Quitting Smoking-A Fate Worse Than Death-

"Quitting Smoking" A Fate Worse than Death? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------People sitting in at smoking clinics are amazed at how resistant smokers are to giving up cigarettes. Even smokers will sit and listen to horror stories of other participants in sheer disbelief. Some smokers have had multiple heart attacks, circulatory conditions resulting in amputations, cancers, emphysema and a host of other disabling and deadly diseases. How in the world could these people have continued smoking after all that? Some of these smokers are fully aware that smoking is crippling and killing them, but continue to smoke anyway. A legitimate question asked by any sane smoker or nonsmoker is, “why?”The answer to such a complex issue is really quite simple. The smoker often has cigarettes so tied into his lifestyle that he feels when he gives up smoking he will give up all activities associated with cigarettes. Considering these activities include almost everything he does from the time he awakes to the time he goes to sleep,Herbal cigarettes, life seems like it will not be worth living as an ex-smoker. The smoker is also afraid he will experience the painful withdrawal symptoms from not smoking as long as he deprives himself of cigarettes. Considering all this, quitting smoking creates a greater fear than dying from smoking.If the smoker were correct in all his assumptions of what life as an ex-smoker were like, then maybe it would not be worth it to quit. But all these assumptions are wrong. There is life after smoking, and withdrawal does not last forever. Trying to convince the smoker of this,stop smoking now, though, is quite an uphill battle. These beliefs are deeply ingrained and are conditioned from the false positive effects experienced from cigarettes.The smoker often feels that he needs a cigarette in order to get out of bed in the morning. Typically, when he awakes he feels a slight headache, tired, irritable, depressed and disoriented. He is under the belief that all people awake feeling this way. He is fortunate though, because he has a way to stop these horrible feelings. He smokes a cigarette or two. Then he begins waking up and feels human again. Once he is awake, he feels he needs cigarettes to give him energy to make it through the day. When he is under stress and nervous, the cigarettes calm him down. Giving up this wonder drug seems ludicrous to him. But if he quits smoking he will be pleasantly surprised to find out that he will feel better and be able to cope with life more efficiently than when he was a smoker. When he wakes up in the morning, he will feel tremendously better than when he awoke as a smoker. No longer will he drag out of bed feeling horrible. Now he will wake up feeling well rested and refreshed. In general, he will be calmer than when he smoked. Even when under stress, he normally will not experience the panic reactions he used to feel whenever his nicotine level fell below acceptable levels. The belief that cigarettes were needed for energy is one of the most deceptive of all. Almost any ex-smoker will attest that he has more strength, endurance, and energy than he ever did as a smoker. And the fear of prolonged withdrawal also had no merit, for withdrawal symptoms would peak within three days, and totally subside within two weeks.If any smoker just gives himself the chance to really feel how nice not smoking is, he will no longer have the irrational fears which keeps him maintaining his deadly addiction. He will find life will become simpler, happier, cleaner, and most importantly healthier, than when he was a smoker. His only fear will now be in relapsing to smoking and all he has to do to prevent this is - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

Seeveral Times

I have posted this on this BB. Its been awhile and seems most appropriate Do what ya gotta do to stay smober gangand if you have to do it in some self righteous self indulgent , talk back at and too sort of way THATS OK TOO I have said many a time we often need to be selfish in the quit what I am now adding is WE do not have to be seld absorbed.[IF] If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,stop smoking, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good,quit smoking, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! --Rudyard Kipling

Start Date

As I said earlier in the week,smoking cessation, my last day of smoking has come in past. A little while ago I had my LAST cigarette. I looked into my pack and saw that I had 5 left. If I can't be honest with everyone, I know there is no point in posting...so, when I saw that the first thought in my mind was "what a waste". However,Herbal cigarettes, I took little time to think of the messages I have received and what I have read all this week. I'm proud to say that those last 5 went quickly into the trash. Now my true testing will come. I plan on continuing to be active on this site as well as furthering my reading. THANKS to everyone for the start off support!

NOT by TMcGee...

Sadly, I am afraid that this is a sick and twisted spam post. The website that "Joan" is promoting charges you $ 197.00 for their "quit smoking program" and,stop smoking now, like those TV hawkers..."But wait! There's more!" If you act right now, there is a "special limited time bonus (a $ 97.00 value!)" of some other scam they operate.This is despicable, and the post has been reported as spam.Edited to add:(This was a spam thread whose author and his/her/its two posts just disappeared,Herbal cigarettes, making it look like I had authored a thread called "My Tragic Life." Apparently (and thankfully), Admin deleted the posts. In doing so, it made it appear that I had started the thread; I merely reported the post as spam)Skip

One more try....

Hi, I quit smoking in January, and it was going great for about 3 months, until the day came that I gave in. I could make excuses,stop smoking now, but the fact is that there is no one to blame but myself. It wasn't the "nicodemon", it wasn't the person who offered that cigarette to me, it was me. After smoking it, I thought ok, no big deal, I don't crave them anymore. But, as that happened back in April, and this is my first time back here since, I think you can put the pieces together. I can tell you that in that time, I did not buy a pack of cigarettes, and I could tell you that that was an accomplishment, as that was my original purpose for quitting,quit smoking now, to save money. After smoking that first one again in April, I went a couple weeks, then thought alright I'll have another. Then it happened again a week or so later, before I knew it, I "bummed" 2 in a day, then 3, then 4, etc. Everyday that goes, I tell myself that I quit, and tomorrow I will not smoke at all. But then the next day comes and I end up smoking again. Today, I can say that once again I have my resolve. I want to do this. I need to do this. So I am starting over. This is my pledge: "NOT ONE PUFF!!!" Geof - NOT ONE PUFF for 5 Hours and 38 Minutes!!!!!!!! I've extended my life 23 Minutes, by not smoking 5 death sticks that would have cost me $0.91!!!!

