I am really proud of you!!! These seem like small things to the “outside world”, but they don’t know how hard it is to accomplish these “small” things, since there is nothing small about them. It is nothing less than a victory for you. A huge victory that you’ll remember. And let’s say it again: Victory, Victory, Victory!

You are truly launched on your long-term quit. Keep it going. I will post again tomorrow.

I’m so proud of you. Eight days is awesome !! You must feel great. I thought I would post a quick note to say that today was one of the hardest for me. boy…did I want to just buy that pack. but i didn’t !! I had printed one of bill’s post and put it in my purse. I sat in my car after work contemplating whether to go buy a pack. I sat and read it and then read it again.

along with Bill’s comments, I took my own advise as well….baby steps…just get in the car and get home….there aren’t any cigarettes in my home so once i get there I’m safe.

I am so proud of myself for not slipping today !!! IT was not easy, but I made it ! I made it, I made it , I made it !!

and anytime I feel the urgency to smoke again…I’m going to pull out the printed post from bill…and read it. thanks bill ! Your words of wisdom saved me today

Give us an update girl ! You must be over the first week huh ? \

Debra

All I needed to do was to get out of the driveway. Done
All I needed was to get the end of the next road. Done
All I needed was to get to the next exit…Done.
All I needed was to park my car in the parking lot. Done.
There is no smoking allowed in my building…so what…I have already started my day off not smoking.

I think it is referred to as “baby steps”. Then all of a sudden, you have arrived at your destination and you smile and think ” I DID IT”.

Of course, the first few days you’re likely to walk through the door and you want to slap the doorman and grunt at the elevator attendant, walk into your office and throw your coat on the floor and then stomp all over it. But, hey what the heck…you made it to work without smoking !!

P.S. I no longer feel the need to slap the doorman; and I do need to get my coat into the dry cleaners for it’s filthy ! The elevator attendant wasn’t speaking to me for a while there, but I finally told him that I had quit smoking, so now we smile at one another. He must be SO HAPPY too…I don’t stink up the elevator with the smell of cold nasty cigarettes anymore ! I spoke with the elevator guy (Stuart) this morning and talked to him about my quitting. NO KIDDING, he said ” I can tell a smoker the minute they walk into the elevator…they stink”. YIKES…I was one of them. He smiled at me and said ” If you ever go back to smoking, I will know it”. I told him that out of embarrassment, I think I’d take the stairs.

A good day to all !!!

Debra

I am smoke free now for 8 days too like you. I keep thinking about all those years I smoked in my house when my children were babies! I can’t help but think about why they always had coughs and colds and earaches. I’m sure it was from my smoke-filled house. My children are adults and they are very happy and thankful that I quit smoking. This is my second quit as I quit for 15 years and started again 2 years ago. It was the worse mistake I ever made.

Crying is very very good. It cleanses the soul. Let it out! You will feel so much better and relieved too. The withdrawals will lessen each day until you don’t even notice them. Bill, Debra I and just about everyone else on this post who quit smoking have gone through the same feelings as you are having. When you get those cravings, take a deep breath through your nose, exhale through your mouth. You’ll love that fresh air going through your lungs! Just breath and be happy that you are now a non-smoker! Oooh, I got the goose bumps! haha. God bless you!

Marilyn

You’re on the road to recovery my friend. Try driving around your neighborhood a few times without any smokes. It’s worth the try to get you out of that habit of smoking and driving.

Keep posting here too as often as you can. We all love supporting each other on this site as we definitely need that motivation all the time.

Good luck and feel well. Please continue to let us know your progress.

Marilyn

How many times in my life did I tell myself that I needed to quit? Too many to count, and usually it happened around a milestone in my life. Getting a diploma/degree of some kind. A baby is born. Someone in my family dies of smoking-related disease.

Once about forty years ago I went two weeks without smoking on one of those occasions and thought I had it licked. I remember that I was really proud of myself! But then something came up (which oddly enough I have forgotten) and I gave in. I can still remember standing outside my VERY COOL mint green Impala convertible with the top down and lighting up that first one – thinking to myself “oh well, I’ll just smoke a few and then get back on my quit”. Right.

But in fact, I didn’t really quit until seven months ago, in April of 2009. To tell you the truth, I hated continuing to smoke all those years. But for some reason I couldn’t get it together enough to quit. Now finally I have.

I was lucky. Because during those many many years I was smoking, I might have paid a HUGE price for smoking. And of course, I’m talking health. Which of course wasn’t much of a worry when I was young. But now that I’m not-so-young anymore, it occurred to me that a) people my age aren’t as healthy as young people, and b) my luck probably won’t continue. When I was 25, I thought someone my current age was OLD-OLD-OLD, so what the hell if he/she dies! Why would I want to live longer – says me as a 25-year-old? But now that it’s ME who is at that advanced age, I’d like very much to continue to live my life as I have been living it. For many years more, thank you very much.

And now I can because i’ve finally got it together enough to quit. But hey, I might not have been so lucky. In fact, I have lost any number of friends and colleagues (younger than me) to smoking-related diseases. They were not so lucky.

It’s hard when you’ve 15 because you feel immortal (at least I did), and the idea of quitting smoking is something you can put off. YOU are very special and precocious because you’ve seen the writing on the wall already. So follow your instinct – it is 100% on target. If you can carry through with your quit now, you will thank yourself innumerable times for SEVENTY years into the future – and maybe longer!

Good luck.

I think everyone is different about driving. For me, that wasn’t a problem – even though I THOUGHT it would be. Not sure why – but maybe It’s because now I started listen to National Public Radio while I drive (I didn’t before quitting). Most of the NPR bits (interviews, biographies of interesting people, science vignettes, etc.) are really good – and all the stuff is happening NOW. And the NPR people are smart. It’s absorbing – so much so that when I get home, I often continue to listen to it inside the house!

If that doesn’t work for you, try changing the music you listen to while driving. Switch to classical from jazz, or to jazz from rock, or from rock to classical – you get the idea. BTW, I do NOT recommend switching to country-western, since listening to THAT stuff can rot your brain, ruin your sensibilities, and get you smoking again and drinking to escape it….(no offense if you like C-W, just kidding – but if that IS the case for you, please DO switch to something else!).

You probably don’t smoke in the car when it’s FREEZING COLD or RAINING and all the windows are up, since that can get really unpleasant. So keep your windows up!! Even when it’s hot!!

Finally, play games with yourself. For example, pretend – just pretend – that it’s illegal to smoke while driving and you’ll get a ticket if you do. After all, it’s illegal here in California to use cell phones that are not hands-free while driving, and eventually it will be illegal to use ANY cell phone while driving. It already IS throughout Norway, for example. Smoking is kind of the same thing – though surely not so distracting as fighting with your girl friend by phone. But you can pretend, right?

Good luck, and keep us posted. We care.