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  1. Sirius Quit Date: May 27, 2014 Posted July 12, 2016 The following was some of the more weird things I did while going through the stress of decompress. Sharpen knifes. Oh Vay! scrape, scrape, scrape.... Take your time with it. Focus on getting the sharpest edge. All my knifes are very sharp. Emptied out my ashtray into a glass jar (with lid). Added a bit of water to the mix. When I feel the need I take a good long look at this stuff. If I still feel the need I unscrew the lid and take a long deep whiff. Really brings back the whole smoking experience - to include the gagging, retching, and full body coughing. If the time and place allows for it; a good stiff drink. One shot only! Purely for medicinal purposes. Bonus points for Barcardi 151. A personal favorite. Chopping Wood. Nothing like swinging an axe to work out the aggression and utter unfairness that constant denial piles onto my little psyche. Plus, I'm doing something constructive! Hold your breath until the desire to breath meets and exceeds the desire to smoke. While holding your breath contemplate how each cigarette you consume brings you closer to holding your breath involuntarily. Breathing is far more satisfying then smoking. Enjoy a fresh Jalapeño. Pop the whole thing in your mouth and chew slowly. mmmmmm... Bonus points for not having water near at hand. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7287-the-weird-things-i-did-to-quit-smoking/
    4 points
  2. Nancy Quit Date: 07/07/2013 Posted April 7, 2014 · IP Bonnie, I looked and it did not originate there, so here it is... THE SMALL DARK ROOM; an analogy of a quit (Reposted from Laurap414 from The QuitNet ) Once, my existence was confined to a small, dark room. In the room was a button. When I pressed the button the room was filled with light. It was a warm, sunny light, which filled every crevice of the room with its brilliance. The light made me happy, and made me feel safe. The problem was, after a few minutes, the light would begin to fade. Soon the room would be completely dark again and I would have to press the button again. My life consisted of always getting to that button when the darkness began to fall. The darkness was scary. It was tiring getting to that button hour after hour. And in this life, it was always, always night. I heard people say that if you could endure one night in the dark, without pushing that button, you could experience Day. In Day, the button would not be needed. It would always be light, and there would be no dark to be afraid of. People said that when it was Day, you could actually leave the room. The button was still there, but you would not be reliant on it anymore. I remembered my life before the button, and looked at my friends who lived in the Day. And I knew that was what I wanted, more than anything. I hated it always being night; even though I had my button to light the world it was still depressing living from brightness to darkness, never being free, and never seeing the sun. And so one day I decided to stop pushing the button, to try and be free. At first, the darkness was a little uncomfortable. I could not see a thing, but then again the light had only been out for a short while. I knew what was in the room, no monsters there, right? Just the dark. But then, as the night progressed, scary things began to happen. I heard strange noises in the dark. Sometimes ghosts and apparitions would appear to me. And each time, no matter how much I wanted to be brave, something scared me so bad that I would reach for that button again. I never made it for more than a few hours in the dark. I would run screaming for the button, and give it a good smack. Thank God!!! The light would be warmer and more lovely than it had ever been. But then, as always, the light would begin to fade. And I would realize to my horror that it was midnight again. And I was even more afraid of the encroaching dark than ever. One day I heard of a group of people who had made it through to Day. I wanted to get out of my terrible night, and so I asked them how they made it to dawn, and then to sunrise and Day. And they told me some secrets. They told me how to deal with the ghosts who would appear in the dark, how the room would change and how all sorts of horrible things would happen. They warned me that it would be worse than a nightmare at times, but that I could do it. Best of all, they said they would help me make it through the night. This is the story of how it happened, one minute at a time. 11:59 pm. I push the button for the Very Last Time. I am very afraid.. 12:00 midnight. The room is dark. Not so bad. I can do this. 12:15 am Hearing scary noises. Scared, but Im ready for this. I can do it. 12:30 am A man appears out of nowhere. "Push the button!!!!" he screams. "Arent you afraid of the monsters? Arent you scared of the demons? Push the button! It will be light again!!!! Just do it!!!!". He is scaring me. I look at him fiercely. He goes away. He comes back many times during the night. 1:00 am The floor has turned to snakes. I am horrified. I can hear them slithering around. I want to turn on the light. I need to see them. I need them to go away. I ask my friends and they say this is normal, that it will get better. 1:30 am I can hear moans in the dark. The snakes are still here. I think this room is haunted. I am so scared of the dark. I want to push the button so the light will make the ghosts go away. I keep telling myself I am headed towards the dawn. 1:45 am Something cold and dead brushes my face. I scream. I reach for the button. My friends tell me Im doing a great job. They tell me the noises are just phantom noises. They tell me to think of the coming dawn. The snakes are still around my legs. I think the floor is getting wet and sticky, I cant tell. The noises are getting stranger. I am shivering with fear and revulsion. 2:00 am If it werent for my friends I would have gone insane or hit the button hours ago. I begin to think that the floor is wet and sticky with the blood of people who have killed themselves in here. My friends tell me its just my own sweat. I know that if I hit the button it will all go away. The noises are unbearable. My only comfort is knowing I have made it this far. I tell myself I can make it a little longer. I break down in tears from exhaustion. 2:15 am Its getting a little better now. The dark is still filled with bizarre monsters and strange sounds. 2:30 am I look out the window to see if the sun is coming up yet. It is still pitch dark. I cannot see a thing. 2:45 am The scariest part of night. I sense that I am surrounded by ghouls. I am trying to be strong even though I am beside myself with fright. Suddenly a woman appears in the room. She is holding a candle. She looks like a very competent lawyer or something, and looks very kind. I am so relieved to see her, and I invite her to sit down. She explains that she has contacted the owners of the room and that they have agreed to make an exception for me. Since I am experiencing so much fear, they will let me push the button once without setting the clock back to midnight (right back where I started). She said that they have been watching me, and since Ive been so brave, they will allow me a little bit of light to "get me through the night". "I thought that once I hit the button, I go right back to where I started no mater what", I say. "No, no, we have made a special exception in your case," she says, smiling. She looks so caring and professional. I begin to believe her. She seems completely trustworthy. I look over the contract she has brought. It all looks very legal and above-board. I get to push the button once, and the clock is not set back to midnight. It sounds extremely sensible. I am listening to the noises in the dark. There is a big bump from the darkest corner. "What was that?" I say. "That was a ghoul," she says pleasantly. "It will rip your throat out and kill you if it gets you. So not to rush things, but perhaps you want to sign the contract right NOW". I look into her eyes. I want to believe her. I reach for the pen. And then I see behind her smile, this evil green glimmer. And I smell death on her clothes. With horror, I realize that she has been sent by the Nicodemon. She is pure evil. She leans in closer, and hands me the pen. I pull back. "Get away!" I scream. "Get out of here at once!!!!". "Oh no, sweetie" she says in her pleasant voice of death. "You asked me to sit down. You read my contract. Im going to stay a while". I know she is in league with the Demon but I cant seem to move or scream. I am transfixed with her voice, her glinting eyes, her tempting smile. "Why dont we sit and chat awhile my dear?" she smiles sweetly. It seems like two hours pass. I cannot move. I have never been so scared. Crazily, I still think about signing the contract she is holding. I think of how hitting the button would make her go away. Finally I summon all of my strength, and with great effort I am able to make myself realize that she is evil and full of lies. Finally, when I admit this to myself, she stands up to leave . "Ill be back for you!!!!!!" she shrieks as she leaves. I smell her horrible stench after she goes and I want to vomit. I am shaking with the effort and terrified, but I realize I have won a battle. I am slightly proud. 3:00 am Still afraid but hanging in there. Telling myself Ive made it this far. Trying to ignore the snakes and ghouls. When I ignore them they are not so bad. 3:15 am The man keeps coming back. He is not as scary anymore. 4:00 am I think I can finally see the dawn rising in the far distance. I am completely exhausted. But I think , this is it! I have made it to Day! I am very excited. 4:15 am A little old lady appears. She is very sweet looking and gentle. "Hi honey!" she says. "Hi there" I say, glad for some company. "Rough night, huh?" she says. "Ill say", I agree. I feel relaxed, relieved, happy, so proud of myself. "And youve done such a great job," she says. I thank her for the compliment. "Such a great job, " she says, "that you deserve to hit that button one more time. Just to see it once before its gone. It was such a lovely light wasnt it?" she says sweetly. "It was a lovely light," I say. I look fondly at the button, and then look outside to the greying sky, which is filling with a dirty pale light. I think of my brilliant warm light and how it used to cheer me up instantly. "You do deserve it," she says. We chat for some time about what a great job Ive done getting through the night. She is a very sweet and understanding lady. We stroll around the room for a while, and then I look down. When I do, I realize my hand is on the button. I look into the nice ladys eyes, and suddenly I see the glint of evil green grinning back at me. "Why dont you push the button now?" she growls, in a voice that sounds like the grave. "AARGH!" I yell. I jerk my hand off the button. The lady vanishes in a puff of noxious fumes. But her words were powerful poison and it is a while before I can walk away from the button. I am terrified by the close call. 4:15 am Its getting brighter now. 5:00 am Things are going OK. I have survived a few more close calls. The old lady came back, and so did the lawyer lady, but I fought them off. The snakes and ghouls I realize were only in my head. Things are looking normal. I can see again! 6:00 am Sunrise! I never thought I would see it. Its only a matter of time before I get to see the Day. I realize I will never need my horrible button again. I am so relieved I could just cry. I am full of gratitude and thanks. I am so proud of myself, so humble. Ive come so far. And then I hear the voice. It is icy cold and gravelly, and sounds like a thousand monsters whispering together. It comes from everywhere and nowhere, it echoes through my brain. "There are monsters everywhere, my friend," it says. "There are monsters which can attack you in the grey light of dawn, monsters under the bed at sunrise, and monsters which will haunt you invisibly during the Day. These monsters can only be conquered by pressing that magic button. Did you think that daylight would protect you? Oh no. Never forget that the monsters are ALL AROUND, my friend. And the button is the only thing that will keep them away FOREVER. So watch out where you step, and listen wherever you go". I am chilled. I am terrified. I look to make sure the button is not far away. It is still there, and I am slightly comforted by this. The sunrise is not as safe as it seemed. 6:15 am I look around for day-monsters. Sometimes I can see them lurking under the bed. I had no idea that I would be afraid after sunrise. I miss my brilliant warm light. Just waiting for Day to come. 7:00 am. Sun keeps rising. Doing much better now. Monsters are less frightening. Really beginning to feel positive. 7:15 am Getting very bright. Feeling great. Knock at the door. Its the neighbour. "Hey lady," he says. "Howya doing in here? Listen, I dropped off because I noticed your light wasnt on. I just wanted to let you know that if you push that button over there, you can see a whole lot better!" "Yeah I know", I say, "but when you push the button, it stays night. The longer I leave it off, the brighter it gets, and eventually itll be as bright as Day." "Well, I hate to tell you this," he says, "but you know, it never really gets as bright in the Daytime as that light was. I mean, I tried that whole Day thing and it aint what its cracked up to be. Sure, the light gets kind of bright during the Day, but then there are cloudy days, and whatnot. And you can never really read a book with the same amount of clarity as you get with that button". "Really?" I say. "I did not know this. Because you know, I am a big reader". "Oh, yeah, that Day light, its never the same! You cant read by Day light!!! Not the way you can with this baby you got right here. I tell you what -if you want, I can jimmy this light so that it doesnt get dark at all! That way, itll be on all the time, and youll NEVER know its night outside. What do you think?" "You can do that?" I say. "I mean, I tried that before. I tried a LOT of different things to make it not seem so bad. But I still knew it was night. That light still kept going out." "No, no, no -- that was last time. I guarantee you I can fix it so that you will never feel scared that its night, and that light will always be on. Believe me, it beats the hell out of Day. I promise you. I mean look at this crappy light", he said, jerking his thumb towards the weak sunrise. "Well, OK" I said. "What do I have to do?" "Just push the button once, so I can get it going, then youll be all set," he said. "And if you dont like it, you can always try this Day thing another time, right?" He grinned pleasantly, and gave me a friendly wink. I looked him over to size him up. He was really a good-looking guy, so friendly and polite. It was obvious he knew what he was talking about, and he had a very honest face. Perhaps, I thought, my friends were wrong about this Day thing? I mean, here was a guy who could just rig up my button to fix it up just like that. And it sounded like he knew from experience that the button light was better and brighter than Day. Plus he had promised that it would work. Why would this guy lie to me? He was still standing there, smiling at me. "OK" I said, "What the heck". And I reached to shake his hand. "Excellent" he grinned. But as he smiled I got a glimpse of what was between his lips, and saw that his mouth was full of maggots. Suddenly I realized that he reeked of rotting corpses and death, and when I touched his hand, it felt like cold icy death. I looked into his eyes and saw that I was staring face-to-face with none other than the Nicodemon. "Nicodemon!!!" I shrieked. "Yes, my dear" he growled, and as he grinned at me, moving his face closer to mine, his breath smelled like ashes and cancer. "Just push that button and Ill fix that little button for you RIGHT AWAY". The maggots were still spilling out of his mouth, and to my horror I realized that his body was made up of decaying flesh. Every surface of his body was covered with sores, and from the sores leaked pus and phlegm. I looked down and saw that I was still clutching his rotting, deadened hand. "Argh!" I yelled. "You are a LIAR!!!!!! That stuff is not true! What you say is never true!!! You cant fix that button! If I push it Ill be back in the night! The button will not make the monsters go away! It never did! All it did was keep me in eternal night!!!!! NOW GO AWAY AND GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!! YOU BASTARD!!!!!" And I kicked him right in the balls. "AAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" shrieked the Nicodemon. With a cloud of poisonous fumes and toxic gases he began to melt into a puddle of phlegm, until nothing was left of him except a small pile of ash. "Ha". I said. I swept up the ash and put it outside. I had won this battle, and I deserved to be proud. I had outwitted the most clever villain of all. And I had done it all by myself (with a little help from my friends). But I knew he would be back. Epilogue Sometime Around High Noon Well the sun has finally come up and its Day. Its everything my friends promised it would be. The sun is out, the birds are singing, and its simply glorious. Eventually, I even walked out of that small dark room, and left the button behind. The best part about it is, the sun never goes down here. It just stays high noon all day long, and the sun is shining almost all the time. My friends are here with me, and we never have to go back into that horrible night. The Demon came back a few more times, in a few more disguises. He almost fooled me that night that I went through the dark, and he might fool me again. But Ive got my friends behind me and they tell me about the different tricks he likes to use. He is a crafty, conniving, horrible, evil spirit, and I know that he will always do everything in his power to try and get me back. But I will be ready, and waiting. And God willing, Ill keep outwitting that son-of-a-bitch. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/343-the-dark-room/
    4 points
  3. Hello darling Nicotine Free creatures, I forgot about a 10-year anniversary. Earlier this summer, remembered in a conversation with Joel Spitzer and an email from our marvelous Doreen and then forgotten completely. Now a compelling reminder... Must never get blasé about my quit as memory of smoking recedes into the past. I ignore my struggle and success at my peril. There are far too many stories of carelessness leading to a resumption of the addiction after a substantial amount of time. No matter how strong my repugnance of tobacco is and my triggers and body memory in remission I remain an addict albeit nicotine free. Not One Puff. Never Ever. That is my anniversary lesson.
