Leaderboard

Sorry to hear about your mom Denali. Congratulations however on recognizing that even in the most challenging times there is no good reason to smoke. The ability to differentiate between the realities of smoking and the delusions of addiction is a major milestone in every successful quit.

Hoping your mom has a speedy recovery! I get through my worst trials always by practicing my deep breathing. It just grounds and centers me. I just focus on my ability to breathe. I notice how deeply I can breathe and I feel my lungs expanding and I release it all in an ever so slow exhale of appreciation because I did it without a cough. Smoking a cigarette would take that from me. And that just wouldn’t do because I had only one quit in me. I would never survive another quit. Keeping that list of reasons you quit smoking in the first place and the tools you used to assist yourself in your quit handy helps a lot. Getting on here to immerse yourself in reading or to vent or to SOS are also on my list. Keep fighting to keep your quit and yes, by all means, hold your quit as being sacred to you. It is a part of who you are now. It is who you are now and you’ve shown that by getting on here for support instead of lighting up. Hugs for you!

Congratulations on the six smoke free quit!

@G67 congratulations! Happy th Quit anniversary!!

Congratulations on your 6 year quit @G67!

made some crab cakes yesterday. over did it on the seasonings. gonna try it again tomorrow and use about a quarter of the amount of seasoning. it will be my last endeavor with it though as the seasoning irritated my guts pretty bad. I should leave it alone now but I know it will be worth the discomfort one last time. Crab is still ok for me to eat as long it is with melted butter only. Cleaning up the diet has really made me aware of all the things that I react to. I'm finding out that there is a lot of stuff that I never should have been ingesting. unfortunately beer is one of those things I hit a milestone on the getting rid of the quit weight this past week. Bottomed out at 176. That's down 23 lbs from where I started and 26 lbs from my peak. I had stalled in the 181 to 185 range for weeks but quitting the coffee I think got me over the hump. 10 lbs of fat left to get off my arse and i'll be back down to my pre quit weight. The lighter I get the better my joints feel. Still have an issue with my hip so i'm off to the chiro tomorrow to see if there is an answer for that little nagging problem.

@DenaliBluessorry to hear about your mom. I hope she will be ok. In times like these I would ask myself what would change if I smoked? would the situation improve? and the one question that always got me...why are you thinking about smoking right now? there are problems the size of mountains that need your attention and you're thinking about smoking? What the F*** is wrong with you? That would usually shame me into putting aside the smoking thoughts and get to the mattes at hand. Hope this is of some help.

Congratulations @G67 on six years quit! I hope you check in and tell us how you're doing

My quit is really being tested right now. My mother is lying in a hospital bed with seven staples in her skull after taking a bad fall. My urge to smoke at this time is ferocious, it's a pulling sensation deep in my body. I can hear the siren song of my nicotine addiction so loudly. I want to smoke away my feelings of helplessness and anxiety. I want the “ahh” sensation of having a chemical craving satisfied. Smoking would help me to gather myself. It would be soothing, it would help me cope… That is all a load of crap, of course. A web of falsehoods and illusions spun by my ingrained addict mind, romancing the smoke to lure me back. Time to dig deep to defend my quit. Instead of lighting up, I will visit this Train and ask for help. I will make a list of the reasons it’s worth fighting against a relapse. Maybe hammering them into a keyboard can hammer them into my head, too. I choose not to smoke today: Because there is no such thing as smoking “just one” cigarette. One would inevitably lead to more. That’s the way nicotine addiction works. Because there is no true solace or gratification to be found in smoking. That’s a false narrative created by my nicotine addiction. The reality is that smoking would trigger an endless cycle of chemically induced “chasing”… chasing a sensation of completion that never actually arrives. Been there. Done that. No thanks. Because withdrawal was awful. I don’t want to go through it all over again. Because I would feel lousy about relapsing. And I don’t want to feel lousy. In my current situation I don’t have the bandwidth for it, actually. Because it’s a lot easier to navigate hospitals without being a smoker. Though I would rather not have made this discovery, it is a silver lining. No more biting my nails till my next chance to smoke. No more missing doctor’s rounds because I was off somewhere feeding my addiction. No more dashing multiple blocks through the rain to get off the nonsmoking campus, no more sucking down a few frantic and pathetic puffs, no more dashing back cold and drenched and stinky. Because if I’m honest with myself and tell junkie mind to shush for a minute, I can't recall that smoking ever actually fixed anything that was broken. I know I’m not the only one who’s had to make it through hard times without smoking. How did you make it through? What were YOUR reasons for not relapsing? How did you protect your quit? Part of the magic of this community is helping each other rally… thanks for letting me lean on some of that collective strength today.

