MarylandQuitter

Glad to see you, LucyThai.

No smoking for me either. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. But each day I promise myself that no matter what happens, I will not smoke.

Congrats, LB!

And don't forget to give yourself little rewards along the way. Reward yourself for the above post for starters. :good3:

You're awesome, Beth. Everybody already knows that but I figured I'd say it anyway. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I think when people talk about missing smoking, what they're missing is that feeling of relief when you stop withdrawal by smoking. You know that feeling when you're smoking and when it's time for another and you light your next cigarette? That first drag feels so good, such a relief! The relief that you feel is just relieving the withdrawal symptoms. It's an illusion that you enjoy smoking because of course it's enjoyable when you relieve something uncomfortable like withdrawal. It's like scratching a mosquito bite. It feels so good to scratch it but we don't enjoy the bite itself. We enjoy the scratch to relieve the itch. Make no mistake about it, we do not enjoy being bitten by a mosquito but scratching it's itch feels good. It's a vicious cycle just like smoking. Even if you did enjoy the occasional cigarette (which I believe a lot people have), those were few and far between. Think of all the cigarettes that made you feel like crap and how many times while smoking you thought about quitting. It doesn't sound like anything to miss when 98% of them made you feel like crap and the remaining 2% probably only gave the illusion of liking them because you thwarted some withdrawal symptoms. Remove the desire to smoke and you will never smoke again. Practice on removing the desire to smoke until you firmly believe that you get nothing from it. Until then, use your smoking addiction to help you quit smoking. That’s right, you read correctly. You, me and millions more rationalized smoking even though we knew the consequences. Use those same veteran rationalization skills to rationalize quitting smoking. Think about that for a minute. If we could rationalize smoking knowing full well the damaging effects it had on our health, why can’t we rationalize quitting smoking knowing full well the health benefits of quitting?

Just add this to your long list of reasons that you already have to stay quit. :rtfm:

Congrats, Colleen!!

BYOPBCOC (bring your own perfectly brewed cup of coffee)

Sometimes we look to these things to remove the choice to smoke for us. The above are all ways to help but they can never remove the choice nor can they provide us with the the simple truth that "once you want to quit more than you want to smoke", only then will you put out your last cigarette and come hell or high water, never pick one up again. It ain't always easy and can be painful but when you want something bad enough, you cannot be stopped. Imagine if you had a $450,000,000 winning lottery ticket. Nothing, not a cold, a fever, a broken leg or a broken down car could stop you from claiming your prize which would undoubtedly change your life forever. You would likely fight off a thief should he try and steal it. You'd protect it in the safest spot you could find. If you can look at your quit in this same way, you'll never smoke again no matter how bad you think you might want to. Your prize of quitting is much more than a pile of money because without your life, you have nothing. Without your quit, you're slowly giving up years of your life and for what? A dried up weed wrapped in chemically treated paper with a fancy filter which provides the illusion that you're somehow benefiting from sticking it between your lips, lighting it on fire and puffing away on it like it's a lifeline connected to an oxygen tank. Just quit. Deal with a little discomfort because you can't do something that you think you want to do. We learned this lesson when we were children and our parents told us no. This is no different. Amy, just quit and stop torturing yourself. I tell you this because I care. I've said the same words to my brother who thinks it's too damn hard to quit. He has no idea how much he's brainwashed himself. I know this and can speak these words because I too was once brainwashed. **** cigarettes, **** nicotine and **** Philip Morris. You're not missing anything because they're all lousy fucks anyway. /rant

Perhaps going for a walk, reading a book, a good workout etc. can do wonders to keep our minds busy so early in a quit. Don't forget about food. If you're hungry for something, indulge yourself. Quitting smoking is a big deal so you have to reward yourself along the way. Watch some of the tobacco related documentaries if you get bored as I found them very interesting and they occupied my mind and made me so glad that I was no longer smoking. You might already know this and be doing it, but if you do some form of exercise and sweat for just 20 minutes, my word the effect it has on our mind and bodies is amazing. Running releases endorphins that give you such a good feeling. Of course, always make sure your doctor gives you the okay before starting any kind of exercise. I know I got the okay before I started just to be on the safe side. :)

Laura, I'm sorry that you're having a tough time right now but please believe when I tell you that it's only temporary. Right now, this very moment, what are you struggling with?

