Little purple pill of strength

I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor yesterday to see how I was doing with my attempts to quit smoking. How lovely to admit to her that after a brief month of unsmokiness, I was back on the butts. We talked about different options for quitting after the many attempts I've had with no success. I believe a big part of the problem for me is either not being ready or not having a proper plan for long-term success.

I went in there thinking there was no way I wanted to take pills. I have a tendency to think I'm superwoman and that I should be able to accomplish anything with willpower. As we've all discovered, sheer willpower is really just a load of crap and sometimes a girl needs a little help and support to make it through the rough times. Willpower is being looking at myself and assuming if I can't do it all with just hope and elbow grease, then I am a failure, too weak, not good enough. Yes, ridiculous, but it's the stuff I tell myself.

My doctor (well, nurse practitioner to be more precise) is a lady that talks about chakras and yogic energy and emotional pits and healing energy. She's a lady that suggests acupuncture before prescriptions, who suggests meditation groups before medicine. She is focused on holistic healing and that's one of the things I really like about her. I was thinking she'd be my ally in this resistance of pill-taking. So I asked her what method she's seen the most success with.

"Pills, actually. Wellbutrin specifically."

Antidepressants? She wanted me to take antidepressants? The pills I've avoided taking all the times I thought I might need them just because I wanted to prove to myself that my will was greater than whatever I was trying to overcome?

She mentioned that with my eating disorder and with my compulsive behavioral tendencies (bingeing, shopping, drinking, etc.), the Wellbutrin could help balance my biochemistry to actually make it easier for me to be successful quitting. It would help me to deal with the absense of nicotine without replacing the cigarettes with another compulsion so I'm not bingeing more, for example.

I have the small square of paper sitting on my desk still with her scribbled prescription..... I know it's ridiculous and would completely encourage any of my friends to take the pills and get the help. But for me it truly feels like I'm giving up a little on some hope of myself being perfect enough just to quit on my own. Rationally I understand that I can't and it's not about weakness or willpower or failure or any of that, it's just getting some help with something I can't do alone.

But unfortunately, the rational isn't what's making me stall on this. The emotions are a whole different can of worms. And try as we might, we can't really change where those emotional reactions come from, we can just try to understand them and hopefully shift them to help us along.

And we can always take the little purple pill of happiness when we need a little strength.Today I'm grateful for: finding a crazy lady I can talk to, taking a chance and emailing about the job in the UK, learning my strengths and my boundaries