Pedantry

I've been thinking about something Intuitive Eggplant said in the comments section of my last post. It resonates with me partly because on my Creative Writing degree, where in poetry exercises, it has been known for me to take 12 hours to chose a word to go in a line I was writing and partly due to the NLP, whereby words gain a literal power.

Consider the differences between:

• quit
• give up
• stop

Now, I don't know about you, but I hate quitting anything. Be it the most appalling relationship, friendship, or situation. I like to think of myself as a person who sees things through to the absolute, most bitter end. This has been particularly true of me in appalling relationships. In the past, I have found it nigh on impossible to walk away until the Fat Lady had sung, done an encore, had her after-show party, done two kilos of drugs with the two young men she met at the party, collapsed after the orgy, paramedics rescusitated her, she's recovered in hospital and she's in rehab. (You think I'm joking don't you. If in doubt, ask Gee).

So, no. Quitting isn't particularly an option for me.

I hate giving anything up. Have a look around my house and you will see I have books on my shelves circa 1974. I still have the books given to me as gifts by my Godfather. I hang on to things. In fact, the only way I ever manage to downsize is to move house. Last move, I moved 6 boxes of stuff that were packed 2 moves before (and not opened). There's that whole...I know I should...but I really don't want to. Because I'll miss it and want it and keep wanting it. And should the thing I need to give up be bad for me, but be fun...well. We really are on a hiding to nothing.

So, I'm really not good at giving things up.

STOP!

You hear that shouted at you, you do it. It's been trained into us. We see it on the road. No briefly pausing at the junction; we're talking about the application of brakes and the changing into first gear. If you're a slightly shouty parent as I have been known to be, I have shouted across a crowded supermarket at Boy 'stop that' and he has. I have the tone of voice, the hand gestures and the brook-no-shite look. He might be 17, but I bet I can still get him to stand still in one place with that word.

I suppose my point is this: quitting smoking is an uphill battle. And as for giving up smoking, jeez, you might as well forget about - it ain't gonna happen. Put it out of your head now.

But when you're ready to, you've thought about it, you realise you don't want to do it any more, then stop.

The hardest thing I found was gathering the will power together to stop. Nicotine is an evil drug, it is exactly like an abusive relationship. The drug tells you: you can't live without it, you're nothing without it, you'll never ever have a good time again, you'll never feel good, you'll never cope, you'll become fat and unattractive (again), no one will ever want to be with you because you'll be so cranky everyone will hate you, you won't ever be free, you'll always live with the craving, you're nothing without it.

Well that's a whole bunch of horseshit to take from a human being. And if we as sensible, rational and cool people aren't going to take that from another person, why the hell would we take it from a measely-old-chemical? It's bullshit pure and simple.

Yes, it's taken me awhile to kick it. I'm sure you'd much rather not be preached to. But I will say this, if you have got tired of quitting, bored with giving up and would like a cheerleader to stop, give me a shout. Given 'no' isn't part of my everyday vocabularly and I've got the willpower of Amy Winehouse and I've stopped; if I can do it then you can do it do. So, if you need me, you know where I am.