jillar

I killed a spider last night for the first time in years. Normally I catch and release them outside or give them a chance to get away but it was 2:30 in the morning and he was just dangling from a picture frame right above my night stand turning in circles AND he was big!

10. Adhere fake eyelashes Stencils

Yay @Sandi149, Congratulations on a month quit! That's GREAT!! Maybe you can reward yourself with some good walking shoes?

Congratulations @Brioski on four months quit, that's fantastic! I love seeing how supportive you are and I'm sure you've already helped many see that they can quit too

4

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/

Hey @robin0212, don't forget to update your profile with your new quit date since you relapsed. Part of the quit process is owning your relapses too. Maybe even get a ticker so you can see how much you're giving up by relapsing. They are a great tool at keeping our quits just to watch those numbers add up!

Hope you guys have a great day!

Congratulations!

I don't see any tickers in your signature @robin0212. Here's the directions with screenshots to help you https://www.quittrain.com/topic/15042-creating-a-ticker/

I LOVE banana Laffy taffy @robin0212

-3

Good job @robin0212

@LeapOfFaith, you can ask your Dr for a temporary anxiety med if you don't already take one if youre worried about it but most people find that their anxiety actually gets better over time Now for some tough love. STOP ALL THIS PROCRASTINATION AND QUIT ALREADY!!! You've got a train full of support here to help you through the tough spots. I promise you that once you get through I don't know your first week probably, then you'll see just how much you were letting your addiction rule your life. Take your freedom back like all the rest of us have!

-7

Just got my blood test done at home and waiting for my morning coffee Loving that I found a mobile phlebotomist, its so much easier than having to go to a lab

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”/

^^this^^. We have it in our heads that it's going to be horrible but in hindsight it isn't that bad. It sucks for a while but it's not painful. If anything you'll start feeling better. Your blood will start flowing better, your sense of smell and taste come back. All things you didn’t even know you were missing until you have them back As far as quitting because you have to and not because you want to was my story too. Have to or want to they are both totally doable as long as you want it.

@LeapOfFaith, if you're on a computer, there's a button at the top right of the forum page that says Unread Content. Click that and everything you haven't read comes up. You can further customize it once the new window comes up with the content. On a mobile device you'll click on the three lines in the upper right and click on Activity, scroll down to Unread Content and click on that. You can also find the Search option there. Normally if there is unread content the forum will say New and the Topics will be bold with a star or dot on them. It takes some time to figure things out so don't be afraid to click on things and check them out

-7

Oops, my bad -6

-7

What a great post @beazel, and I know I say this every time you stop in but its really great to see you

-5

Trying to stay awake to see it. When a full moon rises