Who is Driving the Bus?
( and why is it smoking??? )
( a story of addiction and attraction )
I am biting my nails trying not to follow the urge to get some cigarettes. I have a little money and I have enough gas to make it but I don't want to identify with being a smoker.

I don't care if there is some weight gain because that is only permanent if I choose. So every time that urge comes I tell myself to focus on something else so as to divert my attention from the current thought of wanting to have a cig. I don't want to attach to that urge anymore and not endure its affect on me.

It's tough learning to detach from a thought especially if it has become a pattern of always reacting to the same situation in the same way. It's like I set a bus route in my mind, into a computer, and whenever I meet a certain obstacle I deviate from my original path in a preprogrammed way.

I want to be the driver of my bus as much as possible, I don't want to sit back and relax or be a back seat driver. I want to have the control to choose which direction I will take my bus load that comprises the many facets of who/what I am. Because if I can do in reality what I hope to do in my mind I must make a concerted effort to do more driving and not let the preprogram take control in its customary ways.
Sure I cannot stop the preprogramming but make the effort to keep in control.
I know I will never totally succeed as the programming is always there, always on and always alert.

I can only hope to work to navigate with it and choose how I will attach my actions once the programming does kick in. And I've basically been addicted to nicotine since puberty- 35 years- so the programming is strong.

But I have done it before, I know it is possible as I have used this to deal with major bouts of panic and anxiety that at one time hindered my employment

Author's Bio: 

Milton DeWayne Benson lives with multiple physical and mental diagnoses and realizes the greatest limitations are those we place upon ourselves.