Quittting isnt easy but its mostly in your mind.
I used to smoke 2-3 packs aday for
25 years .
You have to set your mind and just say NO!
Dont look for excuses (Car broke down , dog died etc) to have one.
If I can quit anybody can quit.
Ive never had a single smoke since the day I quit.
I have a couple of friends that smoke and it sure smells good sometimes but dont do it.

 

I have never held a cancer stick to my lips, but I was a second-hand smoker for the first 17 years of my life.....

I became so ill, at the end of my 17th year, from a respiratory disorder that I was hospitalized for nearly a month......when Daddy confronted the doctor about my prognosis, he was asked about household smokers.....Daddy said he had smoked since he was 10 years old, and was currently a 2-pack-a-day man....doc told him if he wanted to help me through life, the best thing he could do for me was "quit smoking"......he gave it up cold turkey, and never smoked again....

I still have a relapse occassionally if I am exposed to secondhand smoke for too long of a time......when Paul and I first met, I didnt tell him the extent of my respiratory disorder and I allowed myself exposure......I was sick from Thanksgiving weekend almost all the way to Christmas



I have been smoke free for 24 years now.......

 

PreciousOne & Vinford - congrats on staying smoke free that long!

Tonight will be the the 72 hour mark, woohoo! After I eat usually in the morning or evening, It would be nice to have a smoke but I'm not having that urge to smoke.

Now I can start investing in my tools. New jack and a set of ratcheting combination wrenches. SAE and Metric

 

good luck. dont keep cigs near you, before you know what happend you could fire up a smoke and be half way thru it. it's like your body went on auto pilot and your brain was asleep at the wheel.

 

i wish i had the will power to quit,ive tryed and it just dont work

 

get an envelope and every day put the amount of money you would have spent on smokes in it and have it for a tool fund, watching it grow will be an inspiration to not smoke so you can have more toys.

 

I have never smoked personally, my health issues are from second-hnd smoking for 17 years......

hope I didnt mislead with my story~

 

Aspen or anyone else that can take this as incentive..........Small cell lung cancer, bladder cancer, non small cell lung cancer!!!!!
What does the above have to do with you????? Possibilities if you don't quit.
Small cell killed my wife in '06, bladder may kill my mom if it metastasizes , non small cell will kill my dad in very short order.
Am I trying to scare people??? You betcha.
Each of the people I mentioned quit after the fact. All will(or did) die prematurely because they started smoking.
There's NO reason anyone reading this need be part of that group.

Look..I don't know any one of you except from here but I know what these cancers do and I consider 90% of you all here important to me. I don't want you guys to go through what I've seen lately. There is no "painless" cancer.

Keep at it all, the smoke ending.
Never ever take for granted that because Grandpa smoked for 70 yrs and never had crap, that you're good to go.

 

I smoked off and on for years regardless to the fact that my grandpa had lung cancer. I still don't know why and even to this day sometimes I wish I really had a cigarette. I meet my wife about 3 1/2 years ago and she told me to stop or else. Question is why did I stop :lol: . I defiantly don't miss that cough.

 

I've smoke for 25+ years and have really been thinking about quitting lately. I guess that's the first step. I've tried in the past but for other reasons and never for myself and it never worked.

Good luck and hope you can stick with it. Hope I can too when I finally decide it's time.

 

Congrats! You CAN do it!

Fantastic post!!!!!!!!!


I quit smoking on the night before my youngest daughter's 6th birthday. (She's now 17!)
I had smoked for 32+ years.

After one month, my parents congratulated me for being 'a quitter'.
I told them to not say that again, until I passed ONE YEAR.
They didn't.
My dear old Dad congratulated me on my 10th anniversary!
Still. . . . smoke free!

I kept cigarettes in my lunch tote, but, they were scotch taped like you would not believe. (If they are hard to get at, you'll give up before lighting up!)

Giving up tobacco (not just cigarettes - I would smoke cigars, a pipe, a 'pinch' between the cheek and gum) takes a CHANGE IN HABITS.
When your co-workers go outside for a smoke, stay inside and drink water and keep working.

Ask to sit in the NON-smoking section, as 'monsterbaby' said, above.

After dinner, don't reach for a smoke. . . reach for a pencil or a crossword puzzle.

When you get on the phone, don't reach for a smoke, reach for a bottle of water, or a piece of chewing gum.

When you have a beer (or other drink) don't think about a cigarette, think about how much money you are saving!

When I quit, cigarettes (Marlboro 'Red' - Hardpack - aka/box) were $1.74 per pack/$17.40 per carton.
What are they now??? $5. . . $6 bucks a pack!?!?!?!? Holy crap! That's more than 2 gallons of gas cost!


Quitting smoking. . . it's the best thing that you can ever do for yourself (and your loved ones)!

 

I had a friend that quit smoking for 4 days and then thought he would "try one to see if he still craved nicotine." He had his own pack about 2 hours later. Point is, you are about to enter the danger zone, thinking you just about have it licked. Don't fall into that trap, you'll be smoking again in no time. Cigarettes are tougher to quit than heroin (so I've heard). I quit once about 18 years ago. I was married to a woman that smoked. One night she asked me to grab her cigs for her from the other room, and I did so. While I was taking them to her, the urge to smoke hit me so hard that my hands began to tremble and I had to put them down and get away from them- the evil little buggers! I made it through that night, but did relapse soon thereafter. I finally quit once and for all about a year later, though and haven't had a cigarette since. I don't mind being around them, except for small enclosed spaces with little ventilation. I tended bar for years without having the need to light up ('course I don't drink, so that makes it easier o avoid tobacco).

 

Yes, it really can be done... I've not had a smoke since sometime in 1982, after being a two pack a day smoker for many years. I woke up one morning coughing up a lung and reached for a cigarette before I even got out of bed. I stopped myself and said "This is really stupid..." Threw the pack away and never had another butt. But it takes a lot to get it out of your life after it's been such an ingrained thing for so long. For years afterwards, after finishing dinner my hand would still go to my shirt pocket without my brain even thinking about it. I still have dreams where I have started smoking again...

The thing that I learned (at least for me) that made the difference was that when you go without a smoke, the desire doesn't build and build and build. It comes in waves, so if you resist for one "wave", then the urge goes away for a while. So you just take it one at a time, each time you resist and the urge wanes is another small victory.

So if I can do it, so can you. I believe it was one of the best decisions of my life, only neutered by the worst decision I ever made - to start smoking!

Good luck!

 

Congrats on quitting, all of you.

Although nobody in my family smokes (currently- my parents told me they both smoked when they met, and quit when my mom got pregnant with me), one of my best friends from high school lost his dad at 45 (he was 19-20 at most). He had been a pretty heavy smoker for years, had a heart attack, tried to "clean up his act" so to speak but then had another heart attack- and that's what did him in. He was my high school's band director too, in a school with 170 students, so it hit the whole community.

I've never touched cigarettes myself, but I love to puff on a Backwoods cigar while I'm working on the garage. Like some of you guys have said, it's almost an ingrained habit now, and I like the taste. But, that's basically the only time I ever have them and it's not an every day thing. It's one of my vices I guess

 

Hang in there ...I set my quit date for one 1/2009 I will make it this time ..it looks horrible go put out a house fire and then try to find a place to get in a smoke and I am the fire chief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!