cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Share your quitting journey

What will change if we quit when we quit .

Maki
Member
5 4 102

I don't talk about it much anymore ( smoking I mean ) . I don't think about it much anymore either outside of when I come to the Ex and in real life it is not part of my day at all anymore .

In the beginning of my quit I thought about quitting , then about smoking , about about beating addiction  , about losing to addiction . 20 times a day at least I found a reason to think about smoking .  I saw people more than ever smoking those first few weeks . Smokers were everywhere ! Somedays it smelled great , others it was disgusting . 

I could taste it , smell it and I missed it so much I thought , but it was part of the process to heal old memories attached to smoking . You have to go through to get past . 

20 times more a day I was anxious and stressed with craves . But wait what was wrong with my thinking ...didn't we already crave cigarettes for years when we were smoking ? 

Every time addiction spoke , we craved then we resolved it temporarily by smoking . 

It was more than addiction , more than a habit , more than a routine . It was all of them . We were in an endless cycle of self harm called addiction .  I promise you stick with your quit , you will break the tie to addiction ,  feel at peace and the craves will go poof !  . The craves will dissipate and the love for your quit will permeate your heart and give you a love attack . I promise you that . 

Maybe you are thinking the world as you know it as a smoker will end . What or how can you live life as a non smoker ? It will end but I say that with joy for you because you maybe don't know it yet , but life is so much better without a cigarette . A whole new world is going open up for you and life ad it should be  begins . 
You will learn not to live in the past as the smoker you were but live in the present as an ex smoker you are now .  Get a taste of that and you'll want more . Be determined , patient let time do its work . It will happen . 

The time we spent in doctors offices because of smoking you will always remember to remind yourself how far you've come . If you aren't feeling that remind yourself if you were still smoking how much worse it could be . 

You won't forget the time you spent holding up a wall on a dark and cold snowy winters night huddled from the storm or days drenched in rain trying to flick your bic lighter only to feed a crave and make it go away . You will be grateful those days are in the past and you can sit in your cozy warm house crave free .  Those days are coming , but if you aren't feeling that yet don't give up ... I promise you ,  you will and it's great . 

Time time we wasted not seeing our children do things as children remind me that we can't hold on to the past but we can still create a better today for our kids and our grandkids  ....hold them more , love them more , sit with them more , hear them more . I can tell you if you are in the outs with them for wasted years past that may change too . Change the things we can is what I always think , don't change others , it's not our job . If you are going to change one thing in your life that will give you multiple benefits ... stop smoking . 

4 Comments
About the Author
Smoker of 28 years . COPD recipient . My biggest help to quit was reading other successful quitters testimony as well as other quitters who would not give up and kept coming back determined to win . Also , some really hard work and helping others . I’ll have a thirteen years quit June 30 , 2024 . Biggest lesson learned : I learned that the “Just one” lesson is the key to everyone’s quit . Having “ none” not one puff , is the easy way to quit smoking . Post for help if it gets hard and before you have to own up to giving your quit away because if you do your quit can be saved . After the fact starts day one all over .I can’t tell you enough how worth it that is . 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 .It is really simply one word ( not one puff ever ) or nope , however , it will be the process of self discovery in this journey as you figure out things for yourself that can complicate things . How long will that be ? Well 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 .