Hi Moss,
I'm sure I don't qualify as a "veteran" but I did have a quit I let go of at 5 months, and the reason I'm bringing that up is that the way you think of quitting is what gives you an easy or a hard time. I find that if I am thinking "I want a smoke", it's really because I have been romanticizing the addiction; thinking about the actual act in a falsely positive way. And I've been accepting the POSSIBLITY of having one creep in. But, if I think realistic thoughts about the actual act, I remember how much my lungs HURT, how hard it was to climb the stairs - one flight to my bedroom, and how much wheezing I did when I lay down at night. How my aunt, my father in law, and one of my oldest and dearest friends died of lung cancer, but I kept on smoking. All of THAT is the reality. Cigarettes are NOT my best friends, they are killers and I KNOW how to stop them. All (ALL!) I have to do is not smoke RIGHT NOW, this minute. I shout back, if only in my mind, "NO I don't want a smoke", and realize that I am really just "accustomed" to smoking in that type of situation/setting/period of time. I said this somewhere else, but having smoked for 42+ years, there are not many scenarios in which I am NOT accustomed to smoking, so there are a LOT of times I have to stop, take a deep belly breath, relax my shoulders, and let the feeling or thought drift away. And if I do all that, it DOES drift away, and it makes the next time easier, because I KNOW that I did it before and can do it again (and again and again if needed).
When we smoked, we thought and planned and arranged ALL our time around it. Now, we only have SOME of our time resisting the habit. I'd rather go this direction than backwards, how about you?
[IMG]http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p300/DeeKaySss/crow3.gif[/IMG]
I'll stop babbling now, I hope this helps you. Oh, and btw, you are doing GREAT! Hugs, Denise
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B]1/9/2008
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 81
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,620
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $405.00
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 9 [B]Hrs:[/B] 22 [B]Mins:[/B] 35 [B]Seconds:[/B] 12
