Fag Free for 2005....Join us.....We need Help!

[charliecat]

I cried when I read how many failures theres been and applauded hub2dees approach as sometimes theres no point pussyfooting....come on guys! Its got to be done.
I am so so so gutted that theres been vile puffing going on...did you REALLY enjoy any of them. Truely satisfying were they? No No No! Tell you what though...waking up knowing that bastard nicotine monster has got no grip on me whatsoever is liberating. I could touch the sky with the high that im free. No chain round my neck.
Remember that just one is never just one and even if it was, why would you want JUST ONE? Your aim is to STOP FOREVER.

Thanks charlie cat!!
I've been on mn for a month now and I'm kind off addicted now!! Takes my mind off smoking though.
I decided to quit mainly cos my dp kept bugging me and saying I couldn't quit anyway so I decided to prove him wrong!!
Also the cough and I always seemed to be telling dd get off I'm havin a fag or wait a min I'm just gonna have a fag then we'll do it (even though shes too young to understand)!!

Go Charliecat go!! I hope you cut and pasted that. For a second there, I imagined you must type for a living. . .

I still don't know how to cut and paste......

Me neither, but hey, as long as I'm typing, I ain't smokin. How are you dropinthe? And what's your name from?

My name is from before I gave up smoking and was feeling a tad worthless-found Mumsnet and decided I could be a drop in the ocean or I could drop in the conversations that were going on!

I'm being convinced. Slowly. Thanks so much, especially cc, for your posts. I only smoked 2 today all day and am going to try not to have any more tonight before bed. A big moment for me I know is when I resist having one first thing in the morning. Last time I quit I was so pleased when I got beyond that point.

I went to see the movie 'tarnation' this afternoon (nothing do to with smoking 'tar' by the way!) and it made me think so much about life / death / motherhood even though the story doesn't relate to my life at all. Anyway I came out feeling more determined than I have in a few months.

So, for now, watch this space ...

Good luck mummylonglegs. We'll support each other here. I can't remember the last one I had - I guess that's a pretty good point to be at. I think it was at least 3 weeks ago. Actually, I think I must have mentioned it here. . .

Glad you are being slowly convinced

What happens to some people is that when they are off smoking for a certain time period they start fixating on a cigarette. By that I mean they forget all the bad cigarettes they ever smoked, they forget the ones they smoked without ever really thinking about them even at the time they were being smoked, and they start to remember and focus on one good cigarette. It may be one they smoked 20 years earlier but it was a good one and they now want one again.

It's a common tactic for the ex-smokers to try and tell themselves that they do not really want that "good" cigarette. Well, the problem is, at that moment they really do want it. An internal debate erupts, "I want one, no I don't, one sounds great, no it doesn't, oh just one, not just one!" The problem is that if the ex-smoker's focus is on just "one" cigarette then there is no clear-cut winning side to the debate. The ex-smoker needs to change the internal discussion.

Don't say that you don?t want one when you do, rather acknowledge the desire but ask yourself, "Do I want all the other cigarettes that go with it. Then, do I want the package deal that goes with the others? The expense, social stigma, smell, health effects, possible loss of life. Do I want to go back to smoking, full-fledged, until it cripples and kills me?"

Stated like this it normally is not a back and forth debate. The answer will normally be, "No, I don?t want to smoke under these terms," and those are the only terms that a cigarette comes with.

Normally if viewed like this the debate is over almost immediately after being pulled into focus. Again, if the focus is only one, you can drive yourself nuts throughout the entire day. If you focus on the whole package deal, you will walk away from the moment relieved to still be smoke free and sufficiently reinforced to NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

Thats for anyone thinking about having one.

HOW TO CUT AND PASTE: find something you would like to copy highlight it by left clicking your mouse and dragging the arrow over it.
right click your mouse and click the word copy
then go to where ever you wanted it put...another web page or whatever and right click again click on paste.....tada...it appears like magic!

Morning all.

mml - how is this morning going - did you delay the instinctual reach ? Hope so ! Your reduced smoking yesterday sounded brill. Whilst cold-turkey might be better for most people, maybe for you another approach would work more, with a reduced cigarette count for a week or two before you drop to zero ?

Will address our philosophical ramblings in another post.

Lovely text, cc, as always !

dropinthe - thanks for the kind words. No, I sent my photo to Justine, Carrie, Rachel, and the mysterious 'jj' who run MN (anyone know who 'jj' is ?) bu they thought it would incite a riot with everyone fighting to be hub2insertusernamehere that they would breach their Internet traffic allowance and the site would run slowly forever, so I found a photo of a guy who looks nearly as dashing.

mml - hiya. I am not sure I agree that 'habit' maps to 'control' and that 'broken habit' maps to 'out of control' (which i think is your assertion / reason for fearing the cessation of cigarettes)... I think my habits map more to a construct like 'comfort' and I take pride that 'broken habit' maps to calm, rational consideration of 'other possible actions' to continue to achieve the same goals without carrying out the actions of the habit, IYSWIM.

