I'd planned on quitting on the 1st. Then on the 3rd a tornado hit Nashville, 3 miles from my house. I saw it moving across from my front porch. Continued across Tennessee. 25 people lost their lives that night. With only 3 days quit, I was stressed & I took 3 puffs. I didn't have any tools yet. So, I started over on March 4th with day 1.
A lot has happened in the past year. The pandemic, quarantine, no Easter egg hunts, no 4th of July celebrations, protests, riots, no trick or treating, had an adorable new grandson, Thanksgiving & Christmas with only family in my bubble, contentious election, insurrection, husband lost his job.
Through everything I did not smoke. Although it's still hard. There's still a minimum of 4 times a day I think, I really want a cigarette. But I don't & I distract myself. I stubbornly refuse to go back to day 1 again but not easy.
First time in, I don't remember when, that I made it through ragweed season without it going into bronchitis.
My asthma was better most of the year but recently have been short off breath again & had a round of Prednisone. Probably due to one of my other allergies but still didn't have a horrible cough like before.
I went in to this quit kicking & screaming. I did not want to quit. I didn't even think it was possible. I'd smoked for 47 years. My daughter quit & my granddaughters were begging me to quit. Sooooo, I decided to give it a try & found this website.
If it were not for the amazing, supportive people here I would not have made it 2 months. After a few months I kinda went into a hole & rarely talked to anybody. But I didn't smoke. I would check in every now & then & read encouraging posts but wasn't posting anything myself. Well, actually I tried twice. Wrote really long replies to some new people but somehow everything got deleted before I could enter so I gave up.
Hopefully this one works.
So here I am with my year without smoking tomorrow. I wanted to say it can be done. Not easily but it can be done. There will be hard days, very hard days, extremely hard days & seemingly impossible days but you can get it done. Hopefully without gaining 30 lbs, like I did. So far only lost 10 of those but still trying.
Almost my turn for the vaccine so that should relieve some stress.
And here I go, shuffling off to continue my adventure.
Karen
