Words From the Porch

One Year Ramble
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Feb 21 2009 was the day it all started. Oh I had made several attempts to quit since Jan. and had failed them all. This time, though, it’s gonna be different. I chose the nicotine lozenge as my nicotine replacement, and although it helped me tremendously, it had a downside. More on that later. I came to Blairsville early on, I can’t remember the actual date. Here I found what I needed… people who had been there and made it through. I also found people in the midst of quitting. A wide array of folk who gave me a picture of what this quit was going to be like. I remember coming on several times during a bad crave, and someone always answered.

So to the newbies I say…. yes it is possible to quit. Get on this board and arm yourself with information. Post during craves. Like I was told on here many times.. work through the crave, it will pass. Yes, I still have the odd crave. Now it’s easier to resist. Yes I still have those “Boy wouldn’t a cig be nice about now?” thoughts, and it’s easier to push them aside.

Now about that nicotine replacement therapy… I ended up using it several months longer than the instructions said. I rationalized this by saying at least I’m not smoking. But I got a big kick in the butt when I tried to quit it. I had passed the physical withdrawal of the act of smoking. Now I had to get off nicotine completely. The craves came back worse than the first time around. Again, with the board’s help, I made it through. Now I’m not even needing the cinnamon candy as much. I wish I had gone cold turkey and gotten all the craves over with at the same time.

Newbies, just say “NO” and you can beat this. Stock up on candies… always have something nearby to stick in your mouth. Cinnamon flavor seemed to work the best for me. And post and post, that will occupy your hands.

Thanks Blairsville. I couldn’t have done it without you.

My ramble…..
January 3 2010 at 12:05 PM

Not sure what to say……perhaps just a few words about the ‘ride’ to the porch.

One year ago this morning, I woke up feeling terrible. My blood pressure was still too high…on two meds and had angioplasty on a renal artery…my throat was very sore and raw, I had a really bad cough which was intensified by one of my meds (ACE inhibitor), I was tired all the time, hated how my house, car and self smelled, was embarrassed and POed to be addicted to smoking, etc. A year ago this morning, I felt strong enough to quit again. After losing a 6 & 1/2 year quit four years prior, I finally had had enough again. So, I smoked my last few, took a shower, slapped on a patch and dug my heels in. Had several bad nights where I wound up sitting on the kitchen floor with car keys in hand…crying. Like this night:http://www.network54.com/Forum/76750/message/1231730587/Stupid%2C+%26amp%3B%2A%25%24ing+addiction%21++Driving+me+NUTS+tonight%21+%26lt%3Bdanger+-rant+inside%26gt%3B

Told myself ‘just get through this minute and then re-evaluate’……. I would watch the video in my sig of MLK saying ‘Free at last…….’ over and over again. I am free…..at last. After smoking since about the 4th grade, at age 40, I am free

I believe 3 things helped me make it this far this time: you guys, chosing my rosey friggin’ attitude, and learning to turn my head when my stupid addict started to talking to me! Can’t ever listen to that beatch…she’s a dirty liar!!!

The days added up. Soon I was at one month, then 2 months, then 3….. It got a bit easier at 3 months but still had some difficult times….at 6 months I got some horrible cravings, low level anxiety that wouldn’t go away. I came here for advice…..someone suggested working out, I went to the college gym and jumped on a treadmill…it worked. I’ve only had a few hard times since and all have been while in a smokey bar.

I did it this time, I made it to the porch. Now, I just have to hang on. Thanks for all your help and support. No way in hades I’d have made it without you all.

Sorry my ramble sucks….busy day ahead…lol….

My Ramble -

Ok Marsha here it is, such as it is.

A year ago today I quit smoking. Tradition here in BV is to write a ramble. I have had a hard time even thinking about this ramble, let alone writing it. I have been here before. Back then, I lived on this board. I made many great friends. I wrote a witty, pithy and serious ramble 5 years ago. I made it to the porch and was proud of it. I believed I was done with smoking. I counseled the newbies, cloaked in my quit, self-satisfied. Then I started smoking again. It seems smug and sort of self-serving to assume that I have anything profound to say that would make sense of the craziness that is quitting.