One month ago these rankings seemed so far away. Imagine 6 months from now. :)

We'll have our squabbles from time to time but nothing out of the ordinary. :crazy:

Thanks Jackie and remember that the tickets and coffee are always free on Quit Train. :)

When I was a kid I would get migraine equivalents and after testing, my pediatrician narrowed the cause down to the preservative, sodium nitrites which are found in soda drinks, hot dogs, lunch meat etc. My Mom removed all of this from my diet and they went away. I never had the actual headaches but experienced the "aura". My parents first discovered I had this when I told my Mom that everybody looked like Alice In Wonderland when she ate that cake that made her neck stretch. As an adult, I really limit foods with this preservative as much as I can. Several years ago I drank a glass of red wine. The next morning I had a problem with my vision being distorted. I looked on the bottle and it contained nitrites that are natural to red wine. Needless to say, I haven't had red wine since. A lady that I used to work with, her husband suffered from cluster headaches and they have about be the worst possible pain somebody can be in and nothing helps. I watched this documentary about this guy who suffered from them and the only thing that helps him not get them is the Psilocybin he harvests from the mushrooms that he grows. Never one to use drugs, he was very hesitant but he said it was either that or he was going to kill himself. They were that bad and nothing would help him. I can't find the full documentary but it's pretty interesting.

This was one of the first things I read at whyquit.com and it was one of the things that stuck to my grey matter. :)

We have to believe in ourselves that we can quit because if we don't, quits only last a few minutes or hours at best.

No matter how happy, sad or angry you are, "you just don't" pick up that first cigarette. Love it.

What search words did you use?

Yep, just keep doing what we've been doing. :) Anything else that needs done on the admin side we'll continue to stay on top of. We're on Google, Bing, Yahoo, MSN etc.

I love this thread. It realistically sums up what an online support community consists of. The ups, downs, unexpected twists and turns, disagreements, laughter, conversations over coffee (perfectly brewed coffee is free on the Train) and friendships are all part of the process of ridding our lives of this deadly addiction. Kind of reminds me of the Polar Express.

We have been steadily rising on the search engines. We are #1 if you type in Quit Train. Same with Quit Train Quit Smoking. This was far from the case just one month ago. We were not to be found. Yesterday when I typed in various phrases that someone might do a search for when wanting to quit smoking, we were anywhere from page 1-3 and the of course lower in the rankings but as we continue to grow, we will rise with those as well. The longer we're here and with such an active posting community, it won't take long before newbies start arriving. Please keep in mind one thing. We do not pay small companies or individuals who specialize in jump starting new message boards or add traffic to existing boards by creating members to give the appearance of activity or new membership. This is a hotly debated topic among message board owners and unfortunately, a lot of upstart online communities do this (as well as established ones). Obviously, we have not. Our community is genuine. We don't believe in creating any fake newbies because it's a moral issue with me as well as the moderators. Who wants to spend time helping somebody who doesn't even really exist? We're talking about serious issues when it comes to quitting smoking and is literally life or death. This was a gamble that I took when I started this forum. It was either going to take off on it's own merit or fail on it's own. It's taken off and then some. To be frank about this, we are so far ahead of the curve you have no idea. With us, what you see is genuine. What we have in place is a seasoned group of quitters, quitters in the middle and those new to quitting. We already have in place what all other new communities desperately want and are willing to pay in efforts to create the illusion of having. As we stated from the beginning, it was just a matter of playing the waiting game with the search engines. George (TAC) and I did everything and then some to get things "in the basement" done regarding the search engines. As always, 3 minds are better than 2 so I retained a very good programmer who is highly skilled in this particular message board software who made some tweaks specific to our community and search engines. I'm starting to see where this is paying off