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Today is going by REALLY REALLY slow! I just want it to be over. I'd like to sleep for the next week and not feel this! My lungs feel tight and I know if I had a cigarette they would open up, how ironic is that? I have been totally tired and antsy alternating all day. I know the coughing will start tomorrow and last several days like an awful cold. Then the super sniffer that could smell a cigarette a mile away. Today really hasn't been that bad tho, I just keep focusing on "just a few more days" and all this stuff will be gone.
Thanks for all your support. I like OMA's idea best I need to be horrified into quitting LOL. I was looking at a website earlier about what cigarettes do. That helps to keep me motivated.
one day, one hour, one minute at a time. Hang in there CG. We're all pulling for ya.
__________________
~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
I only read your first paragraph and could tell you are trying to quit smoking. Oh, the memories. But honey, I can tell you it can be done. I quit 18 years ago. I still can't believe it. I know it is hard and but just think, if you go through it this time and don't smoke, you won't have to go through this again. So many people I talk to have quit smoking just to start back and quit again over and over.
Kind of like I do with weight. Sometimes I wonder when I will quit losing the same darn 5 lbs. Sorry, I digress, that's another addiction I picked up along the way.
Anyhoo, remember with this it is a second at a time. It is so awesome now but I remember how hard it was. Now I have so many hobbies. I remember wondering what I would do with my time and hands if I didn't have smoke breaks and a ciggarette in my hand. Now I can't imagine how I would ever fit smoking into my schedule. I promise it is so much better on the other side. The grass is so lush and green. The flowers smell so fresh and pretty. All you have to do is climb over that fence in the way. I know you can do it.
oh yes, the memories, oranges are great for killing the cravings, something in them. I used to smoke 80 a day. I even left my young children unsupervised one night to go down to the village to get a pack. There was a hurricane outside but I had to have one. I only stopped when my feet began to stop working. Keep going, chewing gums good too, I worked off a double chin at the time, its back now though
hang in there! You can do it!!! My dad died because he couldn't quit. they even got rid of the lung cancer but he was still smoking and back it came in kidney,brain,bladder,liver. It was the most painful death. And even when he could no longer hold his cigarette we would hold it for him. Smoking killed him. Don't let it kill you too. I need you that for sure!!! Just keep on keepin on, your over the worst of it.put something in your mouth, i liked pens, lollipopps,fingernails, straws,gum. Scream,yell,rip you hair out you are so close!
Keep on fighting the urges, CG! Lung cancer took my dad, too, at the age of 53. He died a month before I turned 20 and missed so much! He's got 22 grandchildren now, and all but 4 were born after he died. How about a manicure - can't be opening a pack with wet nails.
I had forgotten that is has been over 90 days since I have been nicotine free!! (((()))) Yeah, super don't smell like a cigar and I'm not craving one. I do think about them though those critters! I stopped the cigarettes in 84 (1984 not 1884) and was nicotine free until the late 90's and then...went back out and not to cigarettes, cigars...inhaling each and every drag and not breathing fresh air in between. It was the perfect, clinical discription of a relapse. I couldn't get enough, fast enough. When I was sure my lungs had turned to a tar sponge I stopped and then just for a while cause I relapsed again and worse. I played all the games like only buying a few at a time and joking with the cashiers about my quitting. I was hip slick and cool and dying all over again. And then it was enough until 2002 and then it was over again and then it was on again in 2004 and 2006 until several months ago. I hate being owned by anything or one except truthfully nicotine. They say that the admission, honestly, that I am addicted is the first step to stopping for good. I am certainly, 100%, addicted to nicotine. I have graduated from wet or dry gutter butts and ashtray strays to cigars and when I smoke cigars I don't do air...at all. For today I am free of it. I am powerless of nicotine and my life has become unmanagable. I've got 90 something days nicotine free. It feels good. I like myself better. I smell cleaner and don't sniff my smoking hand at all looking for justification to go back out again.
If you need any help...I'm here for you. ((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))
I quit Jan 22 of this year. I had to think of it as something that had control over me, and I was a slave to it. I had to stop outside of stores and smoke before I went in, I had to leave different functions to sneak out and have a smoke, I made my kids wait on me to smoke before we did this or that.
It helped me to just say "crap I want a cigarette" when I wanted one. Because it was the truth and I told everyone not to tell me that "no, I didn't" -- cause hell yes I did. But I knew that I wanted to quit more than I wanted to smoke, and if that is where you are at, then you'll make it.
I used Alanon too...in Alanon we say that we can't blame others for things we have control over. Our happiness for example. Well, with smoking it's the same thing. You can say I have control over myself and my actions....and I'm not going to blame anyone or anything for my smoking...It's my choice. And if you fail, that's okay, you can try again. But recgonize it as your choice, no one can make you smoke -- even if they seem like they are on a mission to piss you off so that you do LOL.
All I know is that when I was ready, I was able...and I'm old enough to remember when we could smoke in a grocery store ...I was smoke free only when I was pregnant/nursing.
You can do this if you want it bad enough. My mother passed away seven days after a quit and I knew that for myself, my health and my children I'd never pick them up again.
You'll be in my prayers. Each day will get easier.
For goodness sake, don't beat yourself up. I smoked for 35 or swo years and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 11/05 and had part of my left lung removed. Then I was diagnosed with cancer in my right lung in July 2006, again surgery to remove the upper lobe of my right lung, with breat cancer in April 2006 for good messure - lumpectomy and radiation! I didn't quit until the morning I went into the hospital for my first surgery. I quit for over a year, using the patch. When my AH got really bad with his drinking I would have the odd cigarette when I was upset. Before I knew it I was back up to a pack a day. I'm now wearing the patch again and am down to 4 cigarrettes a day. If I could do it anyone can! Hang in there!! Chetch
For goodness sake, don't beat yourself up. I smoked for 35 or swo years and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 11/05 and had part of my left lung removed. Then I was diagnosed with cancer in my right lung in July 2006, again surgery to remove the upper lobe of my right lung, with breat cancer in April 2006 for good messure - lumpectomy and radiation! I didn't quit until the morning I went into the hospital for my first surgery. I quit for over a year, using the patch. When my AH got really bad with his drinking I would have the odd cigarette when I was upset. Before I knew it I was back up to a pack a day. I'm now wearing the patch again and am down to 4 cigarrettes a day. If I could do it anyone can! Hang in there!! Chetch
((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))