Having said that, I do have a few thoughts. (Very few - and they are not very profound. Hot flashes have taken all my good brain cells and left the crazies). This is my quit, and what works for me, works for me. I do not know what will work for you. I can offer support, but I do not possess any magic. If I did, I wouldn’t be here writing THIS, I can tell you. I would be in St Barts with Juan the pool boy. But there are a few things I have learned this time.

First of all, this is an addiction. I have observed in my own little self that many of us do not actually BELIEVE we are addicted. You know that river in Egypt? Until I surrendered to the fact that I was addicted and needed help, I could not summon up the nerve to try again, let alone actually quit. This is not a matter of shear will alone; it is a process. As Stodgy Bob said, there is a lot more to quitting smoking than quitting smoking. I have always loved that. Thanks, Stodgy Bob. Miss you here.

Many things have changed with this quit. I took a class, went to a group. I went cold turkey. I read a lot, tried to work through all the whys of why I smoked. Why did I lose my quit? What do I need to change? And every day I told myself I would not smoke because it wouldn’t change any little thing: Bad times would not get easier, good times would not be better, things would not drive me any less crazy, my kids, spouse, students, the economy, my parents, NOTHING would be any different if I smoked. And each time I did not smoke, I realized that this is true smoking does not CHANGE anything. Only I can change. I am only the boss of myself… no one else is listening anyway.

Humor still goes a long way in anything. Bill Cosby said, “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it”. Finding humor has saved my bacon a lot this quit. No bodies in the freezer, no jail time.

Was it easy? No, I would not say it was easy. I am relearning 35 years of habit. I am trying to deal with emotional garbage by facing it, and not stuffing it with a smoke. It has not been easy. But it has not been impossible either. In some ways, this quit has been less painful. I have had a horrendous year, both personally and professionally. I have not shared most of the nuts and bolts, because that stuff does not really matter. Smoking still wouldn’t have changed any of it. And I have held on to my quit for this year. I am proud, but vigilant. I know the addiction is out there, and always will be for me. I cannot forget that. But I do not have to be afraid I know I am stronger, and I am ready to be free. Every day is a victory that I am so thankful for.

I LOVE my non-smoking life. I LOVE the freedom. I LOVE not stinking, the money I have saved, the health benefits I have reaped, and the giddiness of not having smoking rule my life. I can go to a movie, fly, ride in a car, work and not have my mind consumed with not being able to smoke; when can I get my next smoke? I love all that. But more than that, I love the feeling of satisfaction I get from conquering my own personal nico demon. The rush I get from taking control of my life is more satisfying than just about anything. I LOVE NOT SMOKING!!!! (Did I tell you I love it?)

Thank you for all the support I have gotten here in BV. It still means a lot to come here and vent, read and be comforted when things are tough. It means a lot to be around people who get the torture quitting can be. I know I haven’t hung out much, but the times I have been here, I have really needed to be here. Thank you all.

Keep quitting, everyone. Every day, remember, smoking is a WANT, not a NEED. You cannot die from quitting, even though sometimes it feels like you wish you could. As Robert Browning said, The best is yet to come. Believe it will get better it does. Life is a gift don’t waste it by smoking. Play nice, eat your vegetables, do not eat yellow snow, stop and smell the roses. Pick an adage they all work.

I have a quote by Aristotle I love to tell my students, who for different reasons have trouble succeeding. He said, “Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. We are what we repeatedly do”. I believe this can be applied to quitting. We are what we repeatedly do. Every single day, sometimes several times a day, I remind myself that I am a non-smoker. I am making a habit of being a non-smoker. I can practice what I preach and make non-smoking my excellence of habit.

I’d rather be an EX-SMOKER with an occasional desire to smoke than a smoker with a CONSTANT desire to stop!
(From Junkie Thoughts - Bob’s Place)

I never did my one year ramble….

