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Share your quitting journey

STAYING SMOKE FREE MAKES US STRONG

RoseH
Member
3 5 107
‎04-22-2020 07:26 AM

Good Morning, Everyone...

I have an 8 am almost-emergency dental appointment this morning, but wanted to do my first post here before I go!  I used to think this staying at home status would be a breeze.  Not so much any more!  We have lost so many of our freedoms we are not even aware of, until his COVID-19 thing came into our daily lives...

Now that I am smoke free for well over 600 days I realize how much stronger I became because of my quit!  I literally am reborn in so many ways!

Until we quit, we really do not understand how very limited our lives are in that having a cigarette becomes so important.  I truly did not understand this terrible addiction to Nicotine until my quit progressed, and therefore become ultimately important to me!

I now look at my smoking like, literally, enslavement to the Demon!  I am so happy and blessed to be free of it!  I do think about smoking once in a while, but I can almost immediately get on with my life, and NOT get tempted to lose my quit.  I will stay smoke free... one day at a time, and I am so happy to be here with all of you!

I wish you a very happy and smoke free Wednesday, and let’s all keep our beautiful and precious quits!  Rosemary

5 Comments
About the Author
I was 57 years old and smoking like a chimney in September 2003. I was also having medical problems and upon my doctor’s diagnosis, I knew I had to quit smoking. I was scheduled and admitted to the hospital in October 2003. I had a total hysterectomy and was recuperating, when a nurse found me upset in my room and she told me to try to calm down, and take a deep breath… I could not take a deep breath! In fact, I had to be put on oxygen immediately! I was terrified. A medical specialist was brought in, and that is when I learned I had COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). My x-rays confirmed it, and the direct cause was smoking [since I was 15 years old]. I had double pneumonia as an infant, so my lungs were fragile, even when I was very young… I had to stay an extra week and they pumped steroids and antibiotics in my arm so I could breathe on my own, again. My nose got so sore with those oxygen cannulas in both nostrils. Hindsight is always 20/20. I should have never started smoking. However, peer pressure was awful when I was 15 years old. A few of my classmates dared me to light up and smoke one… I remember that first taste and how I coughed from the smoke. It was awful! But I wanted to “belong”, so I smoked until the addiction took hold of me! Back to the hospital room… I was terrified. I quit. I stayed that way for six whole months. My husband, Ed quit with me. We were doing great and then one day I said to him, “My life feels empty. Do you think we’ve got this quitting thing under control? Do you think we can have just a few a day? Before I could say another word, he was off in the car to buy some cigarettes… We both lit up when he returned, and I felt like my throat and lungs were on fire! I smashed it out and coughed! “I will never do that again!” But an addict’s lies are just that! Before long I was smoking over a pack a day again… The truth is that I had no idea how terrible the “addiction” to the drug Nicotine was. I smoked for another decade or two and each day I would tell myself that I would quit “tomorrow”. Don’t be as naïve’ as I was about this slowly killing addiction! Quit now! I would not be using two inhalers if I would have kept my quit way back then…