OH My, wooooh is me....

ok so I was responding to a PM, and then realized,,, this may be a good post,quit smoking, and will certainly generate some soul searching. you know me!SO- some go and smoke and they ARE - suffering, and in my prayers, believe me on that one.BUTI came here to quit smoking, and i wasn;t looking for a place to discover long suffering, as a samaritan, for others. Try and keep that in perspective Barb. We can care,stop smoking now, and we can pray. BUT, the best thing we can do, is just flat keep the quit,,, so when someone comes back- they will see we are still quit and it is possible.Now I gotta go and post this.love ya Toddnow maybe ya can bicker about me and my self centeredness verses each others opinions. hahahahahahahaha I am a riot.... FF

Old home week.

I just read through the threads about Donna – Mischa, being Canadian, used to call her "Dee Zed.". Took her a while to get the DZ/Dizzy reference. Donna thought that was hilarious. I smile thinking about her.We drove up to Henderson to see her after we moved to the South. She was a little tired, but in great spirits and in fine fettle, given her condition. We spent the day chasing my daughter around her house and chatting about her husband, life, the board, whatever. We were so glad to finally meet her. Plans were laid to visit again in a few months, but she died about a month later. We're better for having spent those few hours with her, I guess. She'd hate that I said that, too. Didn't like all that public hoo hah. She sure made this place twinkle for a while.Funny the way this place changed us...or better: the way the people here changed us. All I wanted to do was quit smoking: what I got was that, and everything else, really. Just a little griping and whining, occasionally acting like a complete jackass (who, me?), and what with all the people here on your side you can't help but grow up a lot, despite your worst behavior. Changed my life, inside and out. Mamby-pamby pep talks and stupid jokes and relapses and enough sexual innuendo to make a porn star blush and everyone I know who stuck it out came out the other side a better person for the experience. Fred’s intro letter has a quiet subtext to it: this is the weirdest place a person who is trying to quit will ever visit on the entire internet. You just might quit smoking too, stick around here long enough, like it’s contagious. Might make some friends. Might make enemies. Might get married, too – careful, people. I am living evidence this is true, all the above.And now I have a lot of gray hair and I'm flabby and I have a five year old daughter who says things like "it's a GOOD idea to give me candy, because I like it and you want me to be happy" and a two year old son who says things like "HI DADDY! I STINK!" when he needs a diaper change. Hamlet he’s not. Sure cute,Herbal cigarettes, though, both of them.My dad died in August. He was eighty two. Tumor the “size of a lemon” when they found it in his left lung back in February. He smoked until they found the thing, and quit - not to try to prolong his life (“not a chance” said the doctors) but because he was, at that point, just entertaining a habit: he smoked out of boredom at the end. One of THOSE smokers. He’d quit for three months because he ran out and just didn’t feel like buying them. I could never do that. He was old school enough this place would have been no use to him, even if the internet had been in use during the 50’s. He was lucky, in a way. He went quietly, without too much discomfort, surrounded by his family, and in his own home. F&*^king cigarettes. I miss him like crazy sometimes.Well, heck – I’m in one of those maudlin moods. Need a change of subject. I’m thinking this: unless I am mistaken, I quit on April Fools day, 2004. That means I am roughly two and a half years along…again. I blew a two and a half year quit way back,stop smoking now, blamed it on joblessness and money woes. Uh huh, like I needed an excuse. I wanted a smoke the whole damn time. I planned it. I admit it. “When you’re ready, you’ll quit” is the big the buzzword, and I wasn’t.When I quit the last time, I just…quit. No patches, no pills, no nuthin’. Even living in Greer, South Carolina (FYI – Greer, South Carolina was the closest thing to Hell on Earth I could imagine: it wasn’t REALLY Hell – with fire and brimstone and a seas of searing humanity - but if you got on the roof I’m pretty sure you could see Hell just off a ways, burning in the distance), cigarettes were cheap-cheap-cheap, everyone smoked, it was the norm. And I just got sick of them and quit. Told myself it was for my children, and mostly it was, but there’s no quitting without a well-placed sense of self service, which I have always had in abundance. And that, dear friends, was that.Right. It sucked just as bad as the first time I quit – that overnight excursion into delusional thinking which ended in flames and failure. Fact: when you throw your smokes, a lighter, and an ashtray into the garbage oh…so…carefully, so they’re sitting neatly atop the pile of banana peels and empty beer bottles, this is not “quitting”. This is a “plan to smoke first thing in the morning”, all the better to extract them from the reeking trash can and spark one up at breakfast, just in time to get on the board and whine about it, because you didn’t really mean it. I sure didn’t.After a while I realized I was getting better at quitting. It’s true! I knew what to do, what to expect, all the tricks. Problem was, I didn’t need to be better at quitting. I needed to get better at staying quit.Today is November 27, 2006. I first quit in early August 1999. I’ve quit, oh, twenty times since. Sometimes, like my overnight “plan” and plea for attention, for less than eight hours. Twice for two and a half years. Did I learn anything?Kinda, kinda not. All I know is the following:1 – Can’t quit if you aren’t ready.2 – Aren’t ready if you want to keep smoking.3 – There are two types of quitters: those who are ready, and those who aren’t.4 – Those who are ready sometimes aren’t. Those who aren’t really aren’t.5 – This is all a bunch of philosophical BS. You’re ready, right now. Quit. It’s gonna suck. It takes forever, if forever is defined as a few weeks to a few months – however long the cravings hurt for. It gets better eventually.My rave for the day. I’m gonna stuff my face with a buncha leftover turkey and surf YouTube for a while. Be nice to each other.Ciao, bellas a bellos!Rick