I think that maybe I was just too blown away with the fact that I made it that far, I was speechless!! And now, here I am on the eve of TWO YEARS!!!!!!

One thing I know for sure about this quitting process is that:

I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT BLAIRSVILLE!!!!!

The people here are angels! If you are reading this, this means you. It takes all of us together doing this, sharing what we learn, supporting, sharing our understandings of defeat, knowing we are not alone in this FIERCE choice to LIVE!!

Because it is a choice. That is the easy (and challenging part) of quitting. It is so simple. Just ONE Choice - over and over again. The choice to choose YOU… choose LIFE… choose HEALTH… choose to JUST BREATHE!!

All the other incidentals of life don’t have to matter so much as LIFE itself…

It really does get SO MUCH EASIER!!!!!!!!! I promise you people with newer quits, it really does get easier.

xo

LYMI

Ramble on

Wow, one year. WOW!!! I just cannot fathom that I have not had a smoke in an entire year, 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, or even 31,536,000 seconds! You know, it really makes me wonder why the heck I smoked every single day for 34 years of my life. Why?! What in the world drove me to smoke every single day for that long. What did I get out of it that would make me spend all that time, all that money, and all that effort doing something that self destructive? I know the answer to that now. Nothing!! I got absolutely nothing out of smoking. I was simply continuing the cycle of nicotine addiction continuously for 34 years.

So what made me quit? Why, after 34 years of puffing my brains out, did I decide to actually quit? And what kept me quit for a year, a whole darned YEAR!?

It was actually my son, a smoker himself, who first put the idea of this quit into my head. He was 25 and when hed come over we would go out on the deck together to smoke. You know, every 30 min to an hour, day in and day out, lol. But I digress this time he told me that he was going to quit and he was going to use a new drug called Chantix that someone told him about. So we discussed it a bit and since I knew him to be a talker and rarely, if ever, follow through on what he said, I didnt think about it much. But I kept hearing about people quitting with Chantix, mostly people who knew people who quit. So one day when I was at the doctor, I mentioned Chantix to him and asked him about it. He told me that hed love to write an Rx for me and said that his office had a 70% success rate with it (not like I really believed him, but still). Okay, so I got my prescription, lol. Now I had to convince myself to actually fill it and start taking it. Its like Allen Carr says: It is basically fear that keeps us smoking: the fear that life will never be quite as enjoyable without cigarettes and the fear of feeling deprived. So I pushed it off for fear of a horible life without my smokes. Geesh, miserable excuse eh? Months later, my 50th birthday was coming up. I was also starting to get a fear of getting old, and getting sick from smoking. How about I give that Chantix a try? Out of the blue I filled my presecription, which cost me a lot of money adding to my quit smoking encouragement. If Im going to spend all this money, I better make a significant effort eh? Anyway, one week before my 50th birthday I started taking the Chantix. Around this same time I started searching the internet for information on Chantix and quitting smoking. I was actually surprised at how little there was on Chantix. But that was alright because what I found made a significant difference in keeping my quit and that was the support of many many quitters via the internet. Checking out these support sites, and the nicotine addiction education sites they recommended, made this quit so very doable for me.