    4 points
  4. El Bandito Quit Date: 27/01/2014 Posted November 5, 2014 Now then, let's be perfectly clear My only expertise is a little experience in smoking and quitting smoking. I have watched some videos, read some books and shared with some fellow quitters. I have zero medical experience or expertise, in fact I look away when they show operations on medical dramas. No knowledge whatsoever of brain chemistry. There is some true expertise knocking around on the forum - and a lot of it is pinned to the top of the boards - this however is just me shooting the breeze, sharing some experience and some observations. People choose to quit smoking for a variety of reasons. Some of them are deeply tragic personal experiences. The loss or debilitation of a loved one for example. Some are scared into it. Some just make a rational decision. Some people quit Cold Turkey. Some use NRT. Some use acupuncture, hypnosis. Some use Vaping. Some read books. I believe that it matters not a jot why someone chooses to quit or how they quit. Allen Carr, Joel, all sort of people have said this many many times - I am amazed at how long it has taken me to truly understand it. (Quite a thick head :rolleyes: ) One thing matters. Understanding the con. Every single one of us believed that we enjoyed smoking, that smoking gave us a benefit of some kind. Allen Carr covers this in depth - he calls it the key. We spent years convincing ourselves that we liked stinking, liked poisoning ourselves and those around us, liked impoverishing ourselves, liked being slaves to a drug addiction. Even when we stop - we yearn for the 'carefree' cigarette. BOLLOCKS! The moment that one realises that smoking does not give us any benefit and NEVER did, that it was all an elaborate con trick, then the Quit is done. It sticks. The con has worked for decades. People have made millions, no billions, of Dollars - and they continue to do so in the developing world. Perhaps the strongest testament to the power of the con - is that they are doing it again - and new generations of people are falling for it. "Here, take a strange looking pen shaped object, suck it and enjoy some vapour. Yes! Vapour. It's cool. Look you can have coffee flavoured vapour! To make the vapour even better, we have added a special ingredient called nicotine - this nicotine is brilliant as an insecticide, at fooling receptors in your brain and here is the real kicker.....nicotine is an absolute superstar at addicting you - guaranteeing that you personally will pay US a fortune for the rest of your life. 10% off if you buy an extra pack!" People are queuing up to suck this stuff in. I see them interviewed on TV "why are you vaping?" "it's kinda cool yaknow? Relaxes me innit. I enjoy it" Really? Sucking a pen is cool? You enjoy it? What the flavour? The coffee flavour? Here's an idea - HAVE A COFFEE! A quit fails because a little part of us clings onto the idea (an idea being pushed all around us) that smoking was enjoyable. It wasn't. It is a con. Understand this, really understand it and come to rely on it when you feel the siren call of a cigarette - and whether your quit started a year ago, a month ago, yesterday, today or even tomorrow - your quit will stick. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/3345-why-a-quit-sticks/
    4 points
  5. I started smoking when I was in my early teens and continued off and on for the next 28 years. During that period there were a couple of quits which lasted several years. My last major attempt at quitting smoking was in 2005 in which I was able to stay smoke-free for just under 6 years. In 2011, I made the decision to throw my quit away one evening when I was in a stressful situation and decided that smoking a cigarette would relax me. When I took my first puff that evening I felt like I was home. I wondered why I had even quit smoking at all in the first place. I thought I enjoyed it and even thought to myself that smoking was the greatest thing on earth. I had no regrets, only satisfaction. I didn’t know a single thing about nicotine addiction and ignorantly believed all the lies. I was a junkie. No, not some junkie out on the street begging and stealing to feed my addiction but rather a well dressed professional with a wife and three wonderful children. But make no mistake about it, I was a junkie just the same in need of a fix of nicotine to make everything better. This one cigarette woke up my nicotine addiction and I continued to smoke for ~2 years. In early December 2012 I went to see my Dr. about something unrelated and before I left I decided to mention that I wanted to quit smoking but enjoyed it too much. I told him that I could quit if I really wanted to, I just didn’t want to. I told him that I wanted to quit smoking for my family because they meant everything to me and I knew that the cigarettes would eventually catch up with me if I didn’t quit for good. In a nutshell, he told me I was full of shit. He told me that my family wasn’t the most important thing in my life, cigarettes were. He also went on to tell me that I was an addict to which I laughed and said “you’re telling me that I’m an addict because I’m smoking tobacco? It’s not like I’m shooting heroin or snorting cocaine.” He chuckled to himself and said “you’re the exact definition of an addict and the only reason why you’re not out on the streets stealing to feed your addiction is because cigarettes are legal.” I was mad as I sat there. How could this man say these things to me? I really do enjoy smoking. I sat and I listened. He gave me a prescription for Wellbutrin XL to help me quit smoking. I told him that I didn’t need any medication to quit smoking and he informed me that I had been smoking for nearly 28 years with several failed attempts at quitting and whatever I was doing was not working. After about 5 days the medication started to work to the point that after 2 or 3 pulls on a cigarette, I would get sick to my stomach and be on the verge of puking. Still, I lit one cigarette after another hoping that the nausea would not last, but it did and finally on December 17, 2012, I decided that I had enough and quit. This time I stayed nicotine free for 9 months and was sure I would never smoke again. I spent hour after hour, day after day reading everything I could about nicotine addiction. I watched the documentaries about the evil tobacco companies (which are on this website and very good I might add), joined a support group online and was sure I had all the answers to staying quit for good. But as things go, I relapsed again in September 2013 because of one reason; I still believed that the cigarette had something to offer me. After all of the reading and learning about nicotine addiction, none of it mattered because somewhere in the back of my mind I still believed in the cigarette. Thankfully, my relapse was short-lived and lasted only 1 week and 1 pack of cigarettes. What a shame it was to light the first of some 20 odd cigarettes after being smoke-free for ~9 months. Those 9 months prior that I speak of, although smoke-free, I was still believing somewhere in the back of my mind that cigarettes could offer me something because of my triumphant reunion with them nearly two years prior. It was all a big lie perpetuated by me. When I bought that pack in October I thought it would help. After reading Allen Carr’s book several times and being proactive for so many months, who was I kidding? The only thing I got from it was emptiness. It was at this moment and 19 cigarettes later that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that cigarettes could not do a damn thing for me. It took a one week relapse for me to 100% believe that no matter what happens in life, no matter how crappy I feel, cigarettes will not do anything. With each and every cigarette I analyzed how I felt. From the very first pull on that cigarette I was ultra aware of how I was feeling. I remembered Allen Carr. I remembered the lies. I remembered all the former smokers in the support group. I recalled all I had read about this addiction. I was still waiting for the enjoyment because I thought it really existed. Not only did I not get one bit of enjoyment from any of it, but I also found out the hard way that there isn’t a single thing enjoyable about smoking. It wasn’t until I truly understood that I got nothing from smoking that I willingly put the cigarettes down without any medication and without a second thought. However, close to the end of that week of smoking I could feel the addiction coming on strong. Had I not chosen to quit smoking on October 7th, 2013, I feel that I would have fallen back into a full blown nicotine addiction and smoking 30-40 cigarettes per day as that was my usual routine. I was probably just a few cigarettes away from this happening and it was scary to relive those feelings of being physically and mentally addicted to smoking constantly needing to feed the throngs of nicotine withdrawal. This is not a place that I ever want to revisit. If you think that you enjoy smoking or that is somehow relaxes you, then you still think that smoking cigarettes can still offer you something of benefit. This is romanticizing the cigarette, also known as junkie thinking, whether you want to believe it or not. Leaving this door open is dangerous because something will happen along the way that will allow the addiction to creep in and when you least expect it, you’ve relapsed. If you think that you enjoyed anything about smoking it means that you’re depriving yourself or giving up something that you enjoy when you quit smoking. The worst case scenario is a relapse and the next worse thing is a constant battle. Someone once used drugs and sex was as an analogy to quitting smoking. This is false and cannot be compared because sex and drugs such as heroin, are enjoyable the first time they are tried. The first time many heroin users shoot up they loved it. How many of us loved our first cigarette? None. Smoking is not enjoyable and so long as you believe that it is or was, you’re only making staying quit much harder than it needs to be. Actually, quitting smoking can be enjoyable if you’re able to focus on your body and how it’s repairing itself. Your lungs. Your skin. Your teeth. The newly learned discipline that you’ve used because you never thought you could quit smoking, much less even wanted to quit. Lastly, a relapse doesn’t happen without first romancing or allowing junkie thinking to creep in. No situation, as bad as it may be, will force you to smoke unless you’re still believing that you can get something from the cigarette. Quitting smoking takes no action, only non-action. Don’t ever take another puff. Remember “N.O.P.E.” each and every day and make it a priority over life and all of it’s ups and downs. Never smoke again. Not one puff, ever (N.O.P.E.). Copied from MarylandQuitters About Me
    4 points
  6. cpk Quit Date: 02/04/2015 Posted March 3, 2015 I've been doing some research online - various sites - and one thing I've noticed is that all those into new quits are extremely impatient, including me. All the newbies are asking, "When will this fatigue get better?" "I feel like crap...when will it go away? "My sleep is all off..." and I won't even go into the weight thing. The general sense I have is newly quits are a pretty impatient lot. I think part of it is what I'll call the "freak out" --- There are so many changes going on, good and bad. It's almost like being a teenager. It's just a general freak out, at not having a handle on what's going on with the body, the mind, the emotions, one's responses and reactions to the outside world. As well, teens have more social pressures, increasing responsibilities, heavier workloads... When my son was a teen he'd open the refrigerator door and just stand there... I'd say, what are you doing?, if you want something, get it and close the door...why are you standing there...? He'd act like he was just waking up, would say, I don't know what I want...and he'd close the door, but would be back 20 minutes later and do the same thing all over again. That about sums up this experience for me. I'm like a teenager. I don't know what I want. I think patience would help me see this isn't a bad thing. I'm freaked out because it's all new. I'm uncomfortable a lot. Like a teenager. But hey, being teenager-like at my age is okay for now. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4664-patiencei/
    3 points
  7. Aine Quit Date: 2-26-2014 Posted May 4, 2019 The Law of Addiction Most quitting literature suggests that it normally takes multiple failed quitting attempts before the user self-discovers the key to success. What they fail to tell you is the lesson eventually learned, or that it can be learned and mastered during the very first try. Successful recovery isn't about strength or weakness. It's about a mental disorder where by chance our dopamine pathway receptors have eight times greater attraction to a nicotine molecule than to the receptor's own neurotransmitter. We call it the "Law of Addiction" and it states: "Administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance." Roughly half of relapsing quitters report thinking that they thought they could get away with using just once. The benefit of fully accepting that we have a true chemical dependency and permanent priorities disorder can't be overstated. It greatly simplifies recovery's rules while helping protect against relapse. Key to arresting our illness is obedience to one simple concept, that "one is too many and a thousand never enough." There was always only one rule, no nicotine just one hour, challenge and day at a time. Navigating Withdrawal and Reclaiming Hijacked Dopamine Pathways Like clockwork, constantly falling nicotine reserves soon had hostage dopamine pathways generating wanting for more. Sensing that "want" thousands of times per year, how could we not expect to equate quitting to starving ourselves to death? Again, the essence of drug addiction is about dependency quickly burying all memory of our pre-dependency self. Thus, the first step in coming home and again meeting the real us is emptying the body of nicotine. It's amazingly fast too. Cut by half every two hours, our mind and body become 100% nicotine-free within 72 hours of ending all use. Extraction complete, peak withdrawal now behind you, true healing can begin. While receptor sensitivities are quickly restored, down-regulation of the number of receptors to levels seen in never-users may take up to 21 days. But within two to three weeks your now arrested dependency is no longer doing the talking. Quitting fears and dread are gradually thawing and melting into "like" or even "love." You're beginning to sense the truth about where you've been. It's critical during early withdrawal to not skip meals, especially breakfast. Attempting to do so will likely cause blood sugar levels to plummet, making recovery far more challenging than need be. Why? A stimulant, nicotine activates the body's fight or flight response, feeding the addict instant energy by pumping stored fats and sugars into the bloodstream. It allowed us to skip breakfast and/or lunch without experiencing low blood sugar symptoms such as feeling nervous or jittery, trembling, irritability, anxiousness, anger, confusion, difficulty thinking or an inability to concentrate. Minimize or avoid those symptoms. Eat little, healthy and often. If your diet and health permit, drink some form of natural fruit juice for the first three days. Cranberry juice is excellent. It will aid in stabilizing blood sugar while accelerating removal of the alkaloid nicotine from your bloodstream. Also, heavy caffeine users need to know that (as strange as this sounds), nicotine doubles the rate by which the liver eliminates caffeine from the bloodstream. One cup of coffee, tea or one cola may now feel like two. While most caffeine users can handle a doubling of intake, consider a modest reduction of up to one-half if feeling anxious, irritable or unable to sleep following caffeine use. One caution. While we need not give-up any activity except nicotine use, use extreme caution with early alcohol use as it is associated with roughly 50% of all relapses. The above is an excerpt from John Polito's article, "Nicotine Addiction 101". It explains the science behind why it is so darn difficult to quit nicotine and to stay quit. The full article is here: https://whyquit.com/whyquit/LinksAAddiction.html Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/12338-the-true-nature-of-nicotine-addiction/
