Quitting again after a relapse and looking for support

[DONE48done]

Hi all!

i am a 48 yo man who has been somoking a pack a day for 2.5 years.  I had somoked for 15 years then quit for 10 years then relapsed. I am so ashamed and scared about this addiction.  I am convinced I have lung cancer and carry great guilt.  I have tried everything from medication, support groups, acupuncture, meditation.  I have a cough and can be short of breath.  It makes me feel gross.  I relapsed after my mother died and was very depressed.  I was back home and smoked a friend’s cigarette and I was off to the races.  

I decided this this morning that I just can’t live like this anymore.  Any words of support would be greatly appreciated.

thank you,

Jay

[YoungAtHeart]

Welcome to our community!

Glad you are getting back at it!

The most important thing you can do right now is to educate yourself on what nicotine does to your body and mind. To that end, I highly recommend Allen Carr's “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.” This is an easy and entertaining read. You can search for it  or at your local library. Here's a link to a video here on the site which describes nicotine addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWMgPHn0Lo&feature=youtu.be.
 
 You should also read the posts here and perhaps go to the pages of folks who you think might be helpful. You might visit whyquit.com, quitsmoking.com and livewell.com for the good information contained there. @https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/best-of-ex has lots of blogs written by members of this site with their experiences and guidance. You should also do the tracking and separation exercises recommended here on the site.
 
 After you have completed the recommended reading, it will be time to make an informed choice of the quit aid, if any, you will use. If you go that route, I personally recommend the aids that don't let the addict control the dose such as the available prescription drugs or the patch. If used properly, gum, lozenges and inhalers are fine, but they need to be used only as a last resort.  I have seen folks become addicted to them if they substitute them for every cigarette they used to smoke - just trading one addiction for another.  I do not recommend the e-cigarette for three reasons: 1) the vapor has been compared to the polluted air in Bejing on a bad day, 2) they just provide another nicotine delivery system while continuing the hand to mouth smoking motion, and 3) the batteries can spontaneously catch on fire. . But – any method that you think will work well for you will be best for you.
 
The idea is to change up your routines so the smoking associations are reduced.  Drink your coffee with your OTHER hand in a place different from when you smoked. Maybe switch to tea for a bit.  If you always had that first smoke with your coffee, try putting your tennies on right out of bed, going for a quick walk, then taking your shower and THEN your coffee! Rearrange the furniture in the areas you used to smoke so the view is different. Buy your gas at a different station. Take a different route to work. Take a quick walk at break time where the smokers AREN'T.
 
You need to distract yourself through any craves.  You can take a bite out of a lemon (yup - rind and all), put your head in the freezer and take a deep breath of cold air, do a few jumping jacks, go for a brisk walk or march in place, play a computer game.  Keep a cold bottle of water with you from which to sip. Don't let that smoking thought rattle around in your brain unchallenged. Sometimes you need to quit a minute or an hour at a time.  You will need to be disciplined in the early days to distract yourself when a crave hits.    Get busy!  Here is a link to a list of things to do instead of smoke if you need some fresh ideas:
 https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/blogs/Youngatheart.7.4.12-blog/2013/02/25/100-things-to-do-instea...

The conversation in your head in response to the "I want a cigarette" thought needs to be, "Well, since I have decided not to do that anymore, what shall I do instead for the three minutes this crave will last?"  Then DO it.  You will need to put some effort into this in the early days, but it gets easier and easier to do.
 
Stay close to us here and ask questions when you have them and for support when you need it. We will be with you every step of the way!

 Nancy

[DONE48done]

Thank you Nancy! I have the Allen Carr book and have my tea.  i will keep you posted.  

