onthemark

I don't know what came first, the addictive personality or the cigs. Sometimes I wonder if starting smoking in my teens turned me into an addictive personality...

Have you had breathing issues before or is this a complete first?

Hey Feely, I also went to bed early and spent a lot of time reading quit smoking materials, Joel's videos on youtube and all the quit smoking material I could relate to on the web. Keep posting. There's no other way except to slog through it one day at a time at the beginning, but one day you will notice that it was not too bad, the day was ok, the cravings were tolerable, your mood was up and so on. Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for each day you stay quit and make an effort to focus on positive 'can do' thoughts.

Second that.

The one that doesn't sink into icebergs like the Titanic. love that picture Reciprocity. KTQ

certainly.

Yep. On top of everything that change in metabolism is real. I seem to recollect it's about 200 calories a day a person burns extra as a smoker than a non-smoker. On the plus side an extra pound of muscle mass (not fat mass) causes an average extra burn of 50 calories a day ... or something like that. I gained the average 8 pounds and am struggling to keep it at that. Even so my fasting blood sugar has gone down. I was pre-diabetic now am not... trying to avoid the self-loathing part. Anything beats being a smoker.

Amazing Spitzer has so much insight into nicotine addiction even though he never smoked.

Hey Evelyn, It's like climbing Mount Everest... No really. Basically there are two attitudes. First is omg, not that again, fear addled misery or keeping your eyes on your mission, which is to climb to the top of Mount Everest and feel the exhiliration with each accomplishment and then reach the top, what they call promise land. I promise it gets easier rather than harder at the top, unlike the real Mt. Everest the choice is otherwise to choke yourself to death, to really run out of breathe before you die. Maybe if you are lucky you get an early heart attack. A long march starts with one step after another. prepare for the trip.

Hey Stewie, I might take you up on your offer to be a man. There have been times in my life i have been more or less sure of my gender identity. Who decides the rules that you refer to here?

This is all so wonderful to read! Keep up the long march folks. I think Feely is learning to feel less and think more. I think this can be added to the wonderful thought stream of suggestions below, on how to rescue someone from the sinking ship of addiction. Now we are talking about life support, I'm not joking. Really.... life support, maybe not for right now but for what lies down the road.. the one that splits fate decisively on whether Feely makes the right decision, the decision not to smoke. I'm getting triggered massively at the moment too. It happens sometimes if one gets into a peculiarly stressful situation that one is not used to anyway.. or how you spend your time in a day shifts massively, or something is taken away from you that you feel belongs to you. I think whenever big disappointments happen there might always be an urge to smoke... but don't give in here. I forgot to mention that when I went for a bikeride by the Bow River we took pictures of the firefighter rescue squad in black and red swimming attire were practising saving lives in the river for hours.. man they looked so wonderful there too.

no i won't post pictures of cats! whatever...

Thank you for your invitation to blog here. I'll do so... But losing all the material that i posted on the qsmb has made me rethink things and I realize also there are many other reasons to have your own blog and buy some domains!

Welcome to the Lido deck Jryan.

brainwashed.

Way to go Edna! Welcome to the Lido deck.

Ditto what Choosing2Breathe said.