The Giving Up Smoking Thread!!

Boatie_Bird

I don't have a letter box at all!
Could I polish my mushroom vents instead?

Boatie_Bird

Well done NYK - 10 days is fantastic.
Are you going to reward yourself?

TNG

Boatie_Bird wrote: »

I don't have a letter box at all!
Could I polish my mushroom vents instead?

*insert your own 'Fishermans Friend' joke here*

Geenie

MJay wrote: »

Yo Addictedto and Geenie!

Welcome on board and HUGE WELL DONES!!!!!!!:T

Yes, this board is fun and very supportive… so much so, I’m getting nothing else done today but that’s OK too!! If you glance through pages 183 / 185 you’ll catch up with some of the current banter, ups and downs n other stuff….. And get great useful info and links too.

Adds, I haven’t been a constant quitter and only tried a few times over the last 44 years as a smoker. Your mail reminded me of my first few attempts…… You are NOT going mad and IT DOES GET BETTER!

I smiled at your ‘searching for cigs’ behaviour…. Some years ago, I took my lovely dad (now dead) out for a drive ‘cos he and my mother were squabbling…. We had only driven round the corner when he drew my attention to the fact that he had instinctively picked up my packet of cigs from the dashboard… Dad had quit 30 years before!!

I guess most of these behaviours are rooted in our ‘loss’ even though we don’t want the darned things (Dad had been a ‘born again non-smoker’ for decades before this incident…. ) “Yearning and Searching” are well established early reactions to ‘loss’ situations. You are sane and your behaviour proves your humanity!

I’ve found in the past that the ‘mental addiction’ requires different support than the physical aspects: info about what is/ isn’t going on in your body now you’ve given up; reframing how you view your relationship with cigs; understanding your reactions and normalising them through talking to others (like what we are doing now); reviewing yourself as a non-smoker;. The latter takes much longer but I am sure it will come…. For you, for me.:j

I gave up in September 06 but after six months, began to have the odd cig every now and again… The (slow) death of a close relative provided an ‘excuse’ to start again last September but strangely I found that I felt more like a non-smoker when I was doing it then than I had earlier in the year….

It has been a bit of a struggle this time but nothing like in the past and I think my heart has started to accept that I am now beginning to CHOOSE not to smoke.

Oh fe’ Gawds sake stop pontificating!!! I’ll shut up now but do keep up the good work… You are through the worst part already….:o

Huge Hugs

Thank you so much to you and all the others for the warm welcome. I can see that you and I have had similar experiences in trying to stop before.
I started smoking at about 18 and am 50 this year!!:eek:

I have tried to give up several times in the past, and have often got to 3 or 4 months, once even longer, then came the mistake of complacency, and thinking I could just have one say in a social situation after drink.........not in my case, or thinking that giving up was easy afterr a certain time.

Was back to a packet or more a day.:o On other occasions have used a stressful situation etc to go back on them again, when infact smoking has caused me more stress throughout my life then anything else because it has been a daily thing of knowing I have been doing wrong, plus I have been a secret smoker for most of it, apart from immediate family knowing. Explanation........I am a nurse, so know first hand what can result from this addiction, but have still been unable to stop long term in the past. I am sick of the perfume spraying, mint sucking and constant changing of clothes I have to go through every day, to try and disguise from anyone other then my OH and kids, that I smoke......when most have probably got a whiff of smoke on me anyway, as it hangs about your whole body.

I have wasted years of money, stress and health due to smoking and will not do so ever again.

Boatie_Bird

:T

Way to go Geenie - you sound like you're thinking really positively, so you will be able to do it - I just know you will!

tattycath

Hi everyone. Welcome to the newbies!!!!! I've not smoked for over 5 weeks now. Cold turkey method working very well for me....apart from the odd chocolate...:o I'm still sure that slight weight gain is down to christmas. Anyway birds-feathered kind-look fatter in cold weather (apart from the cold turkeys :rotfl::rotfl:,) it's a self defence mechanism to keep warm, so why shouldn't we women be the same!!!!!:j

MJay

Geenie...
Dear oh dear.... What's done is done and cannot be undone. Let it go and stop beating yourself up... Please...:heartsmil

Today, tomorrow and after that is what we are about now... You are ONLY 50!!! Quote from BBC News:

"It is striking, however, that centenarians may become commonplace within the lifetimes of people living today."

So there! Buckets of living left to do and all smoke free!!!

Hugs

Mary
:shhh:
(Psst don't tell TNG or Basilcat 7..... I'm only 58..... they think I'm 98!!)

Geenie

MJay thanks, and you are so right about the beating myself up. Have done it since childhood about things I had no control over then, and carried on in some ways by smoking though it makes no sense. I have thrived on guilt!!! You have given me a real light bulb moment and I am sitting here thinking in a completely different way and already feeling lighter. What a great site this is. :T

basilcat7

MJay wrote: »

:shhh:
(Psst don't tell TNG or Basilcat 7..... I'm only 58..... they think I'm 98!!)

Oooooh the truth comes out Mary.... however, age is but a number...........;)

MJay

Oh Bas, and don't I know it!!! :beer:

Even now can out dance most folk I know (but then not be able to walk for a few days...) and currently waiting for a hip replacement.

32 in my heart, but outside needs a good iron and inside needs a new go faster hip..... Coming February... THEN there really will be no stopping me! :dance: :dance: :dance:

Mary (the unsaintly one.....)