First Thing I Did When Trying To Live Free

First Thing I Did When Trying To Live Free

Well really there were two things I had to do when I realized I needed to make some changes with my financial situation. Those two things were to quit smoking and drinking. Yea I said it. I did do both, not successfully at first but I did do it.

First thing I did was quit drinking. Not that I was an alcoholic or anything but my thinking was that if I didn't cool it on the drinking I would never quit smoking. Plus I was new to being single and I wanted to try something different. Not drinking alcohol was pretty easy. I just did other things instead. 

I did a lot of volunteering. I met a lot of great people that way and it kept my mind off things. Plus it was free to do and I enjoyed it. But with my kids being young, I couldn't make a lot of time for it so I gave up on it after a couple years. 

I also started playing poker. Back then it got real popular and I tried it then and I loved it. I didn't spend a ton of money doing it but it was fun and I still play from time to time when I think about it. But with this hobby it didn't really go with my trying to live free life I wanted to live. So it was short lived. 

So once I got my life in some kind of order I tried to quit smoking. It was and still is the hardest thing I ever did. I started with the patch and it worked. (after about 2 weeks of being the biggest jerk I could be) But I got threw it and my kids didn't hate me. But after about 6 months I slipped up and got stressed and smoked. I couldn't afford to buy cigarettes at the time so it was real short lived. So I tried something different. Nicotine gum. It was great! It was cheaper than smoking and I didn't really have the urge to smoke so I did it! 

So that was two things I had to stop doing and I did it. I do drink every once in a while, maybe three times a year, and I do sneak a cigarette in there when I am drinking but when I wake up, I am good to go. 

I think doing those two things really set up my mindset that if I can do that, I can do anything. Cigarettes and alcohol are pretty expensive so getting that out of my budget moved me that much closer to trying to live free. One small step at a time. 

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