Stress inducing event

[Chantiyah01]

On June 27 2019 I am going to be going through a very stressful time.  I have a court hearing where I may be losing my nurses licence.  If I stay nicotine free until then I would have almost 4 months of freedom.  I hope I can make it until then.  I need to make a plan for that day.  I will go to the beach, I will go and see my son.  I already know this is going to be a sad day for me I just hope that I will have enough sobriety under my belt to make it through.  If anyone else is going through something difficult and got through it or is still going through please post your experience.

[Beck37]

Wether  you are smoking or not you are going to court with the possibility of losing your license. It appears that whatever happens is out of your hands at this point. There are so many things in our lives that are out of our control but smoking isnt one of them. Will your smoking again change anything? Will you be letting yourself down? 

Unfortunately this will not be the worst day of your life. There will be others ahead. Its part of life and there are billions of people all around us who have never touched a cigarette that deal with it everyday and do just fine.  As you said make a plan, but don’t let yourself down.....

You will survive whatever happens and hopefully in the end come out a better person.

Hang in there!

Beck

[Chantiyah01]

Thanks for your post.  I am 2 weeks in my quit and been having a hard time.  How far along are you

[Beck37]

I am 84 days in. I smoked 37 years and quit cold turkey. It is so totally normal that you are still having cravings. The physical ends pretty quickly but the mental could sneak up on us for the rest of our lives. Believe it or not we are addicts....  you’ve got to hang in there. I am constantly having tiny fleeting cravings that go as quickly as they come. I just don’t allow myself to dwell on them. You have got to just keep out of your head. Remember, life can really suck and smoking is not going to change that....

Beck

[YoungAtHeart]

Welcome to our community!

Life happens - sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad.  How you respond to it is what counts.  Smoking will not make any event/emotion/situation any better.  You will have a month under your belt - and if you decide you aren't going to smoke over this, you won't.  It really is as simple as that!  Sounds like you have a plan what you will do after the hearing.  Follow it!  Have some gum or mints and a cold bottle of water handy.  The best thing you can do is to walk off the bad news.

The 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 online or at your local library.  Knowing your enemy is an important tool in this fight against it

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.

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. Here is a video to inform you further about nicotine addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWMgPHn0Lo&feature=youtu.be.
 
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

[indingrl]

WELCOME !!!!  Please take what HELPS and let go of the rest - thank you -  I am a born again believer in MY Lord Jesus Christ since November 6, 1986 - that was 32 YEARS AGO and life still happened on lifes terms-  HERE ARE A FEW MIRACLES.  Please take what HELPS and let go of the rest -to be HELPFUL is MY only aim -  thank you -  A drunk driver killed MY brother in love at MY THREE MONTHS NICOTINE FREE TIME and only by God's grace since January 6. 2011 -  I am 8 YEARS NICOTINE FREE - received a COLD TURKEY QUIT from MY Lord Jesus - and NEXT -  I found out that MY 3rd Husband was raping MY kids - NO ALCOHOL-  involved - both of US were in recovery and helping others to stay SOBER and this is when I was FOUR YEARS SOBER and NOW only by God's grace 31 YEARS SOBER and that incident was TWENTY SEVEN YEARS AGO  -  fyi - I was raped by MY father since I was 6 yr to age 15 yrs old- got PROFESSIONAL help for MYSELF and for the kids at that TIME in our lives and so that was MY LIFE on lifes terms and I learned that poop HAPPENS to EVERYONE - you ain't ALONE AND ONLY BY GODS GRACE. -  I am RECOVERING and learning and healing and growing and learning TODAY - its on growing for ME - one breath at a time - while praying for the willingness to be willing and to accept -  MY. - powerlessness to change -  anyone - MY REALITY and MY daughter's REALITY is that she needs a NEW liver and must get on the liver list - DO what she must DO for herself -  she has cirrhosis of the liver and still smokes too - her CHOICE- and .HER consequences are hers too- not mine- I gotta mind MY OWN business and let God be GOD!  - so please DO what YOU gotta DO for YOU - YOU gotta want a NEW NON SMOKER LIFE style change - just for YOU!   Please remember WE will together - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF EVER - thanks for letting ME share and please -  I am talking about ME not anyone else - thank you.

