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Sunnyside Quit Date: 02/01/22 Posted July 6, 2016 I found this article on another website and thought it may help someone here. By Terry Martin "I quit smoking seven months ago. I do feel better, and I don't struggle all of the time now, but I still have days when I find myself missing my cigarettes. I sometimes wish I could have just one now and then. At times, the urge to smoke is so intense. I wonder if I'll ever be free of this habit? Will I miss smoking forever?" Think for a moment of your life as a tightly woven piece of fabric. Each thread represents your life events and experiences, and running alongside the many "life" threads are threads of a finer gauge. They are so fine in fact, they're impossible to see with the naked eye. Those threads are your smoking habit, and they've become so thoroughly interwoven in the fabric of your life, you find you can't do anything without thinking about how smoking will fit into it. The associations that we build up over time between the activities in our lives and smoking are closely knit. Once you quit smoking, the job becomes one of unraveling those smoking threads, or associations, one by one. How does that happen? And how long does it take? Recovery from nicotine addiction is a process of gradual release over time. Practice Makes Perfect Every smoke-free day you complete is teaching you how to live your life without cigarettes. Bit by bit, you're reprogramming your responses to the daily events that trigger the urge to smoke. The more practice you get, the less cravings will plague you. Over the course of your first smoke-free year, you'll encounter and have a chance to clear most of the events and situations in your daily life that you associate with smoking. Seasonal Smoking Triggers Some smoking triggers are seasonal in nature and can create strong smoking urges months into your quit program. For instance, if you quit smoking during the winter and you're an avid gardener, you could find yourself craving a smoke break the first time you're out digging in the dirt the following spring. Thoughts of smoking related to the seasons may hit you with an intensity you haven't felt in months. Don't worry. Once you make your way through the trigger smoke-free, it will let go and you can move on. The first year is all about firsts...experiencing the many daily events in your life smoke free for the first time. And it's all about practice. You built your smoking habit through years of practice. Now, build the nonsmoking you the same way. Practice is a necessary part of recovery from nicotine addiction, so try to relax and let time help you. The more of it you put between yourself and that last cigarette you smoked, the stronger you'll become. Work on Your Attitude There's another step in finding permanent freedom from nicotine addiction that is just as important as practice and time. It involves your attitude. I'm sure you've heard about people who still struggle years and years after quitting. They're the ones who say they "still miss smoking" 20 years down the road. That's a frightening thing to hear, but don't let it throw you. The reason they are in that position has to do with the fact that they never did the work to change what cigarettes meant to them. Along with using patience and time to help you reprogram your associations with smoking, you must also alter the way you think about your cigarettes. The path to permanent freedom has to do with changing the relationship you have to smoking, and the way to make that mental shift is through education. As the saying goes... Knowledge is Power... ...and it's the truth when it comes to recovering from nicotine addiction. Educate yourself by reading everything you can find about how tobacco harms us from head to toe. It will open your eyes, but more importantly, it will help you start to change the meaning that cigarettes have for you. Once you do that, the mental chains of this addiction will begin to break down for good. You'll truly be free, and believe me, it's a great place to be. Be patient with yourself and allow for as much time as you need to heal from this addiction. There is no set formula for recovery; we're all unique in how we move through the process. Read about nicotine addiction and do the work to change the way you perceive cigarettes. They are instruments of death. They deserve nothing more than your disdain. Don't look at quitting tobacco as a sacrifice. You're not giving up anything of value. Your quit program is a gift. Change your attitude and you'll find your freedom. Cessation is doable, and your precious life is worth the work it takes to achieve. If You Want to Change Your Life, Change Your Mind. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/7257-will-i-always-miss-smoking/

Love this jane! Happy Anniversary again

What a great update @Brioski, I'm so glad to see you having these good days now. Such a change from when you first started this thread Congratulations on the in ground pool too. Your savings from quitting will probably more than cover the monthly electricity costs to run it

@Slow progress, you're spot on about your hubby. He's not only losing his smoking buddy but seeing that quitting is way more possible than we were led to believe. Just wait until he sees all that extra money in your bank account, it may just change his mind. By the looks of your ticker you'll have saved about $700.00 in just one month! So awesome

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@Slow progress, @Doreensfree is right, give yourself a break and try to keep reminding yourself that these crappy days won't last forever as long as you go through them. Four days, while awesome, is such a small amount of time when you consider how long you smoked. That's a lot of triggers to get through. Luckily as you progress through your quit the triggers get easier to get past so just keep hanging in there Because it will happen to you too ☺ Btw, very nice ticker ☺

Happy Anniversary @Katgirl and congrats on your upcoming wedding

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Yay to day 3 @Slow progress, you're doing great! Have you looked into creating a ticker for your signature? Its a great way to watch the time, money and cigarettes NOT smoked add up. Super inspirational and something I loved logging on and looking at each day @Brioski, I'm so happy to see you're starting to have hours of not thinking about smoking. Be sure to write about that on your Update thread so when you go back and read it you'll see how you've progressed Thanks for the shout out @DenaliBlues, I'm glad that helped you

@Slow progress, if going to bed helps you keep your quit than why wait? We do whatever we need to do on the early days of our quits including going to bed early if it helps. Use it as one of your quit tools. You are doing great and it won't take long for your sense of smell to come back so you'll be able to smell the stale smoke on your hubby and be glad you don't smell like that anymore!

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Can I have a taste of that? I brought my own spoon.....

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soul Quit Date: 11.29.09 Posted April 8, 2014 I have taken the liberty to borrow a writing from a great man and modify it (may he forgive me) to fit the principle of "Paying it Forward" in the smoking cessation world...................... Here below is what I stand for, in all my affairs............. "I stand by the door" I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out. The door is among the most important doors in the world - It is the door through which men walk when they find Freedom. There is no use my going way inside and staying there, When so many are still outside and they, as much as I, Crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find Is only the wall where the door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men, With outstretched, groping hands, Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door, Yet they never find it. So I stand by the door. The most tremendous thing in the world Is for men to find that door - the door to Freedom. The most important thing that any man can do Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks And opens to the man's own touch. Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter. Die for want of what is within their grasp. They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it. Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it, And open it, and walk in, So I stand by the door. Go in; go all the way in - Go way down into the cavernous cellars, And way up into the spacious attics. It is a vast, roomy house, this house of Freedom. Go into the deepest of hidden casements, Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood. Some must inhabit those inner rooms And know the depths and heights of Freedom, And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is. Sometimes I take a deeper look in. Sometimes venture in a little farther, But my place seems closer to the opening. So I stand by the door. There is another reason why I stand there. Somebody must be watching for the frightened Who seek to sneak out just where they came in, To tell them how much better it is inside. The people too far in do not see how near these are To leaving - preoccupied with the wonder of it all. Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door But would like to run away. So for them too, I stand by the door. I admire the people who go way in. But I wish they would not forget how it was Before they got in. Then they would be able to help The people who have not yet even found the door. Or the people who want to run away again . You can go in too deeply and stay in too long And forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place................. Where? Outside the door - Thousands of them. Millions of them. But - more important for me - One of them, two of them, ten of them. Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch. So I shall stand by the door and wait For those who seek it. 'I had rather be a door-keeper So I stand by the door. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/378-why-do-we-pay-it-forward/