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A Nightmare of Losing My Longtime Quit

RoseH
Member
5 6 532

It’s hard to believe that I had an awful “smoking dream” last night!  When I woke up this morning, I thought about having a cigarette! OMG!  But…  because I remembered too that literally…  my whole life was wrapped around “When can I have another cigarette!”

 

Now I am not saying this post will motivate anyone else B U T, in the end my awesome quit of 1,263 days would be immediately destroyed if I lit up!

 

And the most terrible outcome would be that I would be “totally hooked” again!  And my hard work at becoming free from smoking and being so much healthier would be lost in an instant!

 

It took me four attempts to stop smoking!  And each of the four times I caved in, to the Nicotine “nightmare” I felt so bad and so beaten it was horrible!  But I didn’t give up!  Those of us that stay with our quits are the lucky ones!  Those of us that believe in God, feel truly blessed when we quit!  Yes, it’s hard…  but it’s not impossible!  And the quicker your quit, the better health you will have to live your remaining days!

 

I hit my “bottom” when I got pneumonia almost four years ago and had to “strap on” an oxygen machine and have little tubes up my nose so I could breathe in enough oxygen…

 

Trust me when I say that you truly, will never regret smoking once you stop and stay stopped!  If I can do it and feel complete after F I F TY plus years of smoking, you can too!  And we are all here to help you do just that!  Rosemary

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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…