebrate that he was no longer ruled by his addiction or by his sobriety.

These have been good times.

[Boojatta]

26. What if your bad habit is swallowing keys? How would you deal with that?

[SPKrazy]

28. you obviously weren't an alcoholic

and were able to quit

good for you

don't diss 12 step programs or other ways that people quit

there is some truth to what you say about the counting can get people into trouble

it's all one day at a time

at some point it becomes more natural to not do ____________ than it was to do it.

I found that with drinking

don't even know when it was

but AA helped me not so much to quit, i had to do that, it helped me learn how to live soberly

I don't really count now, although I know my anniversary of 22 years last year was May 15.

I live for today though.

I'm glad you were able to quit, and you did it the way you did. However that doesn't mean that you were in fact an alcoholic or that others should do what you did.

I say whatever works

I don't put down anyone's way of quitting but always find it unusual when others take it upon themselves to put down a way that has been helpful to others.
No offense intended, just asking you to think about what you are saying.

just because it worked for you, and it may work for others, leaves no reason to put down another way of quitting?

okay?

[DarkTirade]

33. Yeah, I haven't been keeping track of when I broke up with the one girl I kept hooking back up with

even though I knew she was bad for me. And go figure, this time I don't want her back and I've been single and free for quite a while.

Man, if anything in my life could be called a bad habit, it was my relationship with her...

[KitchenWitch]

36. Way to Live and Let Live...

What works for you could be the death of someone else. Think about it.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

37. Seeing that other people can have different (but just as legit) ways to heal

seems to be a hard lesson to learn. I know it was/is for me.

[Orsino]

38. Nice work if you can get it.

Unfortunately, we don't usually get to decide what we like and don't like. Me, I had no great love for diapers, so "quitting" wasn't a matter resisting the nappies' siren song.

There's a place for puffing up one's chest and blustering one's way through, of course, but that may only go so far with an addiction. Different strokes, and all.