Do You Remember?

[JonesCarpeDiem]

Sneaking out of church to have a cigarette?

Going outside to have a smoke after your son or daughter was born?

Leaving your table and company in a restaurant to go outside and smoke before the meal was over?

Oh, I almost forgot,

What about when someone close to you died?

When your son or daughter graduated?

Control
Control
Control.

And, we didn't even realize it!!!

WE LIVED TO SMOKE!!!

[nan7]

Right On, KarenS.

~Edith~ - We all know this is serious......BUT sometimes we just like to have fun. It takes up the time we used to smoke AND it relieves stress AND it builds friendships. Personally, I think friendship and laughing is a FINE substitute for smoking.

[edith2]

I really like what Carole says: One type of addiction for another is how I went about it.
Finally I got it right and you can too. How?
Educate yourself. Understand how nicotine affects the brain. Understand that living without nicotine is as simple as creating new routines and better habits for your life.
You create the excuse after X amount of days, months, or years to light up again when there is not good excuse to ever light up once you've quit.
The only thing you MUST do to quit and stay quit? Make the decision to do it and stick to it. You don't give your house away after a month once you've signed your name on the dotted line to live there for many years to come. You don't give your child away after making a decision to bring him/her into the world and care for them for the rest of your life. These are major life decisions. Quitting a drug addiction is a major life decision too so commit to it like any other major decision and don't look back.
Like any major life decision you make, it has it's tough times, but guess what?, you get through them. Quitting an addiction is no different.

[amanda57]

i think saying that "living without nicotine is as simple" is quite the irresponsible statement to make. exspecially for someone who has been smoke free for 4 years living without nicotine is never SIMPLE when you are an addict...nothing simple about it and it devalues the struggle that we all feel to give it up to have people throwing around ridiculous statements like that. just MY opinion though, and I'm not gonna change it to be more popular. so don't put that in your pipe and don't smoke it.

[sherry18]

And now we live to NOT SMOKE! CONGRATS TO US!!

[edith2]

I'm so happy to be on this site and know all the honest people who understand my message!

[JonesCarpeDiem]

lol

[charon2]

Teehee... 😉

[becky16]

We missed so much along our path in life.....all because we lived to smoke!! Now, we don't have to miss anything important in our lives.......we can be right there. Great Post! Thanks for the reminder.

[nan7]

Telling people they smell terrible is a very poor introduction to a help site or as an introduction to anything. I know, you can hide behind "but it's the truth". It is also rude. They are here to become an Ex-smoker, not to be told they smell terrible.

And no, I don't have a new quit cranky ..........I wrote this because I like to see people, new and old, treated with respect. This site helped me a lot and I believe it can help a lot more people.

[jen-x]

NaNcY - It took me about a month to before I lost my indignation when someone would bring up the way smokers smell. During the times I have failed and smoked I've been literally appalled that I quite frankly stunk. I couldn't wash my hands enough. Some don't smell as bad as others but in truth smoking stinks.