    3 points
  8. Soberjulie Posted April 23, 2014 Sometimes it takes every last bit of you to keep your balance and not do something self destructive. I'm not talking about willpower, I'm talking about something else. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like the part of you that wants to live, the part of you that is committed to not smoking, is connected by only the most slender of threads to the part of you driving the car, making the decisions. Sometimes you just hang in there, a minute at a time. You ask for help, but you know if you choose to you can turn away from that pretty easily, or even accidentally on purpose. Sometimes not sliding backwards counts as moving forwards. Sometimes not actively trying to die is living large. Sometimes holding your ground is a fragile miracle. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/926-hey-my-fellow-newbies-hold-your-ground/
    3 points
  9. Peter_is_in Quit Date: 11/22/2003 Posted January 26, 2019 For me personally and what I have seen, I reflect on the word "Struggle" . . . To watch a loved one die from cancer while all you can see is the whites of their eyes. The pain and frustration only shows in the wrinkles of their face, because they cannot talk . .. that's a struggle. That cannot be undone To hear about a roadside bomb hitting a convoy of peace keepers in Afghanistan . . . and your child may be in that convoy . . . communications are automatically cut for several days . .. that's a struggle. You have no control To give up on planning yearly fishing trips with your best buddy, because cancer just stole him away from you. . . that's a struggle. That cannot be forgotten To hear the last words of your sister in moans and groans because the pain before dying of cancer is so much. . . that's a struggle. That cannot be erased To see a family member taken off life support. . . that's a struggle. That cannot be erased To learn about others who have no food to eat tomorrow, and likely will die . . . that's a struggle. That cannot be ignored To have a strong crave to smoke a cigarette . . . that's not a struggle . . . That's an inconvenience. That can be undone That can be controlled That can be forgotten That can be erased That can be ignored You can do it! Peter: Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/11825-i-reflect-on-the-word-struggle/
    3 points
  10. Nancy Quit Date: 07/07/2013 Posted September 18, 2014 I have to have a cigarette, RIGHT NOW By tahoehal on November 26 2008 Picture yourself a second or two after you stub out that quit-breaking cigarette. The one that you just had to have because the craving was so strong you couldn't hold out any longer, when that voice inside you was saying.. "Go on, life sucks, you may as well smoke a cig.. y'know for your nerves.." or the other one.. "you've got this beat now.. you are in control.. you can have one just now and again.. go on have one for old time's sake.." So you bum a cigarette, and smoke it and in 2 and 1/2 minutes, you stub it out. Now what. Your mouth feels like crap. Your lungs are tightening up. You managed to stifle the coughs .. but barely. You began to squint again because the smoke hurt your eyes. and your fingers and clothes smell again. You either want to throw up, grab some mouthwash, take a shower, or have another.. maybe buy a pack. But then you realize what you've just done. After all those times when you said you were going to quit, and then when you finally did, and your family and friends were so happy for you - but not exactly over the moon, because after all they've been hopeful before only to see you relapse - all that enthusiasm is now smashed to pieces on the floor. And all the pressure that drove you to grab that cigarette in the first place - it's all still there. Nothing has changed, except now you've added one more problem: you just blew it. And then you realize what you've really done. You had invested days, maybe weeks and months, in this quit. You had made a great decision, one of the few things you really and truly felt proud of in your life, and you just blew it. You just blew the quit that you swore to yourself was the last one. You were so positive, so motivated, and encouraged, you were really on top of it, ahead of the game for once, you had taken control of your life and it felt like a whole new beginning.. and you just blew it. You look at that stub in the ashtray. The grey ash and the brown edge to the burnt paper, and the tar stain on the end of filter. You remember the thousands of cigarettes you have stubbed out and think about the tar that came into your lungs as smoke. And you think if smoking that one cigarette was worth it. Nothing's better. You feel a little dizzy now as the nicotine hits your body, even a little nauseous - certainly don't feel the pleasure that you remember the adverts and billboards were promoting during your early years as a smoker. In fact it's hard to remember any time when you felt that pleasure.. just another tobacco company lie.. They helped you to become an addict the first time, but when you smoked that cigarette after you quit.. well that was a whole new decision. You made that one all by yourself - there's no pointing fingers now, you know that cigarettes kill, so when you lit that one cigarette, the choice to smoke was all yours - no-one else to blame. And you just blew it. It wasn't worth it.. time after time the slippers' and relapsers' lament how they feel like crap, how ashamed they are, how they have lost confidence and hope, how they hate themselves, how much it hurts, how depressed and they cry and hide and cry some more. And now you are one of them.. the quit losers. Lost in the wilderness, not quite a smoker.. yet and not sure you are a quitter, searching for some dignity, some self-respect out of this. All because of that one cigarette. Because you blew it. WITH JUST ONE One Puff One Cigarette One Pack One Carton One Oxygen tank One Lung One Chemotherapy One Funeral One less. Hal 08-20-2004 A puff is too much, a thousand cartons are not enough. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/2719-think-you-need-just-one/ *Edited to remove broken link to outside source
    3 points
  11. Jenny Quit Date: 05/24/2012 Posted November 9, 2014 Cravings are the most feared in a quit and we all know they can be uncomfortable. It's this fear that keeps many of us from even attempting to quit smoking. The fear of being uncomfortable. We feel this way even though we know that smoking related disease is probably not terribly comfortable either.....addiction is so not rational.... The addiction wants to manipulate you into believing that there is no way you could ever survive quitting. No way you could ever get through a minute, hour or day feeling like you want to smoke and not give in. Seriously.....Pffft. We're tougher than that. It's all just hype designed to keep you smoking. A crave is not a command to smoke. Just because you feel it, does not mean you need to act on it. Acknowledge it and move on. As time goes on, those craves will fade away and in it's place will be a person who stood up and took control of their life. There is no greater feeling than that. No greater feeling. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/3385-fearing-the-crave/
    3 points
  12. MarylandQuitter Quit Date: 10/07/2013 Posted October 4, 2014 is that you may not ever quit again. This is a very realistic outcome if you choose to smoke again. We've all heard that smoking doesn't make anything better when in fact it makes it worse. It's doesn't calm you down, solve your problems and instead costs a small fortune and kills you. If you've started again, quit and right the ship. If you're thinking about smoking again, quickly get that thought under control and make a decision based on facts, not emotion. Emotion is what has always caused me to relapse. I was pissed off, stressed or in some funk. Here are a couple of videos to give you some things to think about work through this. Just hang on, before you know it these rough times will pass. Stay positive and stick around here. With the nuts we have here (I'm the lead nut, thank you very much) you can't help but stay at least a little bit positive. The Power Of Nicotine Addiction Video explains the full power of the grip that nicotine can take on an individual and the consequences that can be faced if a person does not quit smoking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpYRrZG5l8A Who Wants To Go Back To Smoking? This video discusses how former smokers at times think they want to go back to smoking, but if they really remind themselves of the package deal that goes along with being a smoker, it will be easy for them to stick to their quit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9qGjf2hd8&list=PL76365B6CE2DA076B Are You Stronger Than Your Cigarettes? This video discusses the importance of understanding that you won't be able to quit smoking and stay free by becoming stronger than cigarettes but rather by becoming smarter than nicotine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxLxDuTOCT0 "It's Inevitable, Some Smokers Are Going To Relapse" If you are a member of any quit smoking support group, whether it be online or a live program, it is likely that some members of your group are going to fail. You should not interpret this fact to mean that it is likely or inevitable that you are going to fail. Video spells out the major difference between people who relapse and those who don't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ego_dpPmfOk Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/2942-the-thing-about-relapse-or-considering-it/
    3 points
  13. Soberjulie Posted November 7, 2015 I dunno if Sarge still posts here but some of his no nonsense, shoot from the hip, tell it like it is words helped me immensely in my first days...weeks...months. The best: Embrace The Suck. You'll have moments, many moments, where quitting just plain sucks. If you're anything like me, you'll think of throwing the towel in....because...."the way I feel sucks!" Embrace the suck. Accept it. Head down and power through it! Wherever you are Sarge.....thank you. I've earned them stripes! I'm coming up on 2 years.......and I never ever have to 'embrace the suck' in regards to nicotine anymore. But Embrace The Suck has been instrumental in many areas of my life Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/6233-wise-wordsembrace-the-suck/
    3 points
  14. babs609 Quit Date: 07/13/2012 Posted February 6, 2015 That's the word I used during the acute phase of my quit. If I called it a "craving" I felt like it had power over me......as if the only thing that will ease that craving is the very thing that caused it and nothing will ever feel normal again..I will never feel relaxed or content again. To me..the word "craving" went parrallel with "feed the craving" But when I changed the wording to "restless", it took a whole new meaning for me. Restlessness occurred because my body is going back to the state it was in before I became a smoker. Just because I'm restless..is it really my body telling me I need a smoke? Or is it my junkie brain that's telling me that. There are all kinds of emotions and feelings that cause us to be restless...hunger, thirst, fatigue, anger, lonliness...and these emotions are exacerbated when we quit smoking. I knew that the restless feeling was a good thing...it reminded me I was winning the battle every single day. I knew every day I was able to co-exist along with this restlessness...that it would make me stronger and that much closer to a relaxed place where I felt content and satisfied. This newfound attitude is what got me through it.....one day at a time. Committing to NOPE. No matter what.. It also spilled over into helping me stay strong and take charge of my health in regards to my diet and regular exercise. Just because I'm restless doesn't mean I'm hungry. If I'm restless..then maybe I'm just thirsty...maybe I need to go for a run or a walk. Maybe I need to call a friend and vent, maybe I'm horny, maybe I'm bored or tired.... It helped me to be more in tune with my body and recognize exactly what I'm feeling so I am able to address the proper issue..and not try to "guess" what the problem is. Feeling restless?? Find out why....chances are..it's not a "craving" for nicotine. (especially true after Hell week) Non smokers get restless too....as a matter of fact, today I feel very restless and still haven't figured out why...one thing I am SURE of..is that I'm not craving a cigarette. Now....on to figure out what exactly is it that has me feeling uneasy and aggravated....not sure yet but I will figure it out. I have more oxygen in my brain these days so, things come to light much quicker for me now Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4389-restless/
    3 points
  15. NOPEster Quit Date: February 4, 2017 Posted July 30, 2018 Here I am visiting my sister in Norway for the first time as a non smoker. FYI my quit date was 2/5/17. I’ve never had such an easy time being a guest. My overseas flight over was enjoyable and stress free. I no longer constantly sneak off from the family for a cig. I can hike with the best of them. And I do not reek of smoke nor cough persistently. I love my new independent life free from the nico-demon. Best thing I ever did for myself. And I must remain ever so vigilant to keep and hold onto my precious quit. I’ve seen others in tourist areas here smoking and, just for a moment I’d like to have one too. But I say NOPE and think of the super folks on this forum and put that demon urge out of my mind. If someone is reading this who is considering quitting, I truly hope you can go forward with your goal. It seemed such an impossible feat at first for me to quit but now I can look back on my hard work and see it wasn’t so bad because of ALL the great wonderful things I can do now. It’s so amazing how my new life as a non smoker is. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/10792-so-amazing/
    3 points
