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Share your quitting journey

Ready to try again

Danisty
Member
0 12 87

And again and again until it sticks.  I need to be solidly smoke free by June 10, 2019.  My husband is in Korea for the year and he's quitting over there.  When he gets back we are moving to Colorado and we can't afford to be smokers there for a lot of reasons.

I've tried several times to quit and I have never been really ready.  I genuinely enjoyed smoking.  The last couple of years though have been scary.  Leonard Nimoy died of COPD and that was my first reality check.  Last year, I had a case of bronchitis and it freaked me out, but not enough to quit yet.  When we moved to San Antonio, I made some positive lifestyle changes including going to the gym.  I've gotten a lot healthier and the healthier I get, the more I dislike smoking.  I feel the need to do it and I feel the reward of doing it in the moment, but I feel like crap most of the time.  I have a subconscious guilt every time I light up.  I cough all the time now.  I think it's because with exercise I'm putting more demands on my body than before.  Demands my lungs can't meet.

Things I've accepted about smoking before are starting to annoy me.  I don't like that my house smells.  I don't like the mess in my car.  I actually think about the effects this might be having on my kitties.  The expense is becoming oppressive rather than just something I write off as one of my "hobbies."  I've become irritated by the amount of time wasted having a cigarette break.

I feel like my fears about quitting are strange, but maybe they are in line with the experiences of others.  Being a smoker has been part of my identity for my entire adult life.  Part of me is afraid that I will not know how to socialize without cigarettes.  Part of me is afraid that taking on the identity of a non-smoker is automatically a judgement against smokers.  I don't want to become one of those people that has a problem with smokers because I think those people are jerks.

The part that really pisses me off is that my mom smoked for awhile before I was born.  She quit cold turkey and didn't find it all that difficult.  My grandmother (her mom) smoked for a long time and quit in her 70s simply because her local grocery store ran out of her favorite brand and she refused to buy another brand or go to another store.  She just quit like it was nothing at all.  Somehow this willpower gene skipped me.  I feel like my mom doesn't understand at all.  Her experience with cigarettes is that you just don't smoke them for a couple of weeks and you never want one again.  I wish it was like that for me.

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About the Author
I have a great husband and two awesome black kittens and I love to play video games and knit. I'm originally from Savannah, GA but as a military family we move around a lot.