Brand new here

[seamac]

Hi,

I read that this is the place to introduce myself, ask questions and generally find my way around this site...also that my time is limited which has me making lots of typos!  LOL

I quit smoking 13 days ago, my second attempt.  Last summer I quit, lasted four and a half months...I feel close to caving again now but also determined not to, I imagine lots of you know this contradictory feeling.  This is really hard but when the addict in my shuts up for ONE damn second I know it will be worth it.  I have smoked for about 46 years, lots of triggers and a life time of associations to over come.  

For now my question is, how do I in-put that I already quit?  I tried 'my quit plan' as suggested in the sign in directions but to no avail...any help is appreciated.  

I would like to hear from others who don't have "cravings" as in urges that last 3-4 minutes but rather who have more what I do which is an almost contant obsession with thoughts of smoking.  How do you continue to fight something so constant and exhausting?  It was in large part exhaustion from the constantness of this that caused me to cave last time and I would like to learn coping skills to avoid that this time.  

I feel like my time is running out...will check back soon and thanks to everyone for being here.  

[hwc]

The key is to not fght the cravings. In fact, turn the fight into a celebration. If you understand the nature of the trap and come to see that smoking does absolutely nothing for you except relieve the drug withdrawal from the last cigarette, then you can take each crave as an opportunity for a little fist pump. Each crave means you are one step closer to killing off the drug addiction that as controlled your life, all day, every day.

It's not a matter of coping. It's a matter of seeing smoking for what it really was, not as some kind of fantasy-land.

[Eric_L.]

Willingness not willpower.  Read the blogs daily theres a lot of great people that will helpif you reach o <t.

[hwc]

Mid-coast Maine? Wow, what a gorgeous place. Here's something I did last summer in Maine that I never could have dreamed of as a smoker. Quitting isn't giving up anything. It's gaining so much...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBZUuQze4ic

[Eric_L.]

http://media.wix.com/ugd/74fa87_2010cc5496521431188f905b7234a829.pdf

Check out the link to allen carrs book. It will make quitting not seem like a sacrifice

[JonesCarpeDiem]

https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/blogs/jonescarp.aka.dale.Jan_2007-blog/2011/06/26/what-to-expect-...

I believe you were a lot closer to freedom than you realized.

[JonesCarpeDiem]

you can always go back and edit the blog and correct typos. 🙂

[Michwoman]

eric I has given you and excellent suggestion.  Also go to whyquit.com. The short videos there not only distract you but they are so entertaining!  Stay with it and always keep moving forward!  Confucious says

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

[seamac]

Thanks all.  I started the Allen Carrs book, thanks for the link, it seems very interesting so far and I am really looking forward to reading more of it.

Great vidoe eric, I haven't been to that area yet but now really want to explore it!  

jonescarp, i only meant that knowing we have only about 11 mins to type had me trying to type faster than I can and remain legable!  LOL  As in emails to friends I figure 'what s a few typos between friends' as long as the reader can easily figure it out, we don't read whoel words anyway...But thanks for the tip!! 

Friends ask where I get my willpower, I think it isn't willpower either (as hwc said).  For me it that I said I would try my best and so far my best is better than giving in or giving up.  Last year I had done my best when I decided to smoke, each true attempt brings us cloer to that final time, each slip adds knowledge about what will get us each to that final time we quit.  I may or may not be at that time yet but no matter how this quit turns out I will learn from it and at the very least give my body a break from the poisens.  

As I said I don't have what most people talk about when they say 'cravings', cravings typically are said to last a few minutes then pass...I think about smoking almost every waking moment except during the hours at work that I never smoked.  It is exhausting to say the least.  I would like to know if anyone else has found ways to change this type of "quit" response and if so how/what worked for them?  

Two weeks tomorrow...As with most changes - one day or one hour or one minute at a time.  