I was actually surprised when my quit day came and I just stopped smoking. The night before I smoked the last one I had. I had gone to great lengths to plan on having just that one left at that time on that night. Anyway, the next morning I got up and went about my business. It was a Saturday, as planned, because no one at my house smoked and I would not have to worry about running into a smoker on the first two days. It was also my birthday so Id have time with family, what I usually do on my birthday, only this time I wouldnt have to run away every 30 minutes or so to have my smoke. Something I was actually looking forward to. But this frist morning without a smoke was very scary. I had thought about this, and I decided that the best thing for me to do was to go about my normal routine and just not smoke. I thought tons about not drinking coffee and not taking the dogs out first thing in the morning (where I always had my first few smokes), but in the end I was just going to tough it out and do my normal thing. You know what? It wasnt nearly so hard as I expected it to be. Yeah, I thought about cigarettes probably every second of that first day, but when the end of the day came, I was still alive and I was actually doing alright! Wow! Could I really do this? Turns out that I could, lol. So I held on, working through the next day and remembering to congratulate myself at the end of the day. Now day 3 I had to return to work this was the date of no return. As usual, I hadnt told anyone at work that was going to quit. This gave me that out so that I could smoke on this day and no one would know I failed. But I looked back on my first two days that morning. They really were not as bad as I feared. I had never in the last 34 years gone this long without smoking before. I should try to go longer So I went to work. I could still change my mind, I had this smoking buddy at work who would come by every morning at 8:30 and say its time. Meaning it was time to get a cup of coffee and have a smoke or three. Like clockwork he came by that morning, but I remained strong. I told him that I wasnt smoking any more. He was shocked, lol. He had been my smoking buddy for the last 27 years. But not any more! He went outside with his tail between his legs, lol. And so it began I spent my breaks that first week by reading Allen Carrs, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Ended up reading it twice that first week. I also read a lot at www.whyquit.com which had information in an easy way to understand and broken up into small topics which could be easily read. Wonderful resource! I also posted a lot. I was amazed at the number of people who would respond to me and encourage me. It really is some serious help to just have people congratulating and celebrating every little accomplishment with me. Something I might have earlier thought I wouldnt need, but it turns out that it might have been that thing that was lacking in past quits that kept me from winning. And the education about nicotine addiction!! Simple things like knowing and being told in simple terms that the only reason I wanted a cigarette is to relieve the withdrawal from the nicotine I got in the cigarette I smoked 30 minutes ago. Yeah, sure, I knew that before, but I guess I needed to have it slammed in my face a few times to have it stick. The only way to break the cycle is to stop feeding it!!! Duh! Of course! Yeah, my first week was hard. Im no different than anyone else. I think what got to me the most was the feeling of being loopy, confused, lost, and antsy. You know what Im talking about? You know how you can sometimes walk into a room, or open the fridge and know that you had a reason for doing that but cant for the life of you figure out what it was? Well, its that feeling continuously. I had no idea what was going on or what I was doing. It was like I was watching life from the outside. I hated that more than anything and it seemed nearly continuous. I think that lasted till my 3rd week. Im surprised I didnt get fired from my job, lol.

But what kept me going? I suffered the stages of quitting like everyone else. I felt empty, depressed, sad, stressed, anxiety, anger, frustration, hurt, jealousy, all those things that most people feel when they quit, but somehow I was able to set my attitude and keep it right (most of the time, lol). I learned, and made the decision to always be positive. After all, stopping the nasty habbit/addiction of smoking is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. That, and straws, lol. I went through a lot of coffee stirrers, lol. By the third week I spent my time fighting cravings by replacing them with statements about why Im happy Im not smoking. Eventually, this came naturally and I was pretty comfortable with my quit. I was actually beginning to enjoy it most of the time happy.gif

I think during my third month is when I finally came to terms with all the mess of cravings and quitting smoking. Sure, thoughts of smoking were going to enter my head, and did enter my head. But thats all it was. They had no control over me, and I was not going to give them any control. I DID NOT WANT TO SMOKE!! I know I dont want to smoke and there is no question about it. So what if a stupid thought comes into my head. Pffft, I dont smoke. Life is great, Im enjoying every minute of it. I get to spend time with friends and family and I dont have to run out every 30 minutes. I can enjoy myself. I really and honestly love not being a smoker. Why would I ever go back? This was my acceptance stage. Its the most important stage in my opinion. It is where I realized that I didnt need to smoke and I also didnt want to smoke. I never looked back!

Here I am at one year. I still dont want to smoke. I still love being free from nicotine addiction. Freedom is so very worth every effort that can be put into it. The key, in my opinion, is to really come to terms with what this freedom is to you and that it is good and worth it. Accept it. Life is good. Make it last as long as you can. Quitting smoking will almost certainly give you longer life, but even more importantly, it will give you a better life!!!

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character” Albert Einstein