  16. Many if not all smokers believe that smoking relieves stress. It doesn't and in fact causes it. Nicotine causes your heart rate to increase, your blood pressure to rise and sends adrenaline pulsing through your veins. This happens each time you smoke a cigarette. It's an illusion that smoking relieves stress because as smokers, we've conditioned ourselves to believe this. Look at it this way. After we put out a cigarette, the average smoker starts to experience mild withdrawal after approximately twenty minutes. Most smokers don't even realize that they're in withdrawal but start to crave another cigarette to relieve the discomforts of withdrawal. The cravings are a result of being in mild nicotine withdrawal which causes us some discomfort, makes us feel edgy, irritable etc., so when we light up another cigarette, we relieve those withdrawal symptoms and we feel better, for around 20 minutes or so. Then once the dose of nicotine wears off, the withdrawal process starts all over again and we continue to feed the addiction and keep the cycle going. So it's only natural for us to add 2+2 and come up with 7 because we've believed the lie that smoking relieves stress when in fact all it does is relieve the withdrawal symptoms (which are stressful) caused by smoking in the first place. We're using the same drug to try and fix the problem that started this whole process when we became nicotine addicts. So when things in life upset us, we automatically think that smoking will calm us down or help us cope with whatever it is that we're dealing with because that's the illusion smoking provides. The truth is that smoking causes stress. It's impossible that it can calm us down because of the effects it has on our heart rate, blood pressure and the release of adrenaline, which by the way is produced whenever we're experiencing a stressful situation or a period of extreme excitement. Nicotine is causing all of this when we smoke. Stress is a normal part of life and so is feeling extremely stressed or excited. Imagine that feeling of fight or flight (caused by the release of adrenaline which causes your blood pressure to increase, heart rate to increase etc.) as your body readies itself for whatever it is that's in front of you. Now imagine smoking a cigarette at this time. It can only further elevate your heart rate, blood pressure etc. It has the opposite effect of something that can calm you or relieve stress. Adrenaline is awesome. It's what makes us survive and thrive at certain things. But relieve stress or calm us down? Impossible. Once we stop smoking we're better equipped to deal with life and all the joys, pleasures, boredom and stress that it brings. Smoking actually ruins our peaceful moments in life by causing our adrenal glands to prepare us for "fight or flight" and escalates the stressful times by doing the same. When we smoke, are we ever really experiencing all that life has to offer us? Are we even capable of living in the "Now" and protecting our much needed down time to recharge? Are we able to meditate or stop the chatter or chaos that so often fills our minds and consumes our thoughts? Can we experience the calming effects of a still mind and body? The other evening it was around 4°F with a wind chill of -10°F. The moon was giving off just enough light that I could see the trees and sky through my windows. I was laying on the couch in front of the windows and was completely relaxed. It was quiet and as I released all of the stresses, to-do-lists and thoughts of what tomorrow might bring; my mind was still and quiet. The chatter was gone as there would be time for all that later. But for those 30 minutes, my mind was still and all the stressful thoughts were gone. This allowed my body to relax and just enjoy "The Now" for there will never, ever be another moment exactly the same. I want to experience all of those "Now" moments that I can. Smoking and constant withdrawal would have never allowed me to experience this inner state of peace and quiet. Never again will smoking take away these much needed quiet times that allow me to grow and be the best that I can be for myself and my daughter for without her, I cannot experience all that life has for me, just for Now. I Smoke Because I Like Smoking This video discusses how people who often say the smoke because they like smoking can come to realize that they really smoke because they don't like not smoking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCkt_ajgTQE Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4504-is-smoking-stopping-you-from-experiencing-all-that-life-has-to-offer-marylandquitter/
    3 points
  17. Sunnyside Quit Date: 02/01/22 Posted August 24, 2015 I thought I would put my thoughts out here today, my pointers that may help someone out there. If it helps at least one person then I will be happy. When I started out on this quit journey I had no confidence at all that I could pull this off. That this quit would probably go the same as all the others did, a DISASTER I always felt that smoking was apart of who I was. That is how people know me! I couldn't change surely. I went for it anyway because I knew deep down that I should. I was never a 100% about it and for a long time I thought it was a temporary thing, it was more a question of how long I would last? Than would I make it. The years of trying just kept knocking my confidence more and more. I join a forum which I had never done before, not even for anything else. I'm not the sort of person that would ever do a group session, I was the one in school that would sit in the corner all quiet. The support helped immensely and each day I would get up and say to myself I WILL NOT SMOKE TODAY Then keep ticking off the days. The days started turning into weeks, then months, then a year. Gradually things started to get easier BUT also something was gradually changing inside me too. I was starting to look at things differently. I had changed from someone that wasn't sure weather she wanted to quit to someone that no longer wanted to smoke. Someone that really doesn't see want all the fuss is anymore, that can see this addiction for what it really is. Let me just say that their is nothing special about me. I have hardly any will power at all! so if I can do it then anybody can. I know that is a cliché but you all have it in you to do this. Well I have gone on for long enough here is my list of tips. HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired Before reaching for a cigarette think is it a crave or is it something else prompting that trigger. Because our brain rewire their selves as you keep smoking to suit with the addiction when you stop it is very hard to tell the difference. So maybe you are hungry or thirsty, need a nap, stressed. STOP For a minute a think is it something else. IT DOES GET EASIER The withdrawals do not last for ever! The physical side of the addiction last about 3 weeks. If you suffer from anxiety is seems to take a bit longer, but know matter how your quit goes it gets better for everyone eventually. No one could beat off the early withdrawal forever and their are more and more people quitting. It can be done. ROMANCING A CIGARETTE This is the what can only be described as false memories. You will go through triggers throughout the year. The sunshine, going out drinking even sitting down in the morning having a cup of tea. There are times for all of us were we have trained our brains to think that not only did we enjoy a cigarette when being/doing those events but we can not cope with doing these thing without smoking or we would be miserable without one, that we are depriving our selves of something pleasurable. REMEMBER THAT STATMENT How can that be right?!? DEEP BREATHES Instead of reaching for a cigarette when the craving are bad or when you are stress, take yourself some where quiet and take some deep breathes in for a couple of minutes. A craving only lasts for about 3 mins, so if you can take yourself away and just breathe deep for those 3 mins it will pass. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER Read as much information as possible, know your enemy and educate yourself. The information here is priceless but their is also such a wealth of information at your finger tips these days, so use it. If you can change your mind set in to the illusion of smoking it will help you understand what is happening. CELEBRATE YOUR MILESTONES This really worked for me and gave me my new goal everytime I completed one. It also gave me somewhere to share how proud I was with me self. Early in your quit it is a good idea to reward yourself it doesn't have to be expensive just something to focus on. HAVE NO FEAR One of the biggest reasons people don't quit is FEAR The fear that you are going to be miserable all the time that as you watch others smoke that you will always feel like you are missing out. Don't be scared! This will change on it's own eventually, there is a better life out there. The sense of freedom really is worth it. Now I can life my life how I want to, not scurrying around try to fit in a cigarette wherever I go, I'm no longer stress because I am in a place where I can not smoking and I am dying for one. I don't feel self conscious when I am out because I can see the sly looks people are giving me. I'M FREEEEEE!!!!! I hope this will help someone in their plight to be fag free. Their is a saying around these parts ONWARDS AND UPWARDS Just keep putting one foot forward and you will make your goal. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/5873-for-anyone-that-is-struggling/
    3 points
  18. Sunnyside Quit Date: 02/01/22 Posted July 6, 2016 I found this article on another website and thought it may help someone here. By Terry Martin "I quit smoking seven months ago. I do feel better, and I don't struggle all of the time now, but I still have days when I find myself missing my cigarettes. I sometimes wish I could have just one now and then. At times, the urge to smoke is so intense. I wonder if I'll ever be free of this habit? Will I miss smoking forever?" Think for a moment of your life as a tightly woven piece of fabric. Each thread represents your life events and experiences, and running alongside the many "life" threads are threads of a finer gauge. They are so fine in fact, they're impossible to see with the naked eye. Those threads are your smoking habit, and they've become so thoroughly interwoven in the fabric of your life, you find you can't do anything without thinking about how smoking will fit into it. The associations that we build up over time between the activities in our lives and smoking are closely knit. Once you quit smoking, the job becomes one of unraveling those smoking threads, or associations, one by one. How does that happen? And how long does it take? Recovery from nicotine addiction is a process of gradual release over time. Practice Makes Perfect Every smoke-free day you complete is teaching you how to live your life without cigarettes. Bit by bit, you're reprogramming your responses to the daily events that trigger the urge to smoke. The more practice you get, the less cravings will plague you. Over the course of your first smoke-free year, you'll encounter and have a chance to clear most of the events and situations in your daily life that you associate with smoking. Seasonal Smoking Triggers Some smoking triggers are seasonal in nature and can create strong smoking urges months into your quit program. For instance, if you quit smoking during the winter and you're an avid gardener, you could find yourself craving a smoke break the first time you're out digging in the dirt the following spring. Thoughts of smoking related to the seasons may hit you with an intensity you haven't felt in months. Don't worry. Once you make your way through the trigger smoke-free, it will let go and you can move on. The first year is all about firsts...experiencing the many daily events in your life smoke free for the first time. And it's all about practice. You built your smoking habit through years of practice. Now, build the nonsmoking you the same way. Practice is a necessary part of recovery from nicotine addiction, so try to relax and let time help you. The more of it you put between yourself and that last cigarette you smoked, the stronger you'll become. Work on Your Attitude There's another step in finding permanent freedom from nicotine addiction that is just as important as practice and time. It involves your attitude. I'm sure you've heard about people who still struggle years and years after quitting. They're the ones who say they "still miss smoking" 20 years down the road. That's a frightening thing to hear, but don't let it throw you. The reason they are in that position has to do with the fact that they never did the work to change what cigarettes meant to them. Along with using patience and time to help you reprogram your associations with smoking, you must also alter the way you think about your cigarettes. The path to permanent freedom has to do with changing the relationship you have to smoking, and the way to make that mental shift is through education. As the saying goes... Knowledge is Power... ...and it's the truth when it comes to recovering from nicotine addiction. Educate yourself by reading everything you can find about how tobacco harms us from head to toe. It will open your eyes, but more importantly, it will help you start to change the meaning that cigarettes have for you. Once you do that, the mental chains of this addiction will begin to break down for good. You'll truly be free, and believe me, it's a great place to be. Be patient with yourself and allow for as much time as you need to heal from this addiction. There is no set formula for recovery; we're all unique in how we move through the process. Read about nicotine addiction and do the work to change the way you perceive cigarettes. They are instruments of death. They deserve nothing more than your disdain. Don't look at quitting tobacco as a sacrifice. You're not giving up anything of value. Your quit program is a gift. Change your attitude and you'll find your freedom. Cessation is doable, and your precious life is worth the work it takes to achieve. If You Want to Change Your Life, Change Your Mind. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7257-will-i-always-miss-smoking/
    3 points
  19. Doreensfree Quit Date: 7 /8/2013 Posted August 14, 2017 I'm here to tell you exactly what it's like to live with C.O.P.D/emphysema.. It starts with a cough..that get alot worse and persistent.. People put it down to a smokers cough..the time scale can differ, as were all different...all of a sudden it gets herder to do the things you could do easy..take the stairs,walk to the local shop,shower,ect... You get help with inhalers,clinic,s ,rehab,but nothing stops it's on slaught... Very slowly.. You are robbed of your life and depend on your spouse to tend to your needs.. Giving time..depression sets in..then you have to deal with a double whammy.. Panic attacks and anxiety start because all this is scarey stuff to deal with.. This is how you will spend the rest of your life...and it could be years... Fighting for your every breath..panic and anxiety...on oxygen tanks... You owe it to yourself and your spouse to avoid this at all costs... I am that spouse and we deal with this on a daily basis.... Quit..the risk of smoking is too high..x Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/8969-if-you-still-need-that-nudge-to-quitread-on/
    3 points
  20. Sazerac Quit Date: October 23, 2013, A Good Day to be Free. Posted June 4, 2016 Please, Take Your LIVES Seriously ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 'real' life and here on the QTrain, I see people being careless about their lives and their quit, like they have all the time in the world ! 'I'll quit next week, maybe tomorrow, I'll quit again sometime'. Are they not understanding how dangerous smoking is ? It's a friggin' Slow Suicide ! The ramifications are Horrible. This is no joke. Ask our beautiful friend, Doreen ! I, too, used to be casual about quitting, casual about smoking. so, it is no surprise to see others in Denial. I wasn't listening to any kind of Sense, or Logic, or TRUTH, either. Then, suddenly, I 'got it' and thanks to the information here, I educated myself about Nicotine Addiction. After that, there was simply no other choice except to Quit and be Quick about it ! I would no longer live as a Slave, or die as one either ! I wish I could give that Eureka moment to everybody struggling with addiction but, I don't know what happened or why. At a certain point, I listened and Understood and I give this to you, Understand your addiction, and Be Free of it. Your Lives are Precious. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7092-please-take-your-lives-seriously/
    2 points
