Leaderboard

Thank you Jillar.... at last I can post a pic of my new Grand daughter Elyana Ava x

It just turned midnight in Liverpool, and that means our Doreen/Ollie is 6 years smoke free!!! So proud of you, Doreen, for so many reasons. You have protected your quit through so much, and been a constant support to so many. I know that you have saved lives. I am very grateful we got to know one another so early in our quits! In addition to the wonderful work you do here, you also help us not to take ourselves too seriously...you keep us laughing as well as quitting. In other words, you are just the best!! Love you, and hope you enjoy your celebration!

G’day NOPE starts my day

NOPE

NOPE!

Welcome @NoNicChick Read, Read, Read. How can you fight the enemy you don't know?

Congratulations Doreen. What can I say about you that hasn't already been said...well, a couple of things come to mind but they would be wildly inappropriate even by our standards. You're awesome and I consider myself lucky to know you. Doreen is the best...simply the best!

That is awesome, Doreen! Congratulations on 6 years smoke free and thank you for continuing to pay it forward by helping others with their quits. It is greatly appreciated by many. Celebrate big today!

Welcome aboard NoNicChick. Congratulations on setting yourself free from the smokes. Good call.

Welcome NoNicChick, keep posting and reading on here, and dont forget to give yourself regular treats, even small treats are great. You are'nt spending money on cigarettes now, so reward yourself for how well you are doing, it really does motivate you along. Nope daily and stick to your patches, but most of all, keep your determination to quit no matter what. All the best.

Thanks everyone for all you support and encouragement.

NOPE

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

Welcome NoNicChick. So glad you found us. I smoked for 42 years and could not find the courage to quit until I stumbled upon this forum. The people here showed me how to get it done. Dont' just read about the addictions and watch videos. Visit the whole forum. The NOPE pledge helps solidify your quit. There are games to play and fun threads that help you get to know us all. I look forward to helping you on your journey. Linda

So you've relapsed again for the umpteenth time. You come to the board admitting your failure and get a mixture of responses. Some positive and it makes you get right back to your quit. Some negative and you're afraid to post or start again because you'll only fail and upset people. But the truth is, who cares what we think? It's your life, your quit. You decide when you're ready to quit. We offer the support, along with a huge library of education. We also offer a ton of socializing topics to help distract you and keep your mind off smoking. Please remember that we have lots of "chronic" relapsers who finally found their forever quit and so can you. Never Give up giving up.

Hey @Boo, Somebody is beating your time, crossing the channel to @Doreensfree !

^^^^^^^ You wouldn't be a little jealous would you Boo?????

Congratulations, dear one, on your Six Years of Freedom. You are the soul and inspiration of QTrain and I love and appreciate you. You give so much. Thank you, Doreen. Hope you find lots of rewards and celebrations for yourself today.

Speaking of being behind schedule...Where is my jet pack? For 50 years now they've promised us jet packs! Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the advances in technology that have been made. But dammit...I want a jet pack!

NOPE...

NOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOPE!

Yep I'm in the popcorn bucket again!!!

Nope not today or ever!

Thank you everyone! I'm heading over to the NOPE thread....

Thank you Diane! I guess you'd count today as Day 1...first full day. My last smoke was around 5:30pm yesterday. I'm having some cravings despite the patch but I'm hanging in there! Congrats on 3 weeks...thats great! I tried chantix last fall but I was one of the unfortunate ones that had mental health problems while taking it Thank you Reciprocity. Other quits I've had, it was simple. The last one was surprisingly easy. That was back in 2013. This one's been hard (I've had many attempts over the last year or so but never lasted more than a couple days) Hoping this will be my sticky quit.

Welcome aboard NoNickChcik glad to have you along. You will find a lot of help from here, some strange people at times and a lot of information to guide you along. If NRT;s help, then they help so long as you stop from lighting up!!!

So right ....the important thing ,is saving your life ...from this horrible addiction... Yes ok ...i have a frying pan ...but I've yet to use it .... This board has saved countless of lives....what's more important than yours.... Just jump back on..your seats still here...

NOPE!

NOPE!!

