JimHannoonen

Good to see you back on the wagon! Stick with it!

As some of you may know, we recently lost our two senior Corgis within a month of each other. As devastating as that was, I never once even thought about smoking. Well, we decided our house was a bit too quiet, so say hello to Cooper. While she is the most adorable thing I've ever seen, I've never been driven want to smoke (or drink) until we got her. She is an absolute terror (but I love her anyway.) NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE

Well now that you smoked, did the stress magically go away? Were you able to find a solution? My guess is no... Commit to not smoking. It really is as simple as that. Is it easy? No. But one you commit -and I mean really commit- to never smoke again, you can't fail. You can make excuses until you're blue in the face (we all have), but really, it boils down to how committed you are. It's all or nothing, my friend. Now stop smoking. Now.

In 2016, when I still smoked, I voted for the $2 cigarette tax here in CA. I'd been wanting to quit for some time anyway and figured the extra $2 a pack would be the push I need (which it was).

Keep up the good work! There are going to be good days and bad days, but really, every day you're smoke free is a good day and one day closer to freedom. Stay strong! You don't want to have to go through this ever again!

This. Is. Awesome! Keep it up! One day at a time is all you can do. Give yourself an "atta girl" every night when you go to bed and a pep talk every morning when you get up. Take lots and lots of deep breaths and really try to pay attention to just how deep and good those breaths feel now compared to two weeks ago. You can do this!

Three weeks ago, our youngest Corgi, Callum fell ill and we had to rush him to the emergency vet. Turns out he has IHMA, a disease that makes his immune system mistakenly produce antibodies that attack his own red blood cells. Long story short, he almost died, got a transfusion and now, three weeks (and about $6,000) later, he's on the mend. All the while, my 14 old boy Tex, has been battling eye disease for about 1.5 years now and is on his last leg. We don't have much time left with him and that's killing me. In the midst of all this, our other senior Corgi, Ginger had a seizure last Thursday and we had to put her down. There was no saving her... Needless to say, things have been hard around here and we're struggling to cope, but if I had to find a silver lining, it's that I never -not once- even thought about smoking. It never even crossed my mind, and if I can deal with all this, I can deal with anything. Smoke Free. RIP Ginger NOPE!

There was nothing easy about it, as far as I was concerned. It was hard. All of it. Every day. The key word is "was"...

I gained a good amount of weight and am still pretty fat. I doubt it's a conspiracy...

As we can all relate, I used to hate flying. It was basically an exercise in torture. Remember how you couldn't wait to get out of the airport to smoke? Or God forbid you had a layover and had to play "Security roulette". You know, when you would gauge the time you had until your next flight and run out to have a smoke and pray you could get back through security and make your flight. How ridiculous! But the saddest place I can recall was the "smoking room" at the Atlanta airport. Don't get me wrong, I was over the moon that it even existed, because that meant I could smoke without having to deal with security, but at the same time, it was so depressing. Just a bunch of smokers, sitting in a room, not talking to each other. Just sitting there wallowing in stink. And man, did it stink! No amount of ventilation could ever mask the stench. And of course, all that smoke permeated your clothes, so you reeked like smoke (more than you would normally). Oh, bless the people I had to sit next to on my flights from Atlanta to Sacramento. They never said anything, bu they had to be repulsed. I feel ashamed, but at the same time so happy that I'll never have to sit in that room again. NOPE

Vaping is like, like something you would have seen in the Twilight Zone when they were in the future. Electric cigarettes. Pretty crazy.

I can skip the cigarette after eating and go straight to the self-loathing. It's a real time saver.

The minute I put out my last cigarette, I knew I would never smoke again.

Over a 30 year stretch? Probably a dozen or so if I were to venture a guess. Other than one 2 year quit, none really lasted more than a few days. I never had the right mindset before now.

Yes!