I am 68 now, I quit over four years ago after smoking for 47 years. Smoking was something I did to deal with my feelings...anger, sadness, even happiness, I smoked to plan my day, I smoked to reward myself for getting through the day. I had to find new associations for everything, new associations for dealing with life. Life happens whether we smoke or not and it really is okay to get angry sometimes, it is okay to feel sad sometimes. I quit because I got so sick that I really did not know if I was going to survive and it was smoking related. I have COPD and I am constantly reminded of why I quit because of my shortness of breath...I am on oxygen at night. While I realize that COPD does not happen to everyone...I cannot imagine taking that chance or the chance of the number of cancers that are related to smoking...it just is not worth it. When you quit and you start to grow emotionally...you find that you can deal with all of your emotions and actually GROW. You become more confident..you have more self esteem...you learn to deal to with the things you stuffed for years. This journey is one day at a time, one step at a time...stay in today, don't worry about next year or the year after. It sounds like your sister and your father did not really want to quit, did not take the time to seek our education about this addiction and did not have the support of a community like EX. I can tell you, with no doubt that I would not have made it to over four years without EX. I had lots of stresses but I KNEW that smoking wasn't going to help with any of them. For me, that was the key...ask yourself what having a cigarette would do, how it would fix anything, and THEN I answered HONESTLY and I was never able to come up with a reason to smoke...NEVER.
You can do this and every person here wants to help you. In one way or another, we have ALL been where you are.
Welcome to EX,
Ellen