  21. gonfishn21 Quit Date: 11.15.15 Posted March 1, 2018 For Nancy Mental Balloons Posted by gonfishn21 on 16 January 2015 - 06:17 PM As I'm now chasing the tweenie label, and have been thinking a lot about the concerns I have had regading No Man's Land, its got me thinking again. As most of you know, that means I'm going to ramble. Although I am not one that needs a lot of kudos, it seems that it is a necessary part of this process for a while. We make it through day 1 HURRAH!!!!!!!!!! We make it through hell week HURRAY!!!! Heck week over, " I feel better" HURRAy!! Two weeks, wow, learning to get through the craves, HURRay! Three weeks, can be around my friends and family without committing a felony, HURray Four weeks, nerves under control, waistband a little tight, not bad, HUrray Five weeks, walking, eating right, digestion shut down, but not smoking, Hurray Six weeks, no craves, no moods, no smoking, digestion shut down, HUH? Seven to eight weeks, no one wants to know but you, how you are doing. By the way, my digestion is shut down! They really stopped wanting to hear weeks ago, you just kept talking about it. You can see it in their eyes when you walk up. They probably have a pool about how long it will take you to bring it up. Or even worse, the day your digestion works! Yeah, wow woot woot yippee, big deal. Hello No Man's Land' How am i going to keep going with this? I need to bring my own ballons to the party. I know my friends and family care, but they dont get it. Even as firm as I have been since day one, this is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I know it, thats all that matters. As i reach the little milestones ahead, I need to be the one who says HURRAY!!!!!. I need to be the one who acknowledges the accomplishments. Afterall, in the end, I made the decision to quit, I made it through hell week, heck week, and i am the one who may never digest food again. I need to remind myself everyday, how much I have accomplished, BEFORE I have a chance to get weak. In that way, I can stay ahead, be ready to face any challenge with a strong defense. Smoking is no longer an option for me. Smoking is just something I used to do. I control my actions, and smoking is a choice. I choose not to smoke, even if I never digest food again. I found a website the other day, that actually teaches you HOW TO SMOKE. I couldn't believe it. It takes you through lighting it, drawing on it, how it feels.......Holy Crap I was feeling it!!!!! Two flipping months into this, and I was feeling it, and then I knew. I had to make mental ballons and carry them with me at all times. Everyday is a celebration, everyday needs reminders, and everyday has its challenges. There is no one here, that can not do it. I'm not special. I'm just going to carry my own balloons. Just sayin, Gon Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/9819-mental-balloons/
    2 points
  22. babs609 Posted February 13, 2015 Quitting smoking is often referred to a roller coaster ride, and with good reason. While one minute you are feeling confident and strong that you finally "beat" that sucker. Thinking.."Yes! I'm doing it..I'm gonna make it"..only to be followed by feelings of doubt, fear, anger, frustration, sadness, lonliness..and these feelings can change within just moments. This is the part that would beat me down in prior attempts. I just was tired of the ups and downs. I think having the "ups" was actually a deterrent to my quit because it would set me up...when I would feel restless...it would piss me off because I thought I was done with all that. Please please please...keep in mind...these thoughts that just pop up out of nowhere are not YOU. Any thoughts that pop in our heads are not actually us. We aren't controlling them...we are just going about our business and them BAM! there's a thought. Now....you have a decision to make. If you are someone who normally runs with their thoughts...this could be trouble for you. You actually may believe these thoughts to be true without question. You give these thoughts power by believing they are true when in fact.....they are a complete lie all made up in your head. Being an ex-smoker in the early days or weeks of quitting without truly grasping the reality that your thoughts are not true...then you may be not only heading for relapse but are in danger of becoming a chronic relapser until you change your thought patterns. No matter what...don't believe you are a weak person. This kind of thinking re-enforces to your subconcious that other quitters are stronger and you are weaker and therefore....quitting is harder or even impossible for you. That's total BULL$HIT. That just gives the addiction more power. It's already powerful...more powerful than you. Otherwise..you would have quit long ago or maybe not even started. Although the addiction is stronger than you....it's not smarter. "Keep your friends close and your enemy's closer"....that saying couldn't be further from the truth when referring to the addiction. Learn all you can about the addiction. Don't just read....absorb it...live it...taste it....feel it...and most of all...believe it. Learn all the tricks it will try to play on you...learn what fellow quitters have done when faced with these challenges. Believe with your whole heart that you are no different than anyone else. You are not weaker than us...your addiction is not stronger than ours... Until you understand that...you will either struggle and continue this fight and give up quitting altogether until illness or death forces you to quit....OR..you will struggle and fight and relapse after relapse after relapse until you either finally absorb the teachings of fellow quitters...wasting months or years in the meantime and just making it harder for yourself than it really has to be. I wish this could be a post where a lightbulb goes off in your head and you say "aha! I got it!!! I finally got it" But that lightbulb moment is different for everyone and that's why I just ask everyone lurking and reading and contemplating quitting...to just keep coming back here...keep reading...keep reading...keep reading. Lots of posts and video's to help you "undo the brainwashing" that has been planted in your head from the years of being a smoker. It takes time......it takes patience..it takes re-enforcement... In short, it takes work...but it is sooooooo worth it. When you finally are ready...and you put down your final cigarette... Keep your arms and legs in at all times...put your buckle on...and enjoy the ride. You might as well because even though we enjoy when we feel good...it's the hard times that strengthens you. ONE DAY AT A TIME>>>ONE MOMENT AT A TIME Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4460-the-roller-coaster-ride/
    2 points
  23. Jenny Quit Date: 05/24/2012 Posted March 30, 2014 Throughout your quit you are likely to be faced with events that bring thoughts of smoking back to the forefront of your mind. I've been quit nearly two years (28 year smoker) and while it does not happen often, it still happens. Not like when you first quit and craving a cigarette can be a whole body experience, but more of a thought. Your mind after so many years of smoking has been conditioned to think that a cigarette is what you need when you are stressed, mad, sad and even happy. We told ourselves lies for so many years to justify the need to get our fix. We allowed ourselves to believe that a cigarette helped us in these situations. Of course it didn't. It was just the addiction talking. We just needed nicotine and no justification for that was deemed ridiculous, even though it was. In the words of a wonderful woman named Susan, a thought to smoke is never a command. Remember why you quit and push those thoughts away. Always keep the quit. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/19-triggers-after-you-quit/
    2 points
  24. Colleen Quit Date: 6/2/13 Posted June 13, 2015 I was scared too. Thought I had this super addictive personality and all those who had successfully quit before me weren't really addicted to smoking. Shortly after you quit, you are going to figure it out, but I'll let you in on the secret now...it's a bunch of baloney. Nobody is more addicted to smoking than anyone else. It's the monster otherwise known as nicotine playing tricks on you, kick his ass to the curb because once you let go of that illusion everything seems to fall into place. Remember sticking your toe in the pool and thinking it's much too cold to swim in? Do you also remember once you jumped in (or were pushed in) you realized it wasn't that bad at all? That is exactly what quitting smoking is like. It's 10 times more easier than you thought it was. Okay, so it's not always rainbows and unicorns, but it's nowhere as bad as you think it is. Trust me, this is coming from someone that couldn't go 3 hours without a cigarette. Or trust my ticker, it doesn't lie Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/5481-are-you-scared-to-quit-smoking/
    2 points
  25. Markus Quit Date: 02-19-2008 Posted April 4, 2014 It's all very personal. Even though the methods used to quit are the same with slight variations depending on an individual's preference it all is a very personal thing. You always choose what works for you or just wing it. You do that on your own, always. Some plans I see I just cringe, but you know it usually ends up that it works for that person. A step-wise plan to quit is a good idea but doesn't need to be complex, and a fallback plan is even better. You can start by acting like a nonsmoker; see yourself a few weeks and a few months from now. What do you look like, what are you doing? Get to the reading and the writing. Post and become a part of this forum and pay it forward to cement your quit in your mind. You will do this on your own with a little help (minimal) assistance from your friends here. Nobody can quit for you, but you can learn how to stay quit here. Any or all of items 1-7 below, will make it better. (1) Commit to Not One Puff Ever (NOPE). (2) Commit to Never Take Another Puff (NTAP). (3) Educate yourself about your addiction. Read, post, learn, overcome. Lather, rinse, repeat. (4) Decide that you do not want to smoke more than you want to smoke. This may save you from relapse. (5) Take control of your life, reclaim your mind and body, and get it straight about who owns you. Is it you? Or your addiction? (6) Realize that you'll always be an addict, a puff away from a pack a day, but you choose not to smoke. That's all of us. (7) Start acting like a non smoker, like you never smoked, walk the walk. A cigarette is never the answer to anything but disease. ( 8 Have a plan B if Plan A that you are using now fails. Make your plan B from steps 1-7, above. *(9) Celebrate your quit! Talk it up, be proud of what you have accomplished! Alright, enough with the steps and commitment to this and that already! Look at this logically if you will. How else can you possibly quit smoking by any other means than stopping using cigarettes? The addiction to nicotine cannot be overcome by administering the same thing to yourself that you are addicted to, (nicotine). What that means is when you are at 5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 28 days quit, and you find yourself craving a cigarette (your delivery device for nicotine), you cannot beat that crave/association with a cigarette. You might fix a bad hangover with some hair of the dog that bit you, but you can't fix a cigarette crave with a cigarette and still expect to quit smoking. Can you? Now go look at the items again, you have the desire. What is missing if anything? You decide along the way, revamp the plan if you need to, adapt to your conditions, if something isn't working, get rid of it. Anything to keep the quit. You have to be fair to yourself, but firm. It will get better over time, but you'll only see it if you commit to it. And so you will. Welcome to a new life! Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/221-welcome-to-a-new-life-your-quit/
    2 points
  26. beacon Posted November 22, 2014 Good video. This is what I struggled with. Still if I get a thought about smoking it is when I am relaxed and doing nothing and not when I am stressed. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/3552-how-to-do-nothing-without-smoking/
    2 points
  27. Sunnyside Quit Date: 02/01/22 Posted December 2, 2016 We all chose to smoke and stick to it. When you first started it never became easy to you. You had to work to make it feel natural. You had to work to become a full time smoker. All the discomfort of coughing, head spinning, feeling sick didn't stop you from carrying on. Going around and around with the constant cravings never stop you. Now years of conditioning later you have now decided the you want to quit. Now it's about pay the price for the choices that you made because you smoked or pay an even bigger price later on for not going through this now. It sounds harsh and brutal but this is completely true! Which price do you want to pay? You had to retrained your brain and body to smoke. Now put that same effort into retraining yourself to stop. You can do it. Just put the same effort in. Just as it got easier in time to smoke and it became natural,a part of you and you could never see the end. IF you stop you will get to the point that you will look at smokers and it won't look natural or right to you. Further along it does get easier. Life becomes normal again. Remember it's your choice. It always has been. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7786-the-choices-we-make/
    2 points
  28. Doreensfree Quit Date: 7 /8/2013 Posted October 14, 2018 This is a crippling illness.... Slowly getting worse.... My hubby has suffered for years....needs oxygen regularly for 16 hrs a day.... Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/11235-emphysema-explained/
    2 points
  29. notsmokinjo Quit Date: 28/11/2017 Posted October 9, 2018 Are you afraid to QUIT? ... I was. Are you scared that you will fail or fail again? ... Yep, me too. Is your fear that it will be too hard? .... kinda Is your fear you just can't do it? ... that too Is your fear quitting will make you sick? ... yep Is your fear quitting will hasten you death? ... Absolutely petrified this would be the case and as irrational as it was it was the biggest fear I faced. You know what I learnt when I quit? ..... I learnt fear is just a tool nicotine used to control me... it was irrational and built out of proportion. I have been quit for over 10 months now and if anything I am angry with myself that I wasted so many years smoking because I was scarred for all the reasons above. Have I failed?.... not yet, and I wont, I have no intentions of failing, I feel comfortable saying this feels different than any previous quit. I'm an addict, I'll always be an addict, I'll always be one puff away from a pack a day... but I know that, I embrace that and I really don't want that one puff ever. Was it too hard??? .... Hell no, it was actually easier than I thought it would be... not saying it wasn't hard my lovelies because it was... but it was nowhere near as hard as I had let fear build it up to in my mind. I've certainly done much harder things in my life but then again I've done much easier things too... facing my fears head on and not using them as an excuse to not try has made it easier than I thought it could ever be. Could I do it??? ...... YES... I could and you can too... its simple, don't put anything in your mouth and set it on fire... after that first 24 hours, I know I could do a day without smoking, I'd done it... so I only have to last 24 hours... then when that's up I only have to last another one.... 10 months later people and here I am doing this every day... same way I'm going to be doing it for the rest of my days. So did quitting make me sick???..... NOPE.... not one bit, didn't even get bronchitis this winter and its been a long time since that was the case. So if you have been lurking you might know I have some health issues that came to light after I quit but had I not quit it would have been too late to do anything to make me better... so no, quitting did not make me sick, it is helping to cure me. Am I dead??? ......NOPE... obviously... and some of you may be scratching your heads at this one.... but for nearly a decade I was terrified to quit, I had worked the fear almost to the point of phobia, occasionally I still have nightmares that because I am not smoking I will die... Is this chick frickin' crazy? I hear you ask yourselves.... well yes, we all know that I am, but my brain and the hold I let nicotine have over it turned a failed quit attempt (that saw me end up in hospital in a coma post a PE from a DVT) into nearly a decade of 'certainty' that if I tried to quit again I would die. I mean break out in a sweat at the thought of it fear. Long story short, I used a quit method and had a bad reaction to it that caused a DVT that turned into a Pulmonary Embolism ... so 3 days in a coma, nearly 2 weeks in hospital and what was the first thing I did when I walked out the door... I lit up.... and then I convinced myself, or let my addiction convince me, that I should never try to quit again because next time I wouldn't be leaving the hospital.... BUT am I dead???? NOPE.... Will I die??... well of course I will, we all will, but what I can guarantee you 100% is that quitting will not be why I died. So what did I have to Fear???.... NOTHING, my fears were all like wisps of smoke... I blew against them and they dispersed into the ether leaving me smoke free, nicotine free.... leaving me free. And guess what, you too can face your fear. Don't let a fear that has festered and grown because of an addiction's want of control over you be the thing that stops you from quitting. Use today, International Face Your Fears Day... to do just that, face your fear and take back your life. Just over 10 months ago I did and it was the best gift I have ever given myself. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/11208-scared-to-quit-face-your-fears-i-did-and-lived-to-tell/