[hwc]

"I would like to know if anyone else has found ways to change this type of "quit" response and if so how/what worked for them? "

Yes. You have to stop saying/thinking stuff like:

Last year I had done my best when I decided to smoke, each true attempt brings us cloer to that final time, each slip adds knowledge about what will get us each to that final time we quit.  I may or may not be at that time yet but no matter how this quit turns out I will learn from it and at the very least give my body a break from the poisens.  

To me, that sounds like you already giving yourself permission to smoke, it's just a matter of how long you can deprive yourself. That's not helpful. Each failed attempt does NOT bring you closer to quitting. Just the opposite, failure after failure makes you even more sure that you can't quit.

You've got the hardest two weeks under your belt. Right now, you KNOW you can quit. Whatever you did to get through today, you can do tomorrow and that's another day.

Meanwhile, start working on the way you think about smoking and life as a nicotine junkie. You sound like you believe you are giving something up. What?

Watch this tonight instead of your favorite TV show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDJo1vfEqlo

[Giulia]

Learning to change focus every time a craving comes in - takes practice.  The more adept you become at it the more easily you begin to shrug them off as just part of the journey.

Go to My Quit Plan - scroll down until you're under Personal Information  and you will see a heading:  "Which of these statements best describes you?"  Click the arrow next to it and select "I've already quit but want to stay smoke free."  That's how you input that you've already quit.

By the way, if you simply copy your blog before you click the Post button, should it time out, you can just paste it back in.  The blog you're writing won't disappear if you've gone overtime until you press Post.  So you can type for an hour, just copy it before you Post it and retrieve if necessary.  I assume you know how to copy and paste?  If not, click on my G, and leave me a message on my message board.  Or if I can help with anything else, give a shout. 

[Strudel]

Welcome to the site and congrats on your quit! You will find out from the reading - no need to fight! Face the feeling, acknowledge it as a thought of smoking. Use a mantra like "I don't do that anymore." And - move on. I smoked for 40 years - similar to you - it takes a while for those thoughts to go away. But, they will go away. You can do this! I came here - got the support and did the reading. And, I quit! That was almost 5 years ago! Stick around! 

[seamac]

Hi again,

Thanks everyone for your comments and support, it means a lot.  

I watched the Easy Way movie, found it very interesting and now am wondering how many people here have used that method successfully?  No NRT, no between meal snacking, no substitutes of any kind and simply embrassed the withdrawel for what it is and happily moved on.  VS How many people are more likly to or have succesed using the slower method of using NRT and taking the hard times with the easier ones and embrassing each day we manage smoke free???  

My mantra is simply "I am done"  said so many times some days it is more like a hum in my head.  

Someone commented that it sounds like I am giving my self permission to smoke, I disagree but perhaps didn't state myself well.  I do believe and know others including trained quit coaches who also do, that when we fail at our goal but learn from it our chances of succeeding increase the next time we try.  I do not want to smoke.  PERIOD.  But I am human and so failable, if I fail I will, first except it and not punish myself more than I can help and I will keep trying until I don't need to try again.  I am hoping this is that time, I surely can go the rest of my life without another day one or week one...

I am so glad I was told about this site (by a quit coach from another site)  I think I will get the support I need here to make it through the times when smoking seems like the only answer, against all intellagence, my "little monster" or the "addict voice" as I call it is a loud SOB and wants not to be denied but I intend to shut him down once and for all time.  

Time for bed and hopefully sleep, not something easy for me...

Ph by the way, I also quit drinking at the same time I quit smoking,  not even in the same leauge but something I do miss from time to time, if I drink i will smoke so bye bye to my icy beer.  

Giulia, Thanks for directly answering my questions! 

Night all, see you soon.  

[hwc]

I watched the Easy Way movie, found it very interesting and now am wondering how many people here have used that method successfully?  No NRT, no between meal snacking, no substitutes of any kind and simply embrassed the withdrawel for what it is and happily moved on.