NOPE

Congratulations G67, this is an awesome quit.

NOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations on 6 years smoke free, @G67 Excellent job!

Congratulations ....6 years is Inspirational..... Hope to see you soon ....

G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required)

NOPE!

gimme 5

Boo Quit Date: March 9, 2016 Posted August 26, 2017 · "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." I'm not one to nitpick over semantics, but I've heard that old cliche twice today. How many phrases do we mindlessly repeat without ever really thinking about them. Maybe I'm overthinking the phrase. Or perhaps when you begin making a conscious effort to make positive changes, you're a bit more sensitive to the kind of self-defeating limitations we place on ourselves. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be your greatest strength or a damning weakness. Smoking was an ingrained part of our lives to an extent that it became a part of our identity. We committed to a new way and put that behind us. In the wake of quitting smoking, many of us delved into health and fitness. Steady forward momentum now has us doing things we might have believed impossible just a few short years ago. As I tune in to people making changes in their life, I'm genuinely encouraged by how much success people can have with a solid commitment and a bit of grit. Where you came from is not nearly as important as where you're going. An old dog resigned to the fact that he can't learn new tricks will stagnate and wither away. However, an old dog that blocks out that negative noise and bravely ventures forward is capable of great things. Link to original post: https://www.quittrain.com/topic/9006-old-dogs-and-new-tricks/

G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required)

This is day 4 of not working out, at all. I did go out today, to the DMV, so did accomplish something. I am recuperating from a very nasty flare up of Diverticulitis. Running, lifting weights, and boxing do not seem like a good idea, while my gut is infected. My fever is gone, and the pain is greatly diminished, but still there. My energy level is much lower than usual. It’s hard to reconcile that the day before I was in the ER, I ran 2 miles up hill, and did my heavy bag work. In retrospect, it did seem harder than usual. I just have to be patient. I will allow myself 3 more days of rest, before restarting my routine. For now, I am listening to my body. Kat

@DenaliBlues.... I'm sorry your Mom has had a nasty fall....wishing her a speedy recovery ❤ Well done for coming here and sharing ...and understanding smoking wouldn't change any situation... All it would do is make you more miserable because you lost your precious quit ... I was fighting to keep hold of my two feet...they and myself were on the way to be parted ... So I knew smoking no matter what was out of the question ... I did what you did ...I would come to the board ...for help....to help me stay focused .... I would let the oldies here talk me through it .... You have given a great list of reasons for keeping your Quit ....well done ..

@DenaliBlues, I'm so sorry your mom is hospitalized. Sounds like a bad fall I'll be thinking positive thoughts for a speedy recovery. Its times like these that I used my air cigarette (JAC). I just pretended I was holding an actual cigarette in my fingers and went through the motions of "smoking" it. It worked wonders at tricking my mind into thinking it was getting the real thing. I also posted like you did asking members for their support. Just typing it out is all I needed a lot of times to start feeling better. Hopefully you're starting to feel a little better and the cravings are diminishing. You've listed great reasons to stay quit and every one of them is spot on.

NOPE…

7. Use to keep bacon in place after it is wrapped around another food item

Today I found ................................... the bridge to nowhere

When our quits are young, we must learn and then practice in a conscious manner, to disconnect and keep separate our quits from all life events. We learn to always keep our quits sacred, protected, and never influenced by any life event that may happen. This dynamic we may call The Proper Sequence, and it is powered by your commitment to Never.Take.Another.Puff. (NTAP). It does not matter what may happen on any day in your life......as long as you maintain in a conscious manner The Proper Sequence dynamic as a primary element of your quit, you will not smoke. The Proper Sequence is: YOU --> QUIT --> LIFE. •NOT•: YOU --> LIFE --> QUIT. By maintaining this simple sequence dynamic in your quit, you will not ever have your quit influenced by life events. If you always keep your quit close to you, protecting it with your commitment to Never.Take.Another.Puff (NTAP), you will never, *EVER*, smoke again. We build our quits, and train our minds, our emotions, and our spirits to live as non-smokers in beautiful freedom by continuing to commit to NTAP. as our way of not smoking, and our way of slowly putting this awful addiction to sleep. Consciously adding The Proper Sequence dynamic to your new non-smoker identity will strengthen your quit even more. Cristóbal (Posted on Day 364)