Eugene

Date With Destiny
2005-03-31 18:05:49 (UTC)

Ever think of having just one????

Starving dragon

RE-POSTFrom ElizabethMN on 3/29/2005 12:18:00 PM
T
he Starving DragonFrom MutinyFever on 4/23/2003 8:04:04 PM

~ 200 dayzLong, long ago, in a lifetime far, far away, I
smoked just one. Bitter tears I shed when I realized the
dragon Addiction still had a lair in my heart. I had
thought him dead, after seven winters of starvation. Just
one cigarette fortified him and he drew strength. With each
puff he felt his claws, yawned his mouth, breathed his
fire. The cinders that were his eyes began to smolder, and
then he SEIZED ME.After relapsing on my seven year quit, it
took me two years to get quit again. I tried and tried to
find the strength to quit again. A dozen tries in those two
years. A dozen agonies ending in hours. I tried. I failed.
Just one, I`d thought. I scoff at my hubris. So does the
dragon.I was healthy before the relapse, getting a cold
every 3 years or so. In the two years of the relapse I had
at least a dozen colds, and I developed a persistent cough.
Hiking became a problem. I became more sedentary in
general. I lost weight and muscle tone. I gave up my yoga
practice, which I had been faithful in performing for 5
years. I grew more depressed, and had less in the way of
coping mechanisms to relieve that depression.The dragon
loved it. Just one and my sense of self was crushed under
his dictatorship. Death was to be my tribute to the
dragon`s rulership. At last, though, I`ve reached deep
within to find love. Love for myself, my wife, my family,
my life. That love sustained me while the dragon roared. I
have quit again.Today is the two hundredth day of my quit.
The dragon is not dead, but he is starving and weak again.
The dragon has retired to his lair to wait, to watch. Just
one, he whispers with a long blackened tongue, his voice
cracking and weak. Just one and I will have you again.




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