If, for you, you think fags help give you structure / control, then maybe finding other ways to structure your day / deal with stress / find the motivation and inspiration for writing would be helpful... Could you try scheduling stuff on a Palm Pilot ? Have you seen the TV show where those old boys monitor some stressed person who 'has no time in their day' and they create a more disciplined plan with plenty of time for everything - anyone know what I'm going on about ? What about doing a yoga class to chill out occasionally ? Or swimming (put those long legs to good use !) ? Re-jigging writing time so you do it much earlier in the day whilst everyone is still asleep ? Is discussing stuff like this useful or essentially irrelevant in your opinion ?

Ref: "If something goes wrong and I can't have a fag to 'make it better' I get loopy. Madness I know but if you've ever smoked you'll know what I mean." I understand this concept, but as I've said before, I haven't smoked, only helped dw to quit.... yesterday when you only had two, you surely had a few 'hiccups' in the day when something didn't go perfectly to plan, and you didn't turn to the fags... different / healthier coping mechanisms sound relevant to securing your succesful 'quitage'.

"So, tell me about your weight!" - after you quit. I need to lose weight and exercise more and stop procrastinating about some new business projects. You can tickle my psyche when you don't stink.

Ref: dp and attitude to 'old mml' (is it fair to say pre dd ?) and 'new mml' ... "perhaps some kind of femme fatale / need for rescue / rebel-without-a-cause thingy floats his boat" [my words]... I'm glad there's a hint of truth in this (not glad as in I condone it, but glad that my incitefulness finally hits a teensy nugget of gold )... maybe he needs to grow up and understand that a fag-addicted, unhealthily underweight, alcohol-supping woman is not a particularly healthy ideal for the mother of his daughter, nor for his girlfriend. [Not sure if this is new you or old you]. If I was with you, in love with you, had a daughter with you, I'd feel it was part of my job to try and ensure you were as calm and as relaxed as possible as much of the time as possible, in a relationship where you are shown respect, where you are encouraged to eat and drink healthily, and be the celeverest, most wonderful mummy to our little one. IMHO, he should be supporting you and encouraging you to quit / get your shit together / work effciently at your goals - happy healthy daughter / safe, nice house / decent careers and stable finances... isn't all this stuff a MUTUAL goal for your intertwined lives ?

(I'll interject here just to say that I hope you weren't too insulted / disgusted / offended by the suggestions above. Of course in RL one modifies ones output and has visual / emtional cues to react to. Here, all I can see is someone with a lovely dd who wants to be an 'in control' non-smoker with a responsible dp... so I'll try and say anything to help you in that direction. Apologies if you think I'm being a tosser).

Can I finally ask you to clarify: "my problem with self-motivation is that smoking was always such a huge part of my pre-dd self that I haven't found a way back to doing the kinds of things I used to." - what are the kinds of things you used to do [sic] ? What do you mean by a "bleak state of mind I used to work with which I rarely have now." ? (was it better before or were you more despondent ? Not sure what you mean here).

Ref: "Life is the best ever but there's still a bit of me that's stuck in the 'life is shit' mode." - I try to cultivate an attitude of greatfulness - for everything - in its very broadest of senses. You only have to skim a few posts on MN to read about sick children, dead babies, alcoholics, extra-marital affairs, abusive husbands, homeless people... can I ask what exactly is 'shit' in you life (or are you talking existentially) ?

Phew. That was a long one.

NOW I understand! No wonder you didnt want to divulge your name-I was convinced you were an actor who everyone else in the world knew except me!

Cor there are some long winded posts on here! Hope everyone is feeling good after their long weekend. I had a couple of dodgy moments - i am clinging on to my past life of sitting in the garden with a glass of cold white wine, a good book and a ciggie! As cc post says, you remember the good fags!!
Well done mml on cutting back - try to break some of the habits - if you smoke straight after a meal, make yourself wait 10 or 15 mins - then when you finally quit it will be a little easier.
CC are you ready for the sofa tomorrow? I hope it fits - they never seeem that big in the shop!

sorry about long long absense, STILL haven't smoked & spent all weekend with 2 friends & dh who were fagging constantly in evenings...

feel fine, not missing ciggies, tho still sucking them lozzies...

ARGGH! And when I wrote 'dh and I were trying to shit' I meant 'trying to quit'... of course!!!

Don't worry fee77, my fingers are now reduced to mere stubs and not much use at typing anymore.

fionagib - I don't for a moment believe you and your dh weren't using the bus stop as a toilet. Sounds like you did v. well over the weekend with your smelly friends and unhelpful puffing dh.

I've had 1 fag today. Yep, my plan is to massively restrict the amount I smoke (dp in charge of fag packet and he's out working from early morning until 9-10pm at night in the week) for a week or so so that I don't have to do that dire 'cold turkey' thing. It's been the way I've quit in the past, somehow I can't do that total self denial thing of just stopping. But it may not work. I'm so despondent about it and ashamed of failing in advance I can't really say much in my favour. Just have to see.

hub, I think I'm going to drop the 'habit' element of our discussion because it was quite a large part of my PhD thesis and I had a very particular take on it which is not really appropriate to go into here.