    2 points
  30. Jenny Quit Date: 05/24/2012 Posted March 30, 2014 I love this article on why you can't have just one. It Takes Just One Cigarette to Relapse. January 14, 2013 by Cameron Kellett You will never smoke again. Accepting this is perhaps the most daunting aspect of quitting smoking and nicotine addiction recovery. The thought of never having another cigarette can be so overwhelming, that smokers will willingly go to the grave an addict and never again taste a life free from the disease addiction. If you have decided you no longer want to be a drug addict always in need, the reality of never smoking again is what you must ultimately confront. In order to heal from addiction and achieve freedom you must be completely resolved to never smoke another cigarette again. Why? Because the next smoke is always going to be just one cigarette. As will the next one and the next one and the next one! You see, the thing with healing from nicotine addiction, is that it relies on a large number of neurons and neural connections within your brain metabolizing and breaking down due to INACTIVITY!. The moment you smoke, especially during the early stages, you re ignite weakened connections that have been laying dormant. Instead of allowing them to break down, you re invigorate them and in turn, re enforce them. Quitting immediately becomes harder. To be free, you have to heal, and to heal, you must absolutely not smoke. Having a smoke will always be a step backward. Having a smoke will always be a step backward. There are going to be times, even in the medium to long term, the deceiving allure of tobacco will force you to recall the high of dopamine that came after relieving withdrawal. If you find yourself arguing that “just one cigarette,” won’t hurt, you are in all likelihood, not fully resolved to quitting. Chances are, you’re also not prepared for long term recovery and have possibly quit under false expectations. Full recovery takes many months and there will be many craves and many individual neural connections to break down. Of the very small percentage of smokers who relapse after medium to long term recovery, each and every one started with just one cigarette. If you decide that one cigarette won’t hurt, you will almost certainly spend the rest of your life a miserable full time smoker. Recovery always begins and ends after your LAST cigarette and never, ever, the next. The fact is, until you choose to not smoke, EVER, you will never become a happy and free non smoker. Recovery always begins and ends after your LAST cigarette and never, EVER, the next. If you find yourself debating whether to have just one cigarette, ask yourself this question: Are you willing to undo everything you have achieved, all the recovery you have been through, and waste all that pain you have suffered, just to satisfy an extremely short and momentary whim? A whim that will pass in less than a second if you allow it too. No? Then I guess it’s time to get on with enjoying the rest of your life! Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/20-why-nope-is-a-must/
    2 points
  31. Soberjulie Posted April 16, 2014 In other words, begin where you are. But begin. Please stop waiting. Sometimes delay can have very serious consequences. As an addict I wanted the parade, the grand announcement, the regal launch, the ceremonial countdown, the press conference, the complete preparation with the guarantee of success before I thought I could start......before I could visualize what starting even looked like. Working through these things, waiting to make them happen, burns through precious time. And it is a trick.....a trick that addiction plays to keep us enslaved. Begin where you are, but begin. If all you can do is crawl, start crawling. One moment at a time, if you don't pick up that cigarette you'll be up and dancing eventually. (Though at first, most of us tend to complain about the music a bit till we find our own rhythm, but that's okay too. It's just a mask for our fear of being judged for how we dance. Stay on the dance floor and that will fall away.) Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/698-are-you-thinking-of-quitting/
    2 points
  32. Sazerac Quit Date: October 23, 2013, A Good Day to be Free. Posted July 31, 2016 All you quitters will remember this scenario, all you smokers don't have to live it anymore. "Man, gimme a smoke. I just need a smoke. Everything is just too much. I need a smoke." "ahhh. thanks, that's better." Really ? What's better ? The situation is still the same situation. Nothing is better, things are just what they were. The only thing that changed is you are chilled because you fed your addiction. You are a good slave. An obedient Slave. What seems better is only an illusion....what was accomplished ? You delayed withdrawal symptoms for another twenty minutes until the next crave. In twenty minutes or so, no matter what is going on...real crisis or no, you will have another crisis, the need to feed your addiction again because you are a good slave, a very good slave. The Truth is you don't need that smoke. You need to get a grip and stop your blind obedience to nicotine addiction. Your body and mind need to remember how to live. Your body needs water, food, rest, deep delicious breaths of oxygen. You Need to be Free. Remember when you were Free ? Maybe you don't remember because addiction has hijacked your brain and your soul. No worries, you WILL remember how to be free. It's simple. It's Freedom. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7355-you-need-a-smoke/
    2 points
  33. NADA Members Posted October 25, 2017 When I was thirteen years old this new kid, Nick, moved into my neighborhood. At first I didn’t like him at all. In fact, you could even say he made me sick. But after a few weeks he started to grow on me and before you knew it we were hanging out daily. Nick seemed like the coolest kid on the planet…so much more mature than my childish peers. And hanging out with him made me feel cool too. Before long I found that I couldn’t stand being away from Nick. Even for an hour. My other friends were not impressed by Nick in the least. They avoided me like the plague whenever he was around. Likewise, I found myself rejecting offers to do things with my friends because I didn’t want to be away from Nick for any extended period of time. I just got too agitated and anxious. As the years went by, I lived my life on Nick’s terms. Whatever he wanted to do we did. I no longer had any input. Nick always put me in extremely dangerous situations, but I felt powerless to contradict him. This twisted relationship went on for decades. I was allowing Nick to slowly, but inevitably, drag me to the precipice. One day I woke up hacking and coughing so violently I thought I was going to die. Nick stood by my side with a blank smirk on his face. I knew right then and there that he wasn’t going to help me. He would let me wither away without a second thought. Only I could help myself. So, on November 22, 2015 I kicked my friend Nick O. Demon to the curb and vowed never to hang out with him again. My life, health, relationships and sense of well being have shot through the roof since I dumped that “friend”. I do not miss him even one tiny bit. Good riddance! Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/9243-my-friend-nick/
    2 points
  34. Soberjulie Posted April 16, 2014 How do you feel about a friend who has to go everywhere with you? Not only does he tag along all the time, but since he is so offensive and vulgar, you become unwelcome when with him. He has a peculiar odor that sticks to you wherever you go. Others think both of you stink. He controls you totally. When he says jump, you jump. Sometimes in the middle of a blizzard or storm, he wants you to come to the store and pick him up. You would give your spouse hell if he or she did that to you all the time, but you can't argue with your friend. Sometimes, when you are out at a movie or play he says he wants you to go stand in the lobby with him and miss important scenes. Since he calls all the shots in your life, you go. Your friend doesn't like your choice of clothing either. Instead of politely telling you that you have lousy taste, he burns little holes in these items so you will want to throw them out. Sometimes, he tires of the furniture and gets rid of it too. Occasionally, he gets really nasty and decides the whole house must go. He gets pretty expensive to support. Not only is his knack of property destruction costly, but you must pay to keep him with you. In fact, he will cost you thousands of dollars over your lifetime. And you can count on one thing, he will never pay you a penny in return. Often at picnics you watch others playing vigorous activities and having lots of fun doing them. But your friend won't let you. He doesn't believe in physical activity. In his opinion, you are too old to have that kind of fun. So he kind of sits on your chest and makes it difficult for you to breathe. Now you don't want to go off and play with other people when you can't breathe, do you? Your friend does not believe in being healthy. He is really repulsed by the thought of you living a long and productive life. So, every chance he gets he makes you sick. He helps you catch colds and flu. Not just by running out in the middle of the lousy weather to pick him up at the store. He is more creative than that. He carries thousands of poisons with him which he constantly blows in your face. When you inhale some of them, they wipe out cilia in your lungs which would have helped you prevent these diseases. But colds and flu are just his form of child's play. He especially likes diseases that slowly cripple you - like emphysema. He considers this disease great. Once he gets you to have this, you will give up all your other friends, family, career goals, activities - everything. You will just sit home and caress him, telling him what a great friend he is while you desperately gasp for air. But eventually your friend tires of you. He decides he no longer wishes to have your company. Instead of letting you go your separate ways, he decides to kill you. He has a wonderful arsenal of weapons behind him. In fact, he has been plotting your death since the day you met him. He picked all the top killers in society and did everything in his power to ensure you would get one of them. He overworked your heart and lungs. He clogged up the arteries to your heart, brain, and every other part of your body. In case you were too strong to succumb to this, he constantly exposed you to cancer causing agents. He knew he would get you sooner or later. Well, this is the story of your "friend," your cigarette. No real friend would do all this to you. Cigarettes are the worst possible enemies you ever had. They are expensive, addictive, socially unacceptable, and deadly. Consider all this and - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF! Joel © Joel Spitzer 1990 Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/709-my-cigarette-my-friend/
    2 points
  35. Aine Quit Date: 2-26-2014 Posted April 17, 2014 I love this bit by John Polito on the nature of a relapse; I need the reiteration of some of these basic ideas of addiction and the dangers of romanticizing the smoke. "Just one rule - “No nicotine today!” There are hundreds of quitting books with millions of words and scores of quick-fix magic cures promising near painless and sure-fire success. There is but one principle that affords a 100% guarantee of success to all adhering to it ... “No nicotine today.” While the Brandon and Boreland studies afford the junkie-mind an ever so slight amount of wiggle-room on the violation side of “The Law,” there is zero wiggle-room for those of us who fully take it to heart. It is impossible to fail so long as no nicotine enters our bloodstream. If we want to live nicotine-free then why toy with horrible odds? The Final Truth Assume for a moment that we made it! We learned how to remain patient during the few minutes a crave episode clamored for compliance. We knocked them dead. We stuck with it for the full 72 hours it took to empty our blood, brain and body of all nicotine. At last we were clean! Our healing and glory continued for the roughly two to three weeks it took for our mind to adjust to chemically functioning without nicotine and all the other chemicals that arrived with it. We confronted and extinguished all but our remote, infrequent or seasonal subconscious crave triggers, and tasted that very first day of total and complete comfort where we never once thought about wanting to use nicotine. But still, we have days where our mind becomes occupied with thoughts of lighting a fire between our lips, or of chewing “nicotiana tabacum” (the tobacco plant’s biological name) or of a quick dip in nicotine’s pond. Years of hard to suppress dopamine “aaah” replenishment memories keep teasing us. How does the recovering, rationalizing or bargaining mind’s vision of what it would be like to just once more use nicotine, compare with the realities that occur during relapse? Recall that the 1990 Brandon study examined lapse and relapse in smokers who’d successfully completed a two-week stop smoking program. The study also documented the primary emotion felt immediately following smoking nicotine. Assume that at two weeks into recovery, each who lapsed during the Brandon study had already succeeded in fully navigating physical withdrawal. Assume that their brains had almost fully re-sensitized. Reflect on the fact that the addict’s sense of “nicotine normal” no longer existed. By that I mean, there was no chemical missing, nothing in need of replenishment, the number of acetylcholine receptors had fully down-regulated, and their brain’s sense of homeostasis had been fully restored. So what was their prime emotion following relapse? The vast majority had a negative reaction. Among them, 13% felt depressed and hopeless, 33% experienced anxiety and tension, 16% were angry and irritated, and 12% felt boredom or fatigue. Only 3.6% reported what most of us would have expected following normal replenishment, which was “feeling relaxed.” Although some of us hated bondage, there is no denying that each nicotine fix brought relief from falling blood nicotine levels that were beginning to deprive us of a level of dopamine to which we'd grown accustomed. Each nicotine fix played a vital role in restoring us to a relaxed level of comfort upon which we had each come to depend. Chronic nicotine use creates its own artificial sense of normalcy, an addiction comfort level. Yes, each fix brought the addict in us a true sense of comfort (from the pains of our own addiction) and yes, most of those memories still remain. However, one important thing has changed: our brain no longer has a chemical need for nicotine. If we visit online quitting forums and dig back through messages describing relapses that occurred beyond week two, most will have a common ring to them. They read like this, "I had a mouth full of smoke, I was dizzy and I coughed, but I didn’t get the sense of satisfaction I expected. It just didn’t come!" The thousands of enticing memories in their mind expected a sense of "aaah" relief from wanting. But their body and mind had already adjusted to life without nicotine. There was no need for replenishment as nothing was missing. The take it or leave it feeling in no way matched the relief felt when satisfying dopamine pathway want. The need to use just wasn’t there. Unlike when those old want satisfaction “aaah” memories were created, there was nothing missing, no withdrawal induced anxieties or depression, and nothing that needed replenishing. Without realizing it, while their conscious mind simply tinkered with the prospect of functioning without nicotine, their body and brain were on a path of real and significant physical healing. Falsely convinced of the need for nicotine in order to feel normal, while they briefly paused in using it, they did not embrace the prospect of life without it. They longed for what was left behind, blamed every healing sensation on its absence, and in doing so transformed a culprit into a cure. So, with great expectations they took that first puff; expectations now shattered. " Exerpt from a free pdf book by Polito JR entitled "Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey Home" Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/756-just-one-rule-“no-nicotine-today”/