[Giulia]

Welcome A'board, Jay.  You can do this thing, really you can.  /blogs/Giulia-blog/2018/03/01/quitting-is-a-skill-that-can-be-learned?sr=search&searchId=d388ed1c-25...‌  You're not the first who has relapsed after a long quit.  Just sit back, check out the quit plan here (it's a good one), and hang out with us all in the blogs.  It'll help motivate and educate you.  Don't be afraid of this addiction.  You've already conquered it once.  You know?  You can do it again.  Keep the faith!

[MarilynH]

Welcome to the community Jay please read the links suggested above me and keep reading everything you can about quitting smoking and remaining quit because there's a wealth of information right here on this site to strengthen your resolve to quit and stay quit permanently it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination but boy oh boy it's so worth it to be Free, do some reading and then pick a quit date and when your Day ONE arrives stay close to this site because we're all here to help you in any way we can and at the end of the day you can say YAY for Day WON with many more to come you can do this quit believe it. DONE48done

[Thomas3.20.2010]

Welcome!

You can do this! Put aside the idea of the time you quit before because every quit is different. This is your Forever Quit! Read the material that Nancy sent you and use all that time you use to smoke here reading, commenting, writing blogs. You will succeed! I was 52 when I stopped smoking 8+ years ago. LLAP

[SaraCorinne]

Hi Jay, 

Sorry for the loss of your Mother, that's a tough one....I know. 

You really have come to the right place for help in quitting!

I quit 74 days ago with the help of Chantix and support from the people here, on EX! 

My story is similar to yours only, I had a year long quit and started smoking again, my dumb butt smoked for another 10yrs.

We ALL have it in us to quit smoking.  It just depends on how badly we want it.  Having had a long quit like you did, I'm sure that's nothing you don't already know.  

YOU CAN DO IT JAY!  I KNOW YOU CAN!

Please make an appointment with your doctor and get yourself checked out, please!

Welcome to EX,

Sara    

[indingrl]

WELCOME AND CONGRATS AND GOOD JOB LOVING YOU! PLEASE BLOG BEFORE YOU USE-THANK YOU-SO WE CAN HELP BEFORE YOU USE-THANK YOU!

[Chuck-2-20-2011]

Welcome and good to meet you!!

 I relapsed as well. My excuse was also a death, and I never looked back - until - that's right! The coughing!! Every morning I'd cough for a good two hours. As much as I wanted to, I could no longer ignore my addiction, (which I had become quite good at ignoring back then.)

 I realized at long last that this addiction was going to kill me if I didn't do something about it. I was terrified at first, and so the first thing I looked for was what the root of that terror was. Sure, there were the basics of having to change my life, but what I feared more than anything was failing!

 For me, that was a step in the right direction. I knew I'd need a little help and found a lot of it right here. If you're anything like me, quitting that first time might've been a little lonely. I mean really, no one can know what we're going through, right? I mean really going through because a quit lives internally. 

 But I found that with some patches and using the tools here along with interacting with others who were in various stages of quitting that this quit wasn't quite so lonely. I could come here and vent or ask advice and I knew that here, people really did understand what I was going through  We really do understand and believe in you, even when others might not.

 So grab a hold of the tools you used to be successful last time, add the new ones that you learn, spend a little time getting to know the community and when you're ready, go for it!! Just know that this time there might be something different. People who you can interact with who know just what you might be feeling. Every quit is different and as such, we have to choose the tools that work best for us but YOU CAN win this thing again and feel good about life and yes, your future again.

 Just one other thing. To succeed, I believe we must forgive ourselves for our past because quitting isn't about what we did before. It's about what we're going to do in the future. Remember that the decisions you make today will determine how that future will look tomorrow.

 I look forward to hearing of your continued success!!

ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!

Chuck

[Bellegonia]

Chuck that was an absolutely beautiful thing to say. Made me tear up actually as your comment reminded me to believe in my own future rather than live in my past. Then I was also reminded of something else I learned on this site and that was just quit for a minute, one minute at a time. Dont quit to the future or quit to the past. Stay PRESENT in this very moment. That was a deal breaker for me. Hugs.