I don't thing fags alone give me 'structure' or 'control', I'm a bit of a control freak in all kinds of ways, it's just another aspect. Maybe it's a way of chilling out from being too controlled. I dunno. No, talking about it like this doesn't help, it's a bit too abstract. I do do a fair few 'relaxed' things: some yoga, I veg with t.v., read tons of novels and of course play with dd for HOURS in a row in all kinds of imaginative ways indoors and outdoors which takes me out of my 'self' if you like.

I don't stink.

Umm .. re dp. yes, he's well aware that his initial attraction for the skinny, smoking, boozing artist has had its pit falls! And in comparison if you'd seen me then and you saw me now you'd think I'd done quite a good job already in shedding that mould.However, in relation to your 'If I was with you, in love with you, had a daughter with you, I'd feel it was part of my job to try and ensure you were as calm and as relaxed as possible as much of the time as possible, in a relationship where you are shown respect, where you are encouraged to eat and drink healthily, and be the celeverest, most wonderful mummy to our little one' I think I would find all that pressure to be made calm, relaxed and, basically 'perfect' wouldn't float my boat. I also believe that 'perfect' parents raise very neurotic kids who don't think it's ok to have weaknesses, fears, anger etc. Some of the other stuff like 'safe, nice house / decent careers and stable finances...', well, I'm sure I sound juvenile but we're a bit more 'punk rock' than that. We get by financially but our real life force comes through very different things, it always has. I don't think you're a 'tosser' but you do sound kind of smooth and perfect and occasionally a little self-satisfied. , well you do keep telling me how I'm coming across.

Yeah, the "bleak state of mind I used to work with which I rarely have now" if you'd seen any of my films / art works you'd know what I mean. They were hard going. I don't like them much now but they were important. And they were a kind of 'therapy' for me as my life hasn't been too great for large parts of my past which I don't want to go into here and don't discuss on MN even though I fully respect people who do. So my 'life is shit' was both a mechanism (past) of survival and then I guess became existential and is now dying a slow death inside me. Life has in fact been so shit on occasion for me that I feel jinxed and to even admit that life is not far from shit will bring about my downfall!

hub, if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind keeping the 'analysis' under wraps for a time now and just getting on with trying to quit.

In actual fact it's now about 7 hours since I had a smoke which is a really long time for me. I'm not having another one before bed tonight and going to try so so so hard to avoid that first one of the day tomorrow.

I've been here so many times before. I know how dire the next few days and then weeks will be. It's enough to make me have a fag!!

And then I'm such a smoker that when I do manage to quit for say a week I think the only real reward is to have a fag.

It's all madness.

That last cut and paste of yours cc was fantastic. keep 'em coming. They are all very definitely helping me each time I log on.

Hi mml, I'll keep my mouth shut then. No prob.

Hope you get to sleep OK and come on in the morning so cc can keep your fingers busy.

Maybe think up some specific reward to do in a week ? (you know, like punting down the Thames at Oxford, sipping Pimms (NOT) (can laugh at myself, don't worry).

Would love to learn more about your PhD one day.

BTW, if you want it, happy to discuss calm / relaxed = perfect vs. neurotic / stressed = perfect, and am well aware that safe, nice house is something one creates rather than buys, and am also well aware that decent career is / should be defined by reference to self-happiness and imapct on others rather than Top Pork Belly Sales Broker at Meryll Lynch financial year 02 - 03.

I'll take the smooth and perfect and self-satisfied and blush plus pinch of salt and will gargle.

PS - When you do quit, and have been off the fags for a long time, you will see that breath / clothes stink.

Hey, when you quit, you get to hassle me about my weight.

I haven't smoked yet today. Not a fag in the house. I feel insane.

Unlucikly for you , the only one here is me.

Are there no cigarettes in the house ?

That's brilliant, and brave.

BTW - do you feel insane because you haven't had your morning fag ? (I mean, I don't need to go existential / deep and annoy you, I just need to get you to calm down and not reach for a fag ?)

LOL. You need cc, not me. I'd obviously just bind your wrists to the computer desk. (JOKE).

One trick, I understand is to focus on your reasons / motivation for quitting... ie. dd, health / whatever.

Maybe some clicking around whyquit.com would help ?

You have a chance to never smoke again, and I guess it began last night, and this is your first hurdle...

I'm with you in a light hearted kinda way if you need me!

I've had the hottest bath ever.

I think I do need cc but from another thread I see she's in the midst of throwing up 'hot yellow liquid' so I'm not going to disturb her just now!

Yes, current method is to picture dd's face and think of all the feelings I've been having lately about fear of letting her down.

I also rooted in a very old manky ashtray in dp's room. No joy.

Dd's with the childminder this morning by the way. I collect her at 1pm. This is my only time to myself I have each week. I knew it would be a tough one as I usually drink coffee and smoke tabs all morning ...

I'm now going to start some maniacal cleaning ...