Hellkatbaby, your emotions are going to be all over the place. You are facing the unknown and temporarily losing control of your life (except for that choice to quit smoking). When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was like stepping on a roller coaster and just going along for the ride. No one understands what you are going through, unless they have been there. It will be difficult for your family to know what you need at any given moment. Just feel blessed that they are there and care. I am sure they mean well. Let the tears flow, if you feel the need. Sometimes it is healthy to have a good cry. You are doing great with all you are processing. Feel free to private message me, if you would like to talk. Know that you have my continued prayers. Linda

Welcome aboard @NoNicChick!!! Follow the advice given by all above, and you'll be fine. Personally, I haven't used the SOS feature before, but that's the place to go when a crave strikes. All the best and looking forward to your smoke free freedom. Don't forget to reward yourself for milestones which you think are important to you (could be an hour, week, few days, 2 weeks, month, a year, anything).

Nope

Positively NOPE!!!!!!

Nope

NOPE

NOPE

nope

Congrats, Doreen! Six years quit is quite the stupendous achievement! Celebrate and KTQ!

Welcome aboard, NoNicChick. Congrats on quitting smoking. Stick around. There is a lot of knowledge, support, and even fun that you can find here. Quitting is a wonderful thing for you to do and we are here for you.

Oh @catlover, she's absolutely beautiful! Thank you for posting these

Good job Diane, 3 weeks is amazing! all that money not spent on self harm!!!! hope you have treated yourself .

NOPE

Welcome @NoNicChick, You may find this thread useful, Ten Ways To Effectively Use This Forum

