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NOPE for today!

NOPE!

I am not going to smoke today. NOPE.

Nope

NOPE

NOPE!

NOPE!

NOPE!

N.O.P.E.

Congrats @Bassman! An inspiring achievement. Rock on!

NOPE

I was 17 when I started regular smoking. Had tried it a few times when younger with friends but never took it up on a regular basis. Now I wish I never did when I was 17. At 17 I was hanging around with a guy who smoked so I bought a pack and began smoking full time. Had to hide it from the parents for awhile but I think they could tell from the smell. They both were smokers at one time. The why is tougher. Didn't give it much thought at the time but I suppose I was influenced by my peers and I also suppose I saw it as an adult thing to be doing - right of passge into adulthood perhaps? Of corse the following decades it was because I was an addict and kept denying all the bad stuff that was coming out about long term smoking. That bad stuff only happened to other people right? Isn't that what an addict does? Deny, deny, deny?

Wow 12 years is amazing!! Congratulations @Bassman

Thanks Doreen, you’ve been a help and quitting helper through the years. Keep waving your smoke free flag.…….Bassman

‘‘Tis much QuittingGirl. 2.7 years is also a great accomplishment to be proud of. Keep it going and enjoy your smoke free life……Bassman

Thanks much Johnny5, I am doing well and proud to be 12 years without even a single puff of anything….. of course I have had 2 hip replacements, gallbladder removed, and a plate put on my big toe since I quit. The great thing is I’m still alive for my operations……the alternate of being dead from my cancer from smoking is not an option. You and others have been a big inspiration for me too. On to the next 12. Thanks again…….

NOPE

NOPE!!

-9

Thank you for your words of encouragement. What a great incentive to stay quit thinking of what I could save! I'm too ashamed to add up what I have wasted over the years. I hope you're having a wonderful retirement!

I see you just recently quit SD2026…that in itself is an amazing accomplishment….keep it going and stay active, I commend you. Just FYI, the money I saved by quitting smoking was the last check I needed to retire from working and I’ve been retired for 12 years…..Bassman

Congratulations Bassman 12 years is a massive achievement Reward yourself well

Need nicotine? Nope! Nevah!

Nope

NOPE!

I am not going to smoke today. NOPE.

NOPE

NOPE for today!

NOPE

N.O.P.E.

NOPE!

NOPE!!

I think I may have been 9 or 10 when I smoked my first cigarette. It was with a friend of mine in the neighborhood who stole some cigarettes and a lighter from his dad and we, and a couple of other friends, each smoked a cigarette in the local neighborhood park. I felt so sick that I thought I was going to throw up. It was a truly disgusting experience. I did not smoke again (despite having smoking friends in high school) until my first weekend in college when I smoked my second cigarette. Maybe it was the freedom of being away from my parents or some belief that it made me feel part of the crowd but I slowly started smoking "socially" my first year in college. I went home that summer after my first year in college and did not smoke a single cigarette. But within a month of coming back to college my second year, I was buying packs of cigarettes and smoking on a regular basis. Never set out to become a nicotine addict but it happened. I smoked for 20 years. In the early days, I knew a lot of smokers (although I had a lot of non-smoking friends who tried to discourage me from smoking) but in my last years as a smoker, I felt a lot more isolated. What was once a "social" thing became an "anti-social" thing as the smokers I knew I driefted awayfrom or just quit. For me, maybe what I quoted from Cbdave is accurate. In the beginninng, it felt like a social thinng but in the end, it felt like a solitary thing.

Hello darling nicotine free creatures and those ready to be free. My anniversary...how many years? Twelve maybe. Forgotten as years of freedom expand but surely remember those first seconds that lasted forever turning begrudgingly into minutes before the next crave wave would hit. Craves did not capture me. I held my ground. But honestly, gave this, my quitting 'experiment' a year. If I didn't feel better after a year, I could always go back to smoking. Never would have surfaced sans nicotine had I not begun to learn about addiction, what addiction does, how to circumvent brain patterns. Information available on this site and others, Joel Spitzer's straightforward videos taking the voodoo out of it. I read voraciously as my understandings emerged as a reliable personal strength, learning what was going on in my brain, how to change. How to jump start clean endorphins by rewarding myself with joyous thoughts, sights, things. Life lessons applicable to many varied situations. I knew I would not smoke anymore; I broke the chains. After a year of nicotine free lurking, I joined QTrain to thank all the people that helped me unknowingly and pointed me towards needed materials. Being part of the community was rewarding, I count many as friends and think I helped some. Certainly, flooded the train with posts, sharing more information I drudged up. For newbies or those lurking, remember that freedom from addiction is well within your power. Yes, there will be gnarly times, but these will not kill you. Smoking will. And if not kill, make your living a slow breathless dying and for what? for greasing the pockets of corporations leaving your families bereaved? for indulging an addiction that robs you of Living? WTF ? You pay, if not with your life than with the quality of your life, the quality of your death! Those things are beastly HARD. But you know that, we all know that... some of you are ridden with guilt over it. STOP IT PLEASE! My purpose in this note is to inspire you to quit and hold on to your resolve because I KNOW your freedom is within your power. You CAN. You WILL. Beating addiction is temporarily difficult and profoundly rewarding in short time. Short Time. So, read up. Educate yourself. Know you are not alone. Realize you can choose Freedom in every breath, every day and bask in gratitude that you chose Life. Your Life. I smile about, my experiment in quitting for a year to see how I liked it. It is the best thing I have done for myself, hands down. There will be no going back as NOPE etches deeper into my grey matter. NOPE. Not One Puff. EVER. Never ever Never.