Smoking, trying not to? Wanna quit...failed in the New Year...come join us...friendly bunch of folk waiting!

[charliecat]

Hi, Im Charliecat, Ive been off the fags for just over a year and these smoking threads on mumsnet have helped me stay off the fags for this long, without them im not sure i wouldnt be at the backdoor smoking right now...please join.
Hoping everyone else will come and introduce themselves after me

kama-but you have got through the day, i have some space like you from time to time,go to my favourite cappucino haunt with a newspaper and it is so associated with smoking.What i concentrate on is all the other people there enjoying their coffee,relaxing,staring out of the window and they are NOT smoking.

We just need to get the brains of Non Smokers and we will be fine.

I am on day 5 and really trying to get my brain sorted out!

With this puff I enslave myself
to a lifetime of addiction.
While I can?t promise to always love you,
I do promise to obey every craving and
support my addiction to you
no matter how expensive you become.

I will let no husband or wife,
no family member or friend,
no doctor or any other health professional,
no employer or government policy,
no burns or no stench,
no cough or raspy voice,
no cancer or emphysema,
no heart attack or stroke,
no threat of loss of life or limbs,
come between us.

I will smoke you forever
from this day forth,
for better or worse,
whether richer or poorer,
in sickness and in health,
till death do us part!

?You may now light the cigarette.?

?I now pronounce you a full-fledged smoker.?

Charlie-not seen that one before,what a load of MUGS we WERE!

I am taking Allen Carr book back to library tomorrow,feel very well and strong and motivated.

life at the moment is very stressful,however i am not and will not have a fag.The stress will still be there if i have a puff.

A girlfriend came round yesterday for coffee and says get the baccy out! I actually said pardon,like was she talking to me,didnt think for 1 minute about having a fag with a coffee.Girlfriend was soooooooo disappointed i couldnt give her a roll up and i was all smug and happy not to be smoking!

Thankyou Charlie for your ongoing fab Support

Not a problem, I have been in your shoes many a time Everyones doing really well arent they.

REALLY WELL,looks like this whole big support thread DOES work.Like we are in a commune helping each other each day!

I found it nice to be able to say OMG I havent smoked today and other people knowing EXACTLY how important that was was...very very helpful

Hi everyone

What a great load of success stories there are on here at the moment. Really fantastic.

I do wish that I was able to come on here a bit more at the moment but it's just so hard to get the time.

Cc, you are such a wonderful inspiration. You really should be funded to run a Quit Smoking programme somewhere!

Incidentally, re. smoking parents: my mum quit when pregnant with my older brother as the fags made her feel sick. But my dad was a very heavy smoker - 50-a-day filterless, then he changed to smoking a pipe in his 50s. My mum's father smoked 60-a-day until he retired, then he quit just like that, total cold turkey, just said we can't afford it any more if I'm not working. He died of lung cancer 3 years later.

Quitting smoking is the BEST thing you can do, the best gift you can give loved ones too.

Love to you all!!!!!!

MASSIVE STRESS today,at team meeting will be redundant on March 31st!!!!

However the FANTASTIC news is I am dealing with the stress and NOT smoking.

Good afternoon everyone!

kleist-been thinking of you stranger!!!

Being made redundant and still not reaching for the fags, you deserve a medal! Well done, like someone said - nicotine doesn't make the stress any easier to deal with.

I am on day 5 today and it is still pretty hard although I think the gaps between cravings are getting longer. I am hanging on, as is DH but sometimes I am just minutes from hitting the newsagents . Then I realise my cough is getting better, I don't stink of smoke anymore and my life expectancy is slowly increasing. I keep a note in my pocket with a list of reasons why I am quitting - I really find that helps when bad craving hits. Wine gums help too!

This thread is really helping me, everyone please keep checking in and I will too!

canadianmum-remember one day at the time,I could easily of had a fag today but my brain has realised it will not help one bit,will just make the situation even worse.

The cigarette causes the stress

Day 6 today, can't wait until a week is done.

How is everyone else doing???

Here's to another smoke-free day

well done canadianmum! I used to be a real regular on here but am going through a rather stresssful moment and having to do lots of internet work from home so no time to chat. Alas!

notasheep, gosh, I know how you feel with redundancy looming ... dp will find out his fate in a few weeks ... we're all on tenterhooks round here at the moment ...

Cc, helllooo!!!!!