The overwhelming majority of ex-smokers quit abruptly and with no aids. I quit so abruptly that I took my last puff from the first cigarette out of the pack after driving to the store at midnight to buy two packs. After 40 years of smoking, I opened the pack, took one puff of the first cigarette and haven't taken a puff since. That was a little over 7 years ago. The last time I had tried to quit was in 1972, when I tried the "cut down" method -- and, of course, failed.

All anybody has to do to quit smoking, 100% guaranteed, is to make and stick to a personal commitment to never take another puff. That part is obvious.

The stuff Allen Carr (and others) are getting at is to be happy ex-smoker. Once you shatter the illusion of smoking and see it for what it is -- a drug junkie trap -- then you wil be willing (if not happy) to do what it takes to escape the trap.

BTW, I'm not advocating beating yourself up for smoking. I don't think that accomplishes anything.

Here's the most recent Gallup survey of ex-smokers and the methods they used to quit:

[djmurray]

Hi, Seamac -- Looks like I'm kind of late to the party, but I definitely found this quit doable and my FINAL quit based on reading Allen Carr's Book.  I've read it twice.  The first time I read it was day 1 and 2 of this quit.  The next time I read it was about a month in, just to keep myself refreshed.  

So I fall in the category of someone who read that book, grasped the concept and changed my belief that I was giving up ANYTHING of value by quitting smoking.  Every other quit I had failed because I thought I was being deprived.  I envied people who smoked.  Not now.  Do I still deal with craves sometimes?  Of course.  Remember the little monster from the video?  (I watched about the first 25 minutes of the video but figured I'd be up til midnight if I watched the whole thing).  That little monster awakens every now and then.  But when the itch starts I simply say "yeah, but I don't do that any more."

I also found that when you don't feel deprived about not smoking you tend not to think about it quite so much.  I know that exhaustion that comes from the litany "I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke. . ."   I haven't had that in this quit at all.  Of course we're going to think about smoking a lot when we quit because if you stop and think about it, think about how much time we thought about smoking when we were doing it!  Let's say we smoked one every hour and a half.  Many of us had to go outside, so from the time you had the initial thought it takes a minute or two (or more if you're at work) to get to the place you can smoke, then it takes about 6 or 7 minutes to smoke, and the likelihood is that you'll smoke another as long as you're at it.  Then there's the time we think about "do we have enough cigarettes," "is this a place where I can smoke?" "If I can't smoke here where can I go out to have a smoke" etc.   So what I found that worked for me is coming here regularly -- bookending my days so that the time I was spending thinking about smoking was focused on the benefits of NOT smoking.

Okay, I didn't mean to write a book here, but there's so much good advice and support on this site and I really urge you to come often, read the blogs, comment on the blogs and blog yourself about how you're feeling.  If you think you're going to break down and smoke come here first and type HELP in the subject line and there will be people here who will come to your aid virtually immediately.  

[hwc]

Just to clarify. I didn't actually discover the Allen Carr stuff until several months after I quit smoking. I was very lucky to stumble onto Joel Spitzer's video coaching when I quit:

https://www.youtube.com/user/joelspitz

So, when I finally read Allen Carr's book, it was all very familiar to me as it was exactly what I had done to quit. The lightbulb went off understanding the trap of the drug addiction. I made a firm personal committment to never take another puff, because I understood that was the only way to break free from the trap. And, I embraced the craves defiantly because I was determined to take off the ball and chain of nicotine drug addiction.

I'm not saying that the first month or so wasn't a challenge. But, I would say that, because I understood what was happening and what would happen if I stuck with it, I was a "happy" ex-smoker from the start. I never once, for a moment, considered having "just one" cigarette because I knew that would be a decision to smoke, all day, every day, for the rest of my life until it killed me. I viewed my quit as a once in a lifetime opportunity, something I had wished I could do for 40 years. I wasn't looking to learn anything from it. I was looking to "git 'er done".