Shadow work has its place.
My beloved cigarette.
How are you doing?
Perfect.
I completely control your day, from morning till night — and if you let me, I’d wake you up even in your sleep.
How do you feel, cigarette?
I’m thrilled. Because whenever I cross your mind, you call me back — and I can keep destroying you happily.
What do you want from me?
To continue our beautiful reckless ride, where I take control so deeply that you won’t even think it could ever end.
Why do I keep looking for you?
Out of habit, my love.
It’s rooted deep in your DNA, from the times when men hunted in the forest and you stayed behind keeping the fire alive.
But we are no longer living in the Ice Age.
So why do I still crave you so much?
You don’t even know anymore. It’s been so long.
You’ve found a million reasons to continue — and not a single one to stop.
You’re completely bound, fully in my power.
Yet with alcohol and marijuana, we managed to make agreements.
Why is it so difficult with you?
Mainly because I give you absolutely nothing.
Only addiction.
Addiction to a bad feeling.
To guilt, to a heavy conscience, to pain in your throat and lungs.
Day by day I destroy your body — because I am stronger than you.
Nicotine is simply a bomb that works on almost everyone.
There are tough ones who managed to quit, but they are few.
And the real problem is realizing — at the very moment they stopped — that they never needed me at all.
I am the option to entertain yourself in the morning with your coffee.
No one else offers you what I do.
I am completely unique.
I take you gently by the finger, drain all your energy —
and the air feels so sweet, so fresh, like a divine union.
But I won.
Because you’ve been fighting me for so long — and you haven’t scored a single point.
I always knocked you down,
and you humbly returned to the game.
You don’t have what it takes.
I am much stronger than you — because you fight with thoughts, not actions.
You hope the full moon will help you get rid of me,
but this game is far more complex than you think.
And you know it.
You just don’t know how yet.
You need to slowly detach from your ingrained habits,
to completely rewrite them for at least a month —
so you can see that another way exists.
Turn everything around.
You are capable of finding your way, as you always have.
But this time, you must actually do something.
This conversation wasn’t about fighting.
It was about the truth.
And it was thanks to him that I quit smoking within two months.
Not by leaps and bounds.
Not by miracle.
Just by gradually erasing the old program.
Because smoking is not love.
It’s not necessary.
It’s a learned pattern.
And every pattern can be rewritten —
if we stop asking why
and start doing things differently.