I quit smoking

[cat_mioux]

7 days ago.

Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me.

*cat stomps off into the kitchen to eat to eat something*

[cat_mioux]

It's been interesting ... when I tell someone who smokes I have quit, you can hear the fear in their voice. Some smokers 'scoff' or snigger at me saying 'yeah right, that won't last long'.

Some smokers fear the following:

They know the quitters are jumping off the sinking ship.
The more people who quit the more stupid they'll look puffing on their cigarettes.
They'll be treated more and more as 'lepers' (that's sad 😞 because that increases fear which in turn makes a person want to smoke more) and they'll have fewer places to 'legally' smoke.
Eventually they'll be spending more on their cigarettes than they do on food for themselves because the cost keeps rising and a smoke is more likely to buy cigarettes than food for themselves.

I must say though .. a woman at work who has emphysema and still smokes has been one of the most supportive I've told besides my family.Bless her. I hope she can quit one day.

[jenni200011]

Absolutley fantastic..Stick to your guns and dont look back...Your lungs will love you and energy will return in leaps & bounds...Quitting takes a strong will power..Every attempt to succeed is worth a medal ..you only have one body and only you can make the effort to help your self..I was also a smoker ..i quit once for 9 years straight and  very stupidly took a ciggerette at a party ( just 1 thats all it took to return)..After another 4 years smoking i made the decision to stop once again..TThis time its for ever...I have not missed them at all..I have to sell tobbacco at my job each day..Its getting harder to sell them as i loathe them so much.. to see so many falling people   victim to the cruel carnage they do to our bodies..I I have watched people die slowly with emphasemia..throat cancer..&  suffer  awfully...They will never cease being sold in the shops..  Their  is Way too much money being made on them ...They dont truly want people to quit ..Plain packaging..Hiding them from shelf display ..ongoing price rises its really all nonsence to make it look like they care..You deserve to feel proud...

[icyfroth]

Yay! You'll be so happy you did Mioux!

[sandypas]

My dad lived with us for his last 17 years after mum died (only child) and he died from emphysema - not nice or a pretty sight at all.  I hoped my kids would learn from the experience - son smoked until he was 21 from ? (goodness knows what age) and daughter now smokes which breaks my heart.  She's nearly 40 so nothing I can do about it and she absolutely hated smoke until she met her partner who smokes when she was 34.

[cat_mioux]

Congratulations on your quit Jenni!

I agree - plain packaging, gruesome photo's, price hikes don't seem to work. Scare tactics rarely work. They just add more stress for the smoker and what do smokers do when feeling stressed? They reach for a cigarette!

The last cigarette I smoked made me feel so ill I gagged twice. I had worked myself up into hating them. I hate the addiction. I hated being controlled by cigarettes i.e stressing whether I had enough to last me for the evening. Dragging myself out of bed at 7am to race down the shops for a packet so I could have a cigarette with my morning coffee ...

[icyfroth]

I gave up smoking 23 years ago. First thing I used to do when I woke up was light up a smoke and the last thing I did of a night was put out a smoke.

Like you I hated how strong the hold was it had on me.

I can't even imagine me smoking now.

[nevillesdaughter]

Stick at it - there's absolutely no reason not to.

 If it helps, I had a friend who attended a quit-smoking group course a few years ago (can't recall which one) and on the first night the facilitator asked the group if they knew what it was that non-smokers hated the most about smokers. Hands went up and the usual things were offered - second hand smoke, risk of passively acquired cancer etc....

The facilitator said "No. It's that you all stink! Your clothes stink, your breath stinks,  your cars stink, your houses stink, and being with you makes others stink".

My friend said she couldn't wait to get home and have a shower, and during the difficult times, it was this memory that she used as motivation. And in time she realised it was true!

So hang in there, it does get easier. I gave up cold turket too many years ago to talk about. Although I didn't have too many physical problems to deal with, for ages I would have dreams where I would re-live some stressful episode I had just been through except that in the dream I would smoke! Honestly, sometimes the dream was so real that I'd have to sit up in bed and backtrack to work out that it WAS a dream.

Another good tip someone gave me - replace a bad habit with a good one eg want a smoke? Clean your teeth or have a glass of water, or go for a walk around the block.

Hang in there.

Marina.

[cat_mioux]

sandy I'm sorry to hear you lost your dad to the consequences of smoking 😞

I watched a documentary recently on how the tobacco industry kept us brainwashed into smoking and it's chilling. Your dad would have been exposed to the tricks the industry used. i.e using celebs and 'doctors' to endorse their product. Tobacco companies paying millions of $ to show an actor/actress smoking in a big budget movie.

They still use brainwashing today. It's mostly subtle in the western countries but for the eastern and third world countries it's not so subtle. i.e concerts and raves sponsered by tobacco companies that use every opportunity to advertise themselves. They know they need to get a whole new generation addicted to nicotine because they are losing the older generation to either quitting or death.

[imastawka]

(Not replying to anyone in particular)

 Well what a happy thread this has turned into - not!

 Can't people just encourage without mentioning all the

horrible suffering and deaths they've witnessed because

of smoking?

 I was diagnosed with emphysema 4 years after giving it up.

So now I get reminded about what a horrible death I'm gunna have?

Great

[cat_mioux]

Congratulations icy and nevillesdaughter on both your long term quit!

When a craving hits I just ride it out and it's true it eventually passes. The hardest time of the day for me is the evening. For the first few days I just had to give in and go to bed because no matter what I did the cravings just kept coming. Now it's a little easier but its still the most difficult. I thought it would be in the morning but I'm fine! Go figure. I can sit around other smokers at work and I'm okay except when there are too many puffing around me the smoke tends to bother me so I just move out the way.