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Share your quitting journey

The angst of quitting or the lack thereof

JonesCarpeDiem
0 4 21

I guess I had a "special" quit. I had no knowledge whatsoever of what I was doing my first two weeks.

Why, I guess because I just let it happen naturally. I didn't even set a date until 4 days before because I hadn't yet made a committment to quit.

The month before I quit, a friend asked me if I would quit to influence his brother. I didn't answer. When I got up to leave later he asked me in a different way, he asked if I would consider it. I said I would

During the next four weeks I just began talking to myself before I would smoke. I just said "I'll wait awhile."

The time between smokes gradually went from 10 minutes to 4+ hours. In four weeks I had gone from a pack a day to 5 a day and never denied myself once.

Not denying myself and thus not forming a negative opinion of how hard quitting would be was, I believe, the secret of my quit.

So you see, it really is what you think and how you approach it.

By the end of the fourth week I had proven to myself I didn't need to smoke just because I had an urge to smoke.

That Friday at the mini mart counter where I bought my smokes was when I decided I would buy my last pack and as New Years  was the first of the week, I decided to quit the day after New Years.

I woke up that morning, went outside under the "smoking tree" and had my last smoke at 7:15.

I had decided to use the patch so 3 hours later, I went to the pharmacy and bought a box and came home and slapped one on.

I am a musician and love playing guitar along with all kinds of music so my first two weeks were spent at my friends house 10 hours a day doing that. I don't know if you have the opportunity to do something you love and stay busy with that but it certainly got me through my first two weeks. I highly recommend it.

I quit on a Tuesday. I forgot to wear my patch that Friday and when I got antsy thinking about it I went out in the patio and it struck me funny that something could be so controlling but, that it was as simple as laughing it off to make it dissipate. My first two weeks, I laughed every time I got an urge to smoke. It became automatic. I was already at my friends house, I decided to just go without it, after all, I knew the patches were 10 minutes away so why panic? I am a need to know guy, the guy who takes stuff apart to see how it works. The next morning I felt a little shaky so I put a patch on.

The latter part of the next week, I forgot to put the patch on two days in a row, I figured I didn't need it any longer. This proved to be true. Now that I was off the patch I wanted to learn what to watch out for. I wanted to learn all I could about the quitting process. So I did. I joined a quit smoking website and I asked questions of those who had been quit awhile and I never looked back. I kept a patch in my wallet my first year with the promise I woud put it on and wait an hour rather than smoke a cigarette.

Yes I had some difficult days just like most of you have or will have but I stuck it out. The more I learned the more I was convinced it was a process and I wasn't going to make it any more than that.

My page is about that process. I've spent a lot of time watching all the new people for the past 8 years, what they've written, what they are feeling, if they made it, if not when they dropped out and my page is a compilation of what I've seen and what I wish I knew when I first quit.

The only way out is through but, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Hang On!

4 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.