Stopping smoking - yes again!

linlin wrote:

Well done to everyone who has tried.....hope you can answer a question for me: If you were very unhappy, not sure if your long-term marriage was going to continue, fed up, depressed, unsure about yourself and everything in your life and knew there would be no support from home, would you have attempted giving up even tho you knew you should and wanted to try???

Hi linlin

I can completely understand why you wouldn't want to stop in that situation. However, it is important to realise that, as a smoker (and I was/am the same) it is so easy to find an excuse not to stop.

Now I really, really hope you don't think I am belittling your situation; please believe me that is not what I am trying to do. But I have made so many excuses in the past not to quit...one time I quit for about two months, got stressed with exams and decided to have "a cig". Then of course I had an excuse every time I got stressed to have a cig, started again pretty sharpish. The amount of times I set a quit date, but was upset or stressed or worked up on the day so put it off is unbelievable.

No matter what you are going through, you have to ask yourseld whether a cigarette really helps you with it. No, of course it doesn't. If you're angry, stressed, upset, worked up, bored, mad, at your wits' end, whatever, these feelings are quite capable of existing without smoking and smoking will do nothing to cessate them.

With regard to not having support, I think that the important thing is that you have to want to quit for yourself. And if you want to quit for that reason, and not want to quit for anyone else, then you should be okay. Maybe if you make a list of why you want to quit it would help, and might act as a bit of guidance/"support" for you? If you know you should stop, for the right reasons, and are ready to, I say go for it.

We're a friendly bunch on this thread and keep posting supportive messages and I'm sure I speak for us all when I say we'd be glad to have you on-board. If you want to quit, go for it. Personally I did it without telling anyone I was going to, just so that I wouldn't feel as if I had "let anyone down" by failing, and I think that worked. Now you couldn't tempt me with a cigarette at all...and that's with no support from anyone who "knows" me, just some cheery comments from fellow MSErs, and for that I would like to say thanks (While I remember )

Hope this has helped somewhat and thank you for your post

Best wishes
and Good Luck (with everything)

Rich x

I used the Allen Carr method to stop smoking. I think this method is the same as your "lightbulb moment" for becoming debt free. It is all about turning around your way of thinking. If you think you are missing out by not smoking, or by not spending then you will never stop doing either. If you change your mind around to look at the positives of being a non-smoker or a saver then you will not want to keep smoking or spending.

When you change your thinking around willpower stops becoming an issue at all, because you don't want to do the wrong thing anymore. I now find the thought of a cigarette disgusting and the thought of being in debt is depressing, so now it is easy to do the right thing. If you think you are doing yourself out of something then you will remain a smoker or a spender. I was for ages, but now I consider myself to be a non-smoker and a saver.;)

RichyRich wrote:

Thanks :cool:

I wrote it but couldn't quite work out whether I'd said what I had wanted to say. I also didn't want to sound like I was belittling the severity of the situation by calling it an "excuse", I don't mean it like it's a small thing, which it quite obviously isn't, but in the context of smoking it is just a "reason" for not stopping. If you can wait to stop because of the present situation, you will always "find" a reason not to stop next time you try.

If you want to stop you have to bite the bullet and stop regardless of your position in life at the moment. Otherwise when another "situation" comes along you will always have the excuse to start again! (or will just never stop)

Again, not sure I'm making much sense. I know what I mean but can't explain it!

Rich

Well I understood it










































I think :cool:

this is turning into a mutual back-slapping thread...



















I like it:D

Just got in frrom a night out, I am very drunt.
...................................../\.................../\
..........................meant2b a full stop meant2be a "k"

not had a singel cig. wooooooooooooo
.................../\letters wrong way round

felling v proud of myself.Hope everyone else is foing ok too
..........................................meant2be a "d"/\
Lots of non smokey love
Richy "richard" rich
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