Really great ideas everyone!

 

Mr. Q - We found what you said to be really interesting.  You're right, your not missing out if you are not smoking even if you feel like you are.  Really you are missing out on feeling healthy if you do smoke.

 

And remember what we are doing right now; talking with friends and loved ones is a great coping mechanism so keep up the good work!

Mr Q - thanks for that.  I have never looked at it in that light.  Happy also to say that, while I sill have cravings, I don't look at smokers with longing.  Right now I feel very happy to be free.  Definitely a step in the right direction.

AC

Really great ideas everyone!

 

Mr. Q - We found what you said to be really interesting.  You're right, your not missing out if you are not smoking even if you feel like you are.  Really you are missing out on feeling healthy if you do smoke.

 

And remember what we are doing right now; talking with friends and loved ones is a great coping mechanism so keep up the good work!

I've quit multiple times but I knew this one was my last but not at first.

 

The first few days I did what I always did and toughed it out.  I was planning on putting a bunch of quitting cessation methods together into one like meds, hypnosis, etc.  I started out taking Champ-IX using it a week before I quit.  It really took the edge off for the first week or so quit; however, I stopped taking it within the first couple weeks quit.  I read a book called "Allen Carr's - The easyway to quit smoking" and that gave me what I needed to pull through.  The reason it worked so well is that I was always tough enough to make it past hell and heck week, etc and I've done so countless times but my weakness was that I viewed smoking the same way a diebetic views sweets.  Something great that I was giving up and I enjoy my great things.  After I learned that the feeling I get from smoking was a hoax and that non smokers feel the same way a smoker does all day long I was free.  I knew that I was strong enough to deal with the withdrawal and once the desire was gone it wasn't much of a battle at all.  In fact I'm sure I'm come farther then many others I know who have quit for years but still believe smoking is a high.  Sometimes I'll even see them smoke a few cigarettes after not seeing them smoke for a year.  Could you give up eating spinach forever?  For most the answer is probably yes because they have no desire to eat spinach.  Now lets say that you ate spinach and it tasted awful but eating it reset your brain so that you would experiance a joyful high everytime you ate it would you love it?  Probably yes.  So you would go through life thinking that spinach tasted like the most amazing thing on earth and could not imagine giving it up.  Then imagine someone told you that if you gave up spinach today you would feel the same joy everyday and all day without eating anything but it would take 5 months for your brain receptors to go back to normal.  Could you give up spinach then?  Of course you could because the spinach company tricked you.

 

Non smokers aren't looking at smokers with jealosy because they are missing out.  Some are looking in disgust because it smells awful.  Some are looking in pity because they know smokers are hooked and will ultimately have a hard life with an even harder end to it.  One thing I can assure you is that no non smoker is looking at smokers and thinking "man I wish I could smoke too."  The only people doing that are ex smokers and why?  Because they are still living in the illusion that they are missing out. 

 

Think about this of all the people you know do any Non Smokers, not Ex Smokers feel they are missing out?  Some may be curious but that's how they get us.  We normally start smoking in our teens out of curiousity or to fit in and when we take our first puff that is what a cigarette really tastes like but we want to be cool and we want to fit in so we force ourselves to smoke more until BOOM one day these things taste awesome and I need more.  What happened is in that time some current receptors stopped working and new receptors are created by the nicotine in cigarettes.  All it does is resets your balance in your brain so that you are balanced when there a huge injection of nicotine into your system.  So when you have your cigarette you are balanced and then your balances drops every minute thereafter until you need to smoke another cigarette to return to balance.  The greatest part of this trick is that a non smoker is balanced all day long because there were no initial changes to begin with because they didn't force themselves to smoke long enough for the changes to take place.  The reason it feels so great is that it's like wearing tight shoes to feel pleasure in taking them off. 

 

Anyways, this is probably more info then you were looking for but I know in my case this information saved me from not only smoking again but also living in discomfort because I had the illusion I was missing out.

 

Mr Q

 

P.S - Another factor besides peer pressure or curiousity is association marketing.  Why do we light up a cigar when a baby is born?  What about smoking at card games?  Because it's been on TV for years.  Don't fool yourself for a second that cigarette and cigar companies weren't using product placement back in the olden days.  That was true marketing genious on their part.  Think about it.

So far, post and read. Post and read.  Sleep.  In bed early every night now.  Exercise.  Breather I have such a hard time with the water.  Really need to work on that.  A big cuppa after every meal instead of a smoke.

AC

Sleep, it is great. It helps you heal and it turns the mind off from thinking about cigarettes all the time.  It was my best coping strategy I had...that along with movies and books, and on this site 24/7!

 

Kelly

Josie