[sweetplt]

You have good advice above me...nothing I can offer...other than it won't change anything...in fact, smoking just might make it all worse...good luck on your court hearing...~ Colleen 105 DOF 

[elvan]

I smoked for 47 years but, thanks to EX, I have been smokefree for over five years.  Early in my quit, I made a promise to myself that I would be completely honest with myself about smoking.  That if something terrible happened and I really wanted to smoke...I would ask myself the question...IF you smoked right now, would it really CHANGE anything?  Now remember, I had to answer HONESTLY...if I smoked again, would I stop feeling angry?  Would I stop feeling sad?  Would any stress I was feeling disappear?  What EXACTLY would smoking do for me?  Well, let's see, it would temporarily satisfy that nicotine crave that I was feeling from my addiction.  It would definitely be back...I would still be angry only now I would be angry at myself as well as whatever else I was angry about.  I would still feel sad or stressed...all that smoking could possibly do would be to give my addiction yet another win...it would be as fleeting as every single other nicotine "hit" I ever gave myself.  Like any other addict...I would be trying to hide from life, I would be trying to stuff down normal feelings whether they were good or bad...everything had to go through that smoke screen.  I really hope that you do not lose your nursing license, I am a retired RN and I know how fiercely I protected my license...same way I protected my kids when they were younger, same way that I protect my quit every single day.  I never allow myself to forget that I am one puff away from going back to my full blown addiction...I have constant reminders of what that addiction does because I have COPD, every day I face struggles with breathing and fatigue...in addition to the chronic pain I have had for just about as long as I can remember.  I had myself convinced that smoking helped with the pain...UNTIL that HONESTY thing kicked in.  

Ten months after I quit smoking...on the actual anniversary of my quit, my house burned down.  My husband and I lost everything we owned.  We lost photographs, heirlooms given to us from family, our children's school papers and baby books, paintings that we loved, things that had so many memories attached to them that it is impossible to describe.  Most importantly, we lost our three beloved cats who were trapped in the house and who, ironically, died of smoke inhalation.  I cannot possibly tell you the pain of that loss, the pain of that day that I have relived since it happened.  Nothing can change that, nothing can take that pain away, nothing can bring back those beloved cats or those photographs taken from when our kids were born to the day of the fire.  NOTHING.  Certainly, smoking would not help, it would have given me yet another thing to grieve, my freedom.  I had many people tell me that they could not believe I did not smoke over the fire, I asked each of them the same thing, "What GOOD would it have done?  What would it have changed?"  No one could give me an answer that made me feel it would have been worth it.  Ask yourself if the worst possible thing happens when you go to court...would smoking help?  Would it reverse the decision?  Be honest with yourself...smoking does nothing FOR us, but it sure does do a lot TO us, I am a poster child for that...well, a poster old lady.  No matter what happens...protect your quit, only YOU can do that. Please do the reading suggested by YoungAtHeart, PLEASE stay close to the site, I came here every single morning and every evening when I first quit, I am still here most days...I read blogs, I pay attention to what people are going through and HOW they are doing it...I learned from every person here, the newest to the oldest, we really ARE all in this together.  We all want to help you to succeed.  You CAN do this.  You do not have to do it alone.  Your quit is a journey...one day at a time, one step at a time.  We cannot always predict what is going to happen in our lives, we CAN predict how protective we will be of our quits.  Our quits cannot grow without us, we cannot grow without our quits.

Welcome to EX,

Ellen

[maryfreecig]

One day at a time or just for today...is one of the most powerful plans I've ever used to keep myself from disintegrating over the stress of trouble. 

[Barbscloud]

It's so easy to start worrying about future events and how am I going to get through "that" without smoking.  I've had a few of those during my first year.  That's why, as maryfreecig  said, you really have to look at it one day at a time.  You're not smoking today and when the day comes, that becomes your one day at at time. Actually knowing in advance is an advantage.  You have time to come up with a plan with how you approach the day without smoking.  Even though it could be a sad day, you'll be proud of yourself that you didn't smoke because of it.

Barb