Fag Free Few................New Fresh Thread

[charliebat]

Hello

mb, that's sad news. I hope your dh recovers.

It's actually those thoughts, of cancer wards and slow miserable self-inflicted deaths that got to me the most. I didn't actually care when and where and who with I smoked, just so long as I had that 'safety net' (as I saw it) of a fag. And, to be honest, unlike what cc and pann are saying, even though I don't smoke now I still don't 'chill out' and I do miss that artificial way of 'relaxing' or at least of channelling my nervous energy which is what it did. But I don not miss those horrible thoughts of illness to come.

We have a friend with breast cancer atm. She's had a double mastectomy and just got bloody MRSA in the wound. Horrible, can't think about it. She's only in her 30s. I know the connection between breast cancer and smoking isn't strong but the sight of someone so young suffering so horribly is.

Quit, SEA, you gotta quit sometime, right? Why not now? There will never be a perfect time.

The reason you need a fag first thing is because you have been in bed for 6-8 hours? And your body is craving nicotine. In the day you would have had ? how many fags? in those 6-8 hours?
Keeping your nicotine level at a constant steadyness. The felling of OMG I need to go get a fag right now, Pure Junkie feeling, is withdrawal from nicotine.
Have you read Allen Carr?

Or whyquit for a deeper approach.

MB, thanks for your words. Wishing your DH well. xx

SEA, one of my closest mates smokes and her dad died of lung cancer. Her mum smokes too! They're both desperate to quit and find it crazy that they smoke after seeing him die. I find it crazy too. It's an addiction, you can hide from anything really in order not to have to squash it.

Oh, cc, forgot to say CONGRATULATIONS for being nearly 2 years free!! I'm incredibly impressed. I could be a year free if I'd stuck to my last bloody quit instead of caving in after 2 months ... Sigh ...

SEA I've really struggled with quitting. And I still struggle with it a bit, I've got a totally different perspective on all kinds of addiction now I know how hard it can be to beat it down. But the fact is there

Y O U H A V E T O Q U I T

There isn't an option. This is your only life.

I wish id never had that first one, and it hooked me too. But it DOES NOT have to hook you for life. There IS life beyond fags.
IF, im at peace now. Not sure I was at 3 months.
Back to SEA...you didnt think with that first fag...right....im gonna have you, and you and you till it puts me in the grave. Did you? You didnt make a concious effort ot smoke your lungs out till they could take no more.
It really can be done.
Thats why im here typing to you now.
So that youve got a real life survivor of the evil weed, saying Hey its possible

The Smoker?s Vow

To be said just before taking your first puff after
having quit for any appreciable period of time

----------------

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.?

I spent hours here, with a fag in my hand willing myself to have the strenght
Eventually got it.

They are such bastard things to quit, you all have my sympathy, you honestly do.

But we all know the odds, one in two.

Really, really, one in two.

How good must they be? I met some parents a few days ago, their son in 20 and is dying of leukemia....not smoking related. But I saw them, and saw that their life has stopped.

Please, please, please quit. Don't do the same to the people who love you

Your making me cry MB.

Im wiping snot and tears with my sleece.
I was going to say, yeah, its not worth it.
Whatever it is its not worth it.

You're totally right, mb, and please be as harsh as you like because this is really what you're up against when you smoke - do your throw your life away or not? Is your life worth less than the fleeting 'pleasure' of smoking?

How are you coping, mb, with your husband's illness? I really feel for you. I seem to be surrounded by very ill people at the moment, all way too young to be so sick.

Composes herself....Yeah, and being the child of a smoker. Well that was awful too. Once id learnt about the evils of fags, and seeing my mum still smoke. And having the guts to bring it up into conversation, as a child, and her STILL smoking. Well it wasnt nice. And shes still smoking now.

I'm feeling weepy too, cc.

Right then ,here comes the big emotional stick. Quit for dh? OK?

Nothing is so shit that something good doesn't come out of it, be the 'good' for him? Quit.

and that will make me feel so much better

My dad smoked, cc. And my mum but she quit when pregnant with my brother and never started again. My dad, apparently smoked about 60-a-day until he had us then he switched to smoking a pipe which he did until I was about 10 I think. He taught me how to clean it out and fill it for him. Nobody knew, even then, what they do now about smoking though did they?

Ok, mb, it's a deal. You can tell him too if that helps? How is he handling this blow?

There it is for you SEA, on a plate. Quit and MB can go back to her DH and fill him with the newst hat some good HAS come out of his suffering.
IF, My mum likes to shove adverts at me showing babies in a cloud of smoke, with writing saying "good for throat problems" and things. But im sure they are before her time IYKWIM.
I knew, and I still had one

They started to know in the 60s. Not that the tobacco companies would admit it at the time.

340 people die every day from this......that is the equivalent of a 747 crashing every day!

This is an evil trade, wicked beyond belief.

He is very brave and would think this oh so melodramatic of me! But what the hell, if it helps you , then that is one less statistic! And that has to be a minor miracle! I'll milk it for all it is worth.

mb, I know, it is an evil trade. The worst part is that the so-called quitting aids like nicotine patches are made by the same people! Something new to get people addicted to. I'm 3 months into my quit btw, but you're helping me feel glad I've got this far!

Im off to bed now. Nite night x

good on you girl! You keep going!

night cc thank you

Your dh sounds amazing btw, mb. Wishing you all the very best.

what can i say mb! you have given me no option but to quit

Good!

And just think of all the wonderful things that you will be able to do with the money!

The advantage of having a bloody big emotional stick is that I feel able to wave it about a bit!

I have always been a passionate anti smoker.....me smoking kills lessons in school are famious.

you will feel so much better, and you don't want to hurt the people who love you.

Gosh. I've only been away for a bath! But reading ALL of this really kicks in the NEED to never light another cigarette ever again.

Sorry if this sounds a bit pompous and preachy, but here goes....SEA

Therapy. - you may well consider you would benefit from therapy in some way, and we could all may be benefit from it. BUT..you definitely DON'T need it to stop smoking. IT's merely a habit you've created, and so can "uncreate". Therapy not needed.

Do you WANT to stop smoking? Yes. Why?

You don't want to be packed in with a load of old men who have given up giving up.

You don't want to smell of stale nicotine.

You don't want to hand over alot of your hard-earned cash to tobacco companies, to put petrol in the tanks of their executive's Jaguars.

You don't want to be lacking in energy, coughing, sliding off for a crafty fag etc

You don't want disturbed sleep.

You don't want s**t piling up in your lungs.

You don't want to have the control over your life given over to a nasty poisonous substance that you have to battle EVERY DAY.

You don't want that shit feeling that comes with being a smoker-who-wants-to-quit.

OK?

Need. Do you need to stop smoking? Yes. Why?

You don't need to die early.

You don't need to get older earlier.

You don't need to suffer emphasema, heart disease, Coronary Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, stroke, a variety of cancers, pluresy..no need to go on.

You don't need to end up bumming fags of your now-13 yo at some time in the future. And you will.

Need. Want. Not opposites at all, are they? Luckily, you both NEED AND WANT to stop smoking. The wants are things that you attempt to 'manage' every day. The needs are things which you can't manage. eg you can 'manage' a smelly dress by hanging it out. You can't 'negotiate' with lung cancer.

And what's good, is that you don't have to DO anything!! Absolutely nothing! So, from the time you put out your last cigarette, which you will, your life will become enriched, without the need for you to do anything!!

For me, and I do suspect for you, a real problem is changing your thinking about cigarettes, and the vocabulary you employ when thinking about cigarettes........