I have smoked (pretty much constantly) since the age of 13. I gave up when pregnant, then started again once ds was born. Stopped. Started. Stopped. Started. Etc etc.

Just over a month ago I returned home from holiday to find my mum (a heavy smoker)in intensive care. There's a thread detailing it all, somewhere on here, but suffice to say that the weeks since have been the worst weeks of my life. I spent most of January convinced that she was going to die at any moment. Somehow she has managed to keep going and now appears to be on the road to recovery - but she is still in intensive care, breathing via a ventilator and a tracheotomy. All her muscles have wasted away and she can't even stand up. She can't speak and she is being fed through a tube. She is a very young 64. The trauma that she has brought upon herself is horrific. The trauma that we, her family, have collectively suffered as a result is immeasurable.

I have always known that smoking is bad for me - we all do - but it's such a nasty, evil little addiction that it has taken this nightmare to actually ram it home to me. I don't want to suffer as my mum has and is - and, more importantly, I do not want my husband or son to ever be in the position that I and the rest of my family have been in, just because I was "dieing for a fag". Now that she is able to communicate it is clear that mum is mortified at the "trouble" her little addiction has caused. I will never, ever smoke another cigarette again.

Wow, that is a very powerful message! I am very sorry to hear about your Mother. Maybe it would help her to know that she is an inspiration to you, since you have given up cigarettes because of this. It certainly helps those of us who are still having trouble with the hideous cravings that say "you don't need to quit - smoking's not so bad". Thanks for reminding us of how bad it really is...........

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willow2, what an awful story, a lesson for us all. So was your mother's illness entirely smoking related? I hope she's making a recovery. Have you yourself quit since she got ill or had you already quit?

Aimsmum im sure Mummylonglegs will be in touch Im still in contact with her
Willow, I think you have just summed it up, I hope your mum gets better. Its really not worth it is it?
Somehow through all that coughing up gunge and coughing whilst trying desperatly to inhale that foul smoke we block out the fact our bodys are saying SSTOOOOOOPPPPP.
I cant actually belive they sell such awful things.
I have told my mum that I will not be supplying tobacco whilst shes in a hospital bed, her response is "What makes you think ill be in a hospital bed?" Er 40+ years of smoking your lungs out almost guarentees it does it not?
Some arse of a doctor told her years ago he would have never of known she smoked. Shes consoled herself with that ever since

Hi Ladies,

Just checking in to see how everyone is doing and it seems that everyone is doing just fine. Notasheep and Canadianmum well done for getting through your first week.

Good news for me, I haven't had a patch on since Saturday and feel excellent, no extra cravings or anything, I had done 4 weeks on the top patches and should be moving onto the next step but because I have felt so good about quiting I just decided to try not having a patch on and I'm fine. I have a box in stock just incase so I have no excuses for slip ups.

4 weeks 3 days and counting

Well done flutterbee! I quit smoking about 5 years ago using patches and did the same thing as you, and I ended up off the fags for almost 3 years.

Charliecat, my mother was supposedly told exactly the same thing by her doctor! She has smoked for 50 years now (25+ per day) and claims that it does her no harm!!!! She is very overweight and always tired and her skin is yellow but I guess that is OK for her .

Day 7 today and still getting the cravings but a little less often. I am looking forward to end of Feb and hoping March will be a low craving month.

Had an interesting moment last night, I was looking for something in my wardrobe and found an old pack of Silk Cut with about 8 cigs plus a lighter. My first (evil) thought was to hoard them and not tell DH , but then I came to my senses and told him about them and then broke them up and chucked all into the bin. A moment of truth!!

What clever girls we are-we WILL killl that Nicotine Monster!

Massive craving today,dealt with it by talking it through with dp,how we are brainwashed to feel deprived blah blah blah,how we kid ourselves and make so many excues to have one.

So what did i do? I DIDNT have a fag and i feel so proud and happy

Blooming hell arent we doning well? Its like staring the devil in the face finding a fag isnt it? Cor 8...lol

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Kleist - yep, all down to fags. Essentially, her lungs were so knackered that they just didn't have the capacity to deal with a bad chest infection - so they popped.

Oh bloody hell, how awful.

Hey congrats to all the successful new quitters! You're all doing SO much better than I did when I first started my quit.

Cc, you STILL haven't said hello to me...

OMG HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
sorry, I read posts and click onto one thing forgetting all others lol