    2 points
  36. Ladybug Posted April 9, 2014 I have no idea where I got this from, but it's in my quit diary and I thought I share it with you guys! As to silencing the inner voice: The secret is a repeated conscious choice. If you draw a saw across a log one time, you may make a scratch in the bar. If you draw it across the log a few more times you may scratch the surface of the wood. If you keep drawing the saw across the same place on the log, the scratch will get deeper, until it becomes a cut, then a groove.... If you keep on drawing the saw across the log, beyond counting the number of times, eventually you'll draw it clear through to the other side. Every morning you get up and consciously choose not to smoke today, you're drawing the saw across the log....keep doing that...and you'll reach the other side. Keep sawing!!! Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/429-how-to-silence-the-inner-voice/
    2 points
  37. soul Quit Date: 11.29.09 Posted April 8, 2014 I have taken the liberty to borrow a writing from a great man and modify it (may he forgive me) to fit the principle of "Paying it Forward" in the smoking cessation world...................... Here below is what I stand for, in all my affairs............. "I stand by the door" I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out. The door is among the most important doors in the world - It is the door through which men walk when they find Freedom. There is no use my going way inside and staying there, When so many are still outside and they, as much as I, Crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find Is only the wall where the door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men, With outstretched, groping hands, Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door, Yet they never find it. So I stand by the door. The most tremendous thing in the world Is for men to find that door - the door to Freedom. The most important thing that any man can do Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks And opens to the man's own touch. Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter. Die for want of what is within their grasp. They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it. Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it, And open it, and walk in, So I stand by the door. Go in; go all the way in - Go way down into the cavernous cellars, And way up into the spacious attics. It is a vast, roomy house, this house of Freedom. Go into the deepest of hidden casements, Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood. Some must inhabit those inner rooms And know the depths and heights of Freedom, And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is. Sometimes I take a deeper look in. Sometimes venture in a little farther, But my place seems closer to the opening. So I stand by the door. There is another reason why I stand there. Somebody must be watching for the frightened Who seek to sneak out just where they came in, To tell them how much better it is inside. The people too far in do not see how near these are To leaving - preoccupied with the wonder of it all. Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door But would like to run away. So for them too, I stand by the door. I admire the people who go way in. But I wish they would not forget how it was Before they got in. Then they would be able to help The people who have not yet even found the door. Or the people who want to run away again . You can go in too deeply and stay in too long And forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place................. Where? Outside the door - Thousands of them. Millions of them. But - more important for me - One of them, two of them, ten of them. Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch. So I shall stand by the door and wait For those who seek it. 'I had rather be a door-keeper So I stand by the door. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/378-why-do-we-pay-it-forward/
    2 points
  38. Doreensfree Quit Date: 7 /8/2013 Posted July 12, 2019 Women Who Smoke At Risk of Vulval Cancer 27 June 2019 By Frances Hardy In the UK, 58 women are diagnosed and 21 die each day from gynaecological cancers. Here a doctor explains the impact smoking can have on a woman's body For many people, the idea of developing cancer is hard to comprehend. Yet young female smokers are at particular risk of developing the disease – in parts of their body they might not even know could be affected by their habit. Dr Jeff Foster, a private GP based in Leamington Spa, explains: “Smoking is a serious risk factor for many cancers including lung, breast and throat. But it’s easy to forget it is having the same impact all over the body.” What Does Smoking Do to Your Reproductive Organs? The Impact of Smoking on Male and Female Fertility Gender and Smoking: How Men and Women Differ In particular, smoking is a risk factor for gynaecological cancers. In the UK, 58 women are diagnosed and 21 die each day from one of these cancers, which includes womb, ovarian, cervical, vaginal and vulval. This last is probably the least known type - yet vulval cancer is diagnosed in 1,000 women each year, according to the Eve Appeal, the charity which specialises in gynaecological cancers. Mostly found in women over 60 – although younger cases are becoming more common – vulval cancer has been linked to the human papilloma virus (HPV) infection as well as a weakened immune system. It can also be due to a skin condition called lichen sclerosus. And according to Cancer Research UK, researchers have found a clear link between vulval cancer and smoking. Researchers have found a clear link between vulval cancer and smoking This is partly because smoking weakens our immune system so that it’s harder to get rid of infections such as HPV which cause cancer. It is also possible, says Cancer Research UK, that the harmful substances in tobacco damage cells in the vulva directly and so lead to the development of vulval cancer. Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a risk factor for vulval cancer as well as cervical cancer. It is possible that being a smoker may mean that you are less able to get rid of the HPV infection from your body. One of the dangers of this type of cancer is that its intimate location means women may not notice early symptoms, so diagnosis comes later than it should. “Many women will only be diagnosed with vulval cancer,” Dr Foster explains, “when they are examined for something else, like a repeat smear test.” However, there may be earlier signs, including a new itch or sore patch, a lump or swelling on the labia, or a burning pain when you pass urine. "Women should never be embarrassed to contact their GP if they experience any of these," he adds. Treatment is surgery, Dr Foster says, unless the cancer has spread into lymph nodes. “Vulval cancer doesn’t usually spread too far so chemo is not often needed although a course of radiotherapy may be used.” Survivors of vulval cancer are grateful but tell of operations which have left them feeling less feminine as a result. Clare Baumhauer, in her 40s, from Kent, explained in her blog that radiotherapy had sent her into an early menopause, saying: “In May 2016 I had the surgery to remove a tumour from my perineum, but they couldn’t get clear margins so I had radiotherapy but unfortunately it had spread to my lymph nodes so I then had two further operations on my lymph nodes and more radiotherapy. Giving up smoking is essential "Which put me straight into the menopause and I now have lymphedema in both my legs, pelvis and abdomen, among other side effects.” On the whole, survival rates are good. According to Cancer Research UK, for all women with vulval cancer more than 80 percent will survive their cancer for five years or more after diagnosis. "Giving up smoking is essential," says Dr Foster, to "prevent further cell damage and to help your body recover faster." “Better still,” he says, “young women could be encouraged to give up smoking before cell changes make cancer inevitable.” Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/12727-interesting-article-for-the-ladies/
    1 point
  39. jillar Posted November 30 *A lifetime of freedom from nicotine. *Worldwide support from members in all phases of quitting and who know and can relate to what you may go through at any given time in your quit. *Tons of educational material about our addiction to nicotine. Be it by reading, watching videos or asking other members. We have it all So what do you have to lose by becoming a member? ACT NOW and you can go into the New Year COMPLETELY SMOKE FREE! You heard that right folks. No more burn holes everywhere No more stale smoke stink on you and all your stuff AND we already told you about all the extra CASH All this and there's STILL MORE! Yep, we've saved the best for last. Quit now and enjoy better health and less colds. Better circulation, pinker gums, the list goes on and on... So give yourself the ultimate gift this holiday season. You won't regret it Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/14789-free-to-all-new-members-who-register/
    1 point
  40. Martian5 Quit Date: 01/04/2018 Posted May 29, 2019 We all know the more known problems from years of smoking (Cancer, COPD, Heart problems and such) but their are some problems that are lesser known. Today I am going to the dentist to start fixing my mouth. Most of the problems are tied in with my smoking over those many years, something I really did not think about. For the past year it has been very difficult for me to eat and also a lot of pain. Now I have been dealing with COPD (at this point stage 1 and has done much better since quitting and not really advancing at this point) but now I have to deal with all these upcoming dental appointments to include 3 different appointments for oral surgery (first this morning) then several appointments to replace several missing teeth. I do not enjoy going to the dentist but most of all I do not enjoy what this will be doing to my wallet. At this point it is going to be close to $20,000.00 (there goes all the money I have been saving from my quitting). The main point here is not sympathy for me but to let others know to include those that are lurking and have yet to make the choice to quit is that you really need to understand everything that smoking cigarettes can do to you. It all sneaks up on you and will cost you both to health and to your wallet. I have done this to myself and I must take accountability for my actions but hopefully others will see this and do some serious thinking!!!!!!! Quit now so that you can live a better life in so many ways!!!!! Sorry about the long post but I get really anxious about going to the dentist, oh alright -- scared, and it is about an hour before I can take the sedative -- anyway good day to all. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/12490-lesser-known-medical-problems-from-smoking/
    1 point
  41. Colleen Quit Date: 6/2/13 Posted April 21, 2014 This can't be a complete list, I am sure. There's a good chance you weren't aware of at least one of the diseases. I would have never connected blindness to smoking. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/833-smoking-affects-more-than-your-lungs/
    1 point
  42. sharonsiff Quit Date: 12 June 2013 Posted January 12, 2015 I have added this video I found to Chyrs relapse post but I'll put it out here too. Explains the 3 stages of a relapse Emotional, Mental and Physical. This would have been a fabulous video for me during my first months and hopefully will be of use to others who may need it now. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4154-a-relapse-prevention-plan-the-tools-of-recovery/
    1 point
  43. Lust4Life Quit Date: Sept 26 2016 Posted October 9, 2018 Those of you that know me from QSMB know that I was a secret smoker. Closet smoker. Naïve smoker. Pick a label any label. I lived in constant fear. Constant worry. Fear of being outed. So much worry. Which cracks me up now because smokers stink no matter what is done to mask it. Pretty sure my smoking was the pink elephant in the room no one talked about. Yay! I had an ongoing checklist. Do I have air freshener in my car, face wipes, baby powder? Mints, gum, mouthwash?. Do I have time to drive around the block again and keep smoking? Never ending cycle of worry. Before leaving for a night out- do I have enough cigs? Better get another pack. I never bought cigs by the carton. Only real smokers bought cigarettes by the carton. Right? Hahahahaha! Oh my. When out in public; the worry of being spotted was ever present. Go outside around the building, downwind, hide behind that tree. Constant worry. When home – did I empty and hide the ashtrays? Did I sweep away the ashes in case we have a drop in visitor? Can my neighbor see or smell the smoke? Are the bugs out yet? In the South, we have some bugs. Your home can be as clean as an OR and you’ll still have some bugs inside. Outside…game on. Gigantic mutant roaches that fly. Mosquitoes that steal gallons of your blood from one bite. Hurricane Michael is knocking on the shores of my home State. I checked with family-everyone has everything. He’ll barrel through some more of the SE. We have prepared and have what we need. Gas tank is full in both cars. We have batteries. We have containers of water in the freezer. Pantry is stocked. All devices are perched on chargers until the power goes. And, it will go. Matches for candles and grills. The cigarettes are at the store. I don’t have any. I am not worried about that. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/11212-one-less-thing-to-worry-about/
    1 point
  44. beacon Posted March 5, 2015 I was thinking about the first few months of my quit and how I posted on the boards quite alot. I posted about dizziness, stomach aches, craves and anger and and clear lungs and weight gain and feelings of sheer joy. The first month, the first drink, the first vacation, the first taste, the first drs appointment, Each of these were special, unique, important to me, my experience. The old phartes commented, comforted, celebrated, and laughed. What I didn't know at the time was that 1000+ nonsmokers before me had posted very similar comments at very same time frame during their own quits. Yet these were their own unique experiences. The old phartes helped in very similar ways. Tthere is a pattern , a standard journey of the quit that we all follow, experiencing the same thing as we journey. This means we can rely on the nonsmokers on the path ahead who tell us how it will be if we continue to travel. True release. True freedom. This is what they are telling us and we can believe it is true. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/4682-the-pattern-of-the-journey/
    1 point
