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Share your quitting journey

Quitting smoking = change

Maki
Member
3 7 85
‎04-27-2020 11:44 AM

We have made changes for ourselves to keep our bodies as safe as we can from Covid19 .

Following guidelines and rules set out by governments and ourselves adhering to them and adding a few of our own restrictions , we do the best we can to stay healthy and stay safe . 

Each and every one of us is getting through covid not smoking . Have you realized this ? 

No matter how many days we are quit , we have found the strength to get through each and every day for better than a month or more , without smoking . 

We've found healthier avenues to cope . 

When I look at who I was as a smoker years ago and who I am now as an ex smoker , I see quitting changed a lot of things in me . 

What about you ? Have things changed as well for you ? I bet you as well can see change you didn't even realize was happening . If you are new I gaurentee you will in the future .

It all happens one day at a time . So subtle .

Physical and emotional scars , pain and hurt are healed from quitting smoking and lives are changed . All you have to do is focus on the goal to stay quit and it just happens . 

During this pandemic ... should I've still not quit , my ashtrays would have been full , my table bare , and food wouldn't have mattered . In fact in my smoke clouded haze people wouldn't have mattered. I would have been so focused on feeding my addiction , and focused how that need would get met . 

I would have been taking chances to buy cigarettes and even desperately risking my life to borrow one .

I may have thought if I'm going to die anyway I'm going to die happy. 

Smoking was always the one thing in life I thought I had control over , but I didn't fully understand what control was until quitting smoking taughtbme a very valuable understanding . Control is not power , it is peace and love , and calm . Cigarettes , harm and hurt and just don't care whose life they take  . 

I know I would have had anxiety even if I had my need or fix met.  I still would have been depressed and still been worried , but being an ex smoker has changed that . 

There is still anxiety , but there is peace . Still worry , but also a calm that many of us never experienced as smokers. 

There is still sadness because of covid and fear , yet still we can bring love laughter and hope to our loved ones and even to strangers we don't even know and perhaps for the first time ever , some will be talking to their neighbors  and neighbours helping and talking to them . 

I. m. Grateful this morning . 

Grateful for all those on the front lines, researchers, friends , neighbours , family and you . 

Maki 

7 Comments
About the Author
Smoker of 28 years . COPD recipient . My biggest help to quit was to read other successful quitters testimony . I’ll have a thirteen years quit June 30 , 2024 . Biggest lesson learned : I learned the “Just one” lesson . You can never have just one .It is the the key to everyone’s quit . Having “ none” is the easy way to quit smoking . Quit tools : Made use of my strengths and improved upon my weaknesses . Quit benefits , more time with my family , better quality of life , better self image . How I kept the quit : one day at a time , one step at a time . I told myself like a broken record : “ Don’t smoke ; Do something different “ then literally went and did something different other than smoking “ . Quitting is not complicated , nope is it , however it will be the process of self discovery for you to find that out for yourself . How long will that be ? Up to you . We are all different and we come from different backgrounds and smoked for different reasons so no one can really tell you when it will get easier for you only that it will . Be patient with yourself . Who cares how long it takes anyway because we all came to quit forever . This quit is for life , your life , so embrace it , welcome it , it’s the best thing you will ever do for yourself . The money you save get a bucket list of little rewards and big ones and do them . Change the things you can . Life is worth living . This gets easier , oh my gosh , so much much easier . Give it a season , give it two and you’ll never want to let go of your quit I promise you that . It’s wonderful , absolutely wonderful to be free . Quitting btw was the hardest thing I’ve ever done just like everyone here . I shed buckets of tears for weeks , yelled into a pillow , stuck my head into a cold bucket of water and paced aimlessly in head fog . Was it worth it , every bit of it ! Biggest improvement : , my health , the relationship with my family ( all non smokers thank goodness ) and finances . When I started 2011. I was walking three blocks with the use of inhalers for copd . Latest accomplishment : still on the inhalers no further advancement of copd . June 1 2023. Did my first 10 k . Next goal is my second 10k by the end of 2024 . I’m 68 years years young and I’m an Ex smoker . I was able to take three trips ( out of country ) with my family because I quit smoking . Time I never would have had had I not quit . Money from quitting paid for them . I want to say you are in control , take your power back from cigarettes from vaping or any addiction you might have . Life awaits you , don’t let it pass you by . Make the decision to stop and one day that light will shine upon you and make you a whole new you . Thank you to Quitnet members and Ex members for the support and encouragement to quit and stay quit . That along with my desire never to smoke again has given me a life long successful quit . No turning back , ever .