Random Thoughts

[brenda25]

I've been smoking for about 30 years and the sad thing is, I started smoking regularly when I was an adult with 4 kids. Before that I'd have a smoke every once in awhile. Not that I "needed" to smoke, I'd just do it for the heck of it. But one day I realized I'd been smoking more and more often and was becoming addicted...and now 30 years have gone by.

Wouldn't it be nice to have all that $$ back?

I haven't been to a doctor in years, but the smoking is catching up to me. I need to get some medical insurance, but don't want to admit to an insurance company that I smoke...the premiums are higher for smokers. I need to be quit before I get insurance or I won't be able to afford it at all.

Going on a cruise in March '09. I want one of the cameos I saw in Roatan on my last cruise there. Saving the $$ from smoking would buy me a very nice one. Good incentive.

I've already stopped smoking in the house, now I need to get rid of some triggers related to smoking outside. No cigarettes when I ride my quad down to the river...good place to start. No cigarettes in the garden...another relatively easy one, I think.

Note to self: Get to work on this!!

[hwc]

Been there. Done that. Making my house non-smoking did help. I went from two packs a day to one pack a day for the last five years I smoked, just from the aggravation of going outside every time. Of course, I also turned going outside into a king hell of a smoking trigger, the one that haunted me the most for the first month or so of my quit.

It's much simpler than most of us think. There is only one way to become an ex-smoker: stop buying and smoking cigarettes. There's no way around it and, past a certain point, trying to to gradually taper off just makes it worse by prolonging the agony and fear of quitting.

It's kind of like jumping off the high-board for the first time as a kid. The best way was to just cliimb that ladder, hold your nose, and jump. Standing up there looking down at the cold water so long that you start to imagine circling sharks in the pool didn't help!

[brenda25]

hwc, I've set my quit date, and at this point I am just "practicing" like suggested at the EX site. For now I'm working on things I know I can succeed at, and in a few days I'll "practice" not smoking while I sit at the patio table in the evening...that one will be a challenge. I know the day will come that I'll have to stop buying and smoking cigarettes, but for now I am lacking in confidence and I do believe all the practice I plan on getting will help to boost it. I am definitely imagining those sharks you mention...but I'm not quite ready to jump in with them to see if they are real yet.

[jaylee]

hi brenda, i'm jaylee and i haven't been on here since july 08, i am ashamed to say i am still smoking
it is awful i know and i guess it is like hwc posted STOP BUYING and then i won't have them, anyway
i do hope you are doing good and i just need to set another quit date for myself.