Looks like some sleep found me last night. At least until 4ish AM. But hey I'll take what I can get at this point. Yesterday was an upside down day for me and had me back into the deer in the headlights stage at moments. The morning started fine. J (my BF) went back to work and I started my morning after he left by taking care of me. A nice long shower and shampoo. Trimming my nails down etc. the small but important things so to speak. By 7am I was boiling all the silverware lol. Just again all that unfiltered energy and trying to do something productive with it. The plan for the day was supposed to be nice and simple. My mom got here around 10ish and we were only planning to head to a few stores that are literally blocks away from me before the A/C guys were to show up. Needless to say what should have taken no more than an hour turned into a 3hr journey due to all the calls in between and while in the store. They came flooding in like the fast and the furious as soon as we hit the store. Having to stop and break out pen and paper to jot things down on the back of a grocery list was not quite ideal - but we made due. The 1st call was to cancel my PET scan as my ins. denied it. However I almost expected that part because I work for the very co. that is providing my ins. and I know how the game is played with certain things. DENY up front just because, then wait for more medical records and then finally approve. Ins is not a charity but a business 1st a foremost - period! And this is why it's so important for people to empower themselves by becoming their own patient advocates and knowing their policies inside and out as much as possible. Just because they say no were not going to approve this or that test does not really mean NO. It means you hound them and you have your Dr's hound them and pound them with clinical policies etc. until they finally approve. It's a messed up game but one I see on a daily basis in my job. So okay not the end of the world - the test gets pushed back for now, they do know it's not related to my diagnosis but figured since my deductible and out of pocket are met lets get done what we can! So Kudo's for that. And in the meantime I don't have to do all the prepping of fasting etc. for that test. We'll just finish shopping - NOPE...I get the 2nd phone call regarding radiation. It's official and I start Wednesday (tomorrow) at 1:30 everyday Mon-Fri until the 20th. Which is good that we are starting now vs a week from now. But again just 'confirming' it was a sort of a BOOM moment for me as I'm standing in the middle of the store with an empty basket and jotting down information. I found I just couldn't concentrate like I needed to but tried to push on with my small list. Not 5 min later another phone call and not a thing in my basket. This call was for my leave of absence. They do not want to rush me back to work however understand some people don't have the benefits of ST/LT paid leave and have no choice but to return ASAP. Their suggestion was to keep me out until Oct/Nov. NOT that I would actually be out for that long but just a precaution while going through treatment and allowing me MY TIME and PACE to say okay - I'm ready when 'I'M' ready and my job be protected. That part can always be re-visited and revamped and I could easily be back working from home come Sept. again at MY PACE - no deadline, no pressure no one saying you HAVE to come back or your fired type crap and dealing with that stress. Now it was at this point where I should have said, OKAY lets call it a day and we'll finish up the shopping tomorrow - however trying to be a trooper I pressed on which was my mistake. We were trying to beat the A/C guys to the house so lets just get THIS small list done. Again another lesson learned that somethings just really aren't THAT important. So once again trying to fill the basket and another phone call regarding my meds, my refills, peeling back on the steroids with radiation starting etc. my poor grocery list was turning into a medical documentation in the middle of the store and I might have had a bag of cat food in at this time lol. I checked with my mom just to see how she was doing - she kept saying she was fine and didn't mind finishing up the list at all. So once we got the basics I did stop to check out some of the healthier foods to start tossing into my diet little by little - veggies, fruit, albacore tuna, beans, nuts, whole grains - looking at the healthier leaner cuts of meats, chicken, pork, fish. And this is where I could see my mom getting frustrated and not understanding my reading of ingredients and which foods I was searching for - staying away from canned or processed and going 'fresh'. She also kept complaining how more expensive Publix was compared to Walmart and just how ridiculous the prices were. And I told her it was fine - I'd rather pay $200 NOT to walk into Walmart vs $100 on healthy and that's when she slipped up and said 'It's as if you've never been to a grocery store before'. I was SLAMMED right there to the floor. She wasn't trying to be mean or snippy but the comment still just hit me so hard and made me feel well.....stupid. That's the only way I can describe it. And that's when I decided that part of the day was OVER - DONE in that moment for me. It was all I could do not to just break down and cry and run to my car. Instead I said I just headed for the checkout counter. Once we got home I excused myself while she made her lunch and I went and cried in my bathroom and tried to pull myself together. She was at a total loss as to what just happened and in a way I 'get it'. I wasn't mad at her as I reminded myself that there will be days like this and that's OKAY! To her it was just a grocery trip that took forever, to me it was a lot of information flooding my brain and trying to concentrate at the same time and just getting overwhelmed in the middle of a simple trip that just didn't go as planned. NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. This morning I can look back and sort of snicker on it - but in those moments. I was scared and a bit lost and for her it was probably hard to watch her quick witted child just freeze up at something so simple and not understand the why behind the freeze. And again THAT'S OKAY! We are all processing it at our own pace. As long as at the end of the day I make sure that my state of mind is at peace this is all part of the journey. This was a day I needed my sister and that's where this whole 'family team' dynamic can get tense - different generations, personalities, ideas etc. Each person for a role without interfering with the others role. Everyone wants to help and do what they can which is fantastic and I feel very fortunate to have that. But we have to all communicate better so we are all on the same page and all a bit more patient with each other. My sister can handle watching me get overwhelmed and help calm me down, where as my mom just doesn't quite know what to do or say and in ways can make things a bit more harder by saying the wrong things at the wrong time. Again, lessons we all have to learn. And it turns out the A/C guys had to cancel and will be here this AM around 10 and we'll go from there. NO EXPECTATIONS and I'll take today moment by moment vs looking at it in the 'whole' day. Last night after my mom left and I felt 'calmer' I cooked a nice balanced meal for the 1st time in ages! Even J was quite impressed. I was afraid it was going to be bland and bleh but it was really good and filling. Skinless marinated chicken, brown rice with almond slices and a nice salad of mixed greens with raw broccoli, nuts and berries a bit of shredded cheese topped with a light Italian dressing and a spoonful of cottage cheese on the side. The after snack was HUMMUS (so excited about the hummus lol) with whole grain crackers. Again, just starting out small and simple. This morning was oatmeal with fresh blueberries mmm so good. And today is a new day - I'll take the lessons I've learned from yesterday and apply them to today. Baby steps! I hope everyone has a great day! No matter what hits you just keep the course, keep up the GOOD FIGHT and don't listen to the nico-demon lies you head may tell you. Just NOPE!!

Struggling a bit at work today.. lots of chaos at work today. Gotta hang in there and as soon as I get home I’ll have an early night to lock in day 4

Welcome aboard, NoNicChick! I used the patch to quit ...and found this place which has been so helpful in understanding my addiction. Read, read, read and watch the Joel videos. Pledge to NOPE daily over on the NOPE forum (as Reci states above) and get yourself a "ticker" (it is a link on the menu bar) and watch the days and $$ add up!

Great decision NNC! Quitting is the best think you will ever do for yourself! Read all you can here and watch as many Joel videos as you can. Educating yourself about this addiction is one of the greatest tools you will have to lead you to freedom. Take it 1 minuet, one hour and one day at a time initially. Just pledge your NOPE every day (Not One Puff Ever). It s that simple (not easy but simple). You will have a legion of people here to support you and answer any questions you might have along the way. Let's get this done for good!