  45. Cristóbal Quit Date: 14 October 2012 Posted on QSMB Jul 25 2010 by JWG. She was 17 and thought it was cool She was 18 knew she was in control She was 19 living in the fast lane She was 20 and would quit before hitting 21 She was 21 and thought new years eve was better She was 22 the new job was to much stress right now She was 23 and her fiancée smoked anyways She was 24 the baby would be fine, what’s a little nicotine She was 25 what else is there for a stay at home mom to do She was 26 job interviews are just to demanding She was 27 in this job you have to be social She was 28 her uncle just died but she would be alright She was 29 thinking this time Im ready and 30 is my number She was 30 maybe just one more year She was 31 who can handle a divorce all alone She was 32 working two jobs and life’s to hard She was 33 and the new boy friend doesn’t mind anyhow She was 34 wedding plans are all she could do She was 35 his kids are so wild , just need the break time to time She was 36 a quit would have to wait , to much on her plate She was 37 forty wont be to late She was 38 a daughter and two steps sons a mini van and career She was 39 one more year and so done She was 40 are you crazy and gain weight She was 41 and probably couldn’t anyways She was 42 and enjoy smoking She was 43 but I should try, just for a month She was 44 her little girl smoking, and wonders what went wrong She was 45 The Doctor said it wasn’t good She was never 46 In Memory of JWG - Reposted by Cristóbal JWG Died of Lung Cancer shortly before his 4 Year Anniversary, 6 weeks after his diagnosis. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/10730-jwg-post-she-was-16-and-beautiful-jul-25-2010/
    1 point
  46. DenaliBlues Quit Date: 2/10/2022 Posted January 21 Reading and re-reading is a great strategy in the early hours and days of your quit. I did that, too. What else will you do to support and distract yourself? You might try making a list of things you can do instead of smoking when the cravings strike. I know it sounds corny to make a list, but it helps to be prepared (things to do with your hands, things to do with your mouth, mindless tasks, exercise snacks, physical comforts). Otherwise, Addict Mind will go blank and tell you that nothing but smoking will suffice. When things get crunchy, remember... Cravings really suck, but they will pass. A craving is a commercial, not a command. The feeling of "Other people can quit but I cannot" is a withdrawal symptom, NOT an accurate assessment of your ability. During the early stages of withdrawal, our addicted brains tell us all kinds of crazy s--t that isn't true. During that time, trust what you read here on the board, don't trust Addict Mind. It's not your friend. Keep us posted - let us know what's on your list and how you're feeling! Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/21358-quit-thoughts/
    1 point
  47. Jenny Quit Date: 5/24/2012 Overcoming Your Quitter’s Remorse. september 20, 2012 by cameron kellett If you have ever attempted to quit smoking, there is a good chance you’re familiar with the notion of quitter’s remorse. You may recognize it as the occasional feeling of regret we have over making the decision to quit smoking and cause ourselves to suffer the healing process. It is a feeling that leads us to envy those care free smokers, happily feeding their addiction without a worry in the world. The remorse will often come after recalling what it was like to NOT bear the struggle that comes with quitting smoking. It is a feeling that leads us to envy those care free smokers, happily feeding their addiction without a worry in the world and no commitment to live up to. Quitter’s remorse, I would say, is one of the biggest influences for relapse outside of the chemical dependency to nicotine. Why? Because the junkie brain feeds off it. It uses our fear and our doubt against us. If unrecognized, quitter’s remorse can lead a quitter to forget just how utterly crap being an addict actually was. So, how do we overcome it? The first step is having a greater awareness. Being able to recognise your junkie brain and its remorse over quitting, enables you to actively fight against it, and in turn, overpower it. If you are mentally prepared when the junkie brain strikes, you can quickly rationalise your way to a different perspective. Consider using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help achieve this. Another angle of attack is to build your quit smoking campaign around a genuine desire to live a life free from nicotine addiction; rather than the avoidance of long term health consequences. Learn as much as you can about your addiction! Once you understand it you can believe with confidence, all those feelings of remorse will quickly pass and eventually disappear. You will come to understand those feelings of loss or nagging regrets are completely influenced by the addiction and not your rational self. In time you will become sympathetic toward smokers, rather than envious. You will see the addict before you see the smoker. It also pays to remind yourself that smokers are almost always envious of ex smokers. Smokers often feel helplessly trapped by their addiction and hold little hope of quitting. I remember thinking that way as an addict. At the end of the day, if you are in the middle of a quit campaign and find yourself feeling remorseful, ask yourself, which do you want to be; hopeful or hopeless. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/9650-quitters-remorse/
    1 point
  48. Hello, my darling Nicotine Free Creatures! In days I will be starting my Tenth Year of freedom from nicotine. I will never smoke again. At times, with smoking friends, I think...I used to smoke. Do I want to smoke again? The answer is always a ferocious, NO ! to the virulence of nicotine. I didn't have an easy quit. It took a full year for some serious craves to abate but, I never lost my Resolve. That was the ribbon of truth weaving through my whole quit, I was completely committed. At first committed to what I thought of as an experiment. I gave it a year, a challenge to myself. If after a year, I didn't like the changes...well, I would reconsider the experiment. During that first year (and continuing today), I educated myself about nicotine addiction. The changes to my brain, the science of addictions. The brutality to my lungs, my body. I knew too much after brief study to use denial as an excuse. Either I would continue to be a slave or rejoice in a profound freedom and allow my body to heal. After that first year, I committed to another and another. It is always a NOPE for me. I am very grateful to all the NOPERS here, so many blazed a trail for me and were there for a laugh or a nudge. Often, a blast of useful information from Joel Spitzer, my hero. I wrote about our addiction in my blog here on QTrain and hope quitters will find that useful on their journey. On QTrain, we all know what quitting feels like, especially the early gnarly days, and I am so proud that I can now tell you what quitting for almost a decade feels like. You know it feels good, you know it feels bloody awesome. Keep your quits and nurture yourselves, your beauty is showing. Love, Sazerac
    1 point
  49. 1. It's not as hard as you think. Once you begin to be honest with yourself and to look at the facts about smoking, it will become a pleasure to remove this addiction from your life. 2. Square off with your smoking habit. Look at it and size it up. Ask yourself exactly what it is doing for you; then ask yourself what it is not doing for you. You can begin with your hair and work your way down to the tips of your toes. It is a medical fact that smoking affects every organ in the human body in a harmful way. 3. Look at quitting cigarettes as giving yourself a gift-a very big gift. You are giving yourself a better quality of life and, very possibly, a longer life. You are giving yourself a healthier body. You are giving yourself more self-esteem. Wrap all this in a package and took at it for the gift it really is, then "Go for it!" 4. Set a date. Make a commitment. Give it a try. Remember, it is alright if you don't succeed at first. Just keep trying. The only way you can lose is by ceasing to try. 5. Don't look at it as if you are giving up something. This makes it seem too much like a loss. What you are really doing is tossing something out of your life that has done you harm and doesn't belong here anymore. You are throwing away pure garbage. No longer are you going to allow your lungs to be a resting place for nicotine and tars. 6. Always keep a positive attitude. After all, this is one of the most positive things you've ever done. Stay away from negative people and worrisome situations. 7. Quit for yourself. Even though your family and loved ones will benefit tremendously from your quitting, it is you that will benefit most. 8. Treat giving up smoking with the respect it rightly deserves. Become willing to go to any lengths to remove it from your life. 9. Look up the word 'nicotine' in your dictionary and write down the definition in big letters: "A poisonous alkaloid used as an insecticide.' Put it where you can see it. 10. Don't say "I'll take my chances' and continue to smoke. They are not ours to take. We didn't give ourselves life and we don't have the right to "take our chances" on giving it away. 11.Don't fool yourself by saying you have too many pressures in your life right now to give up cigarettes. If you are smoking, this in itself is a pressures very great pressure. Every day is a gamble and your life is at stake. By getting nicotine out of your life, other things will become easier to handle. You will feel better about yourself and you will have more energy. You will have accomplished something more meaningful than all the money and material objects you could ever acquire. You will have given yourself what no one else could give you. You will no longer have the pressure of being a smoker. 12. Don't use the excuse that you might gain weight to justify your continuing to smoke. Even if you do gain a little, the fact that you will be more active and will get more exercise should counteract any weight gain. Remember, overeating, not stopping smoking, causes weight gain. 13. Plan to do things that will keep your mind off smoking. Sometimes our minds can be our worst enemies. They will tell us that we need a cigarette for just about any reason that is handy at the time. 14. Quit smoking one day at a time and think only about the part of the day you are in. "I am not going to smoke before noon." "I am not going to smoke before three o'clock." Sometimes just do it one hour at a time. This is a lot easier than trying to quit forever. 15. Don't subject yourself to smoky situations. If you do come in contact with someone who is smoking, just say to yourself "He HAS to smoke. I no longer do" and walk away. 16. While you are quitting. Look at it as an investment. Once you have quit for one hour, you have invested this hour in becoming a healthier person. Now, invest one more hour Continue to add to your investment hour by hour. It will grow and become more valuable as the hours go by. You will begin to see and feel the rewards from this investment more and more. Protect and guard it just as you would a treasure. 17. Start being kind to yourself, It is the beginning of a new way of life for you and you are the most important one there. Treat yourself with respect and love and, remember, you are no longer filling your system with poison every few minutes. Breathe the clean air and breathe it deeply. Smell the different and wonderful fragrances. Begin to spend time outdoors close to nature. Many new sensations await you. 18. Don't get too angry. If we are angry, our minds tell us we need a cigarette to cope. Until your mind learns that it doesn't need a cigarette to cope, try to avoid situations that might be setting you up. Avoid certain people that may bother you. If there is a lot of tension at work, try to get a few days off. If you can't get some time off, quit smoking on a long weekend. Avoid, as best you can, things like getting stuck in traffic. Use a lot of caution. Anger can be very destructive. 19. Don't get too hungry. It is amazing how our minds will tell us that everything's wrong when all we really need to do is eat. 20. Don't get too tired. If we are tired, it is easy to become irritated and when we get irritated our minds will tell us that a cigarette will help. Our overall resistance becomes weak and it is easy to say, "Oh well, I guess I'll smoke." 21. Don't get too lonely. It is good to know some people who are going through the same thing. 22. You can remember these four things by the word "HALT." Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. If you feel you need a cigarette, check. Make sure you are not experiencing any of these. 23. Don't get too bored. It is hard to just sit and not smoke. Keep busy. Find things to do that you enjoy. Bike riding, hiking, swimming, exploring new places, trying new restaurants. This is the time to indulge yourself. 24. Have something to fidget with. We are accustomed to holding a cigarette; being without one might leave our hands at a loss. Get a small rubber ball or a yo-yo. Paper clip, rubber band. 25. Have something handy to put in your mouth. Life Savers are good, or any slowly dissolving candy. Beef jerky and lollipops help, too. Avoid fattening foods like cookies. They don't last long and they fill you up. Experiment while you are still smoking to see what will relieve the craving. If Life Savers work, then stock up. Just a note of caution: don't use this type of substitute on a long-term basis. I preferred to keep healthy snacks handy such as carrot sticks, celery, nuts, fruit. 26. Nicotine somehow doubles the rate by which the body depletes caffeine. This may make some jittery. Reducing caffeine by half usually helps. 27. Don't drink alcohol while you are quitting. Once alcohol is in your system your defenses will diminish greatly. 28. Remember that the discomfort you experience in the first 2 weeks will definitely come to an end and you will never have to go through it again. 29. Remember, every minute you were sucking on cigarettes they were sucking on you. They were sucking the very life out of you. Don't let them have anymore. 30. Remember, it is the first cigarette that gets you started. It takes only one. This is the one you don't have. You can always put off lighting that first one for a little while. Don't fool yourself and think you can start and stop at will. You can't. Many people have tried this and gone on to live the rest of their lives never to experience freedom from nicotine again. :)
    1 point
  50. My husband loves to tell anyone who will listen that I'm a quitter. I "quit" my twenty year professional cleaning service ( actually the high costs of Workers comp in the state at the time forced me to close). I quit my ice cream truck business (because it sucked watching everyone having a good time while I was out putting two steps forward and ending up one step back). I quit throwing shingles to him up on the roof ( that one was his own fault for being a jerk on the roof). And then I quit smoking... I've quit quitting many a time and never really called them relapses because quite honestly I never quit to begin with. I simply abstained for a while. I really had to work myself up to just doing it. I gave myself little pep talks for months leading up to my forever quit. Saying things like "all good(?) things must come to an end". Then I would remind myself of all the things I had outgrown and convinced myself that smoking would soon be one of them. So on Sunday May 29, 2016 around 5:00 pm I smoked the last cigarette in my pack and that was that. Or so I thought..... Over the next five or so hours I proceeded to smoke every butt in my ashtrays. You see, I didn't tell anyone I quit just in case I failed so I hadn't cleaned and put away the ashtrays. So on Sunday May 29, 2016 at 10:15 pm I quit. It wasn't always easy and some days were downright brutal for me but most of that was my own darn fault. I didn't embrace the beauty in being a quitter. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself for not " getting" to smoke like everyone else could. Looking back now i truly believe your mindset is what is going to dictate how hard or how easy your quit will be. Choose easy....
    1 point
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QuitTrain®, a quit smoking support community, was created by former smokers who have a deep desire to help people quit smoking and to help keep those quits intact.  This place should be a safe haven to escape the daily grind and focus on protecting our quits.  We don't believe that there is a "one size fits all" approach when it comes to quitting smoking.  Each of us has our own unique set of circumstances which contributes to how we go about quitting and more importantly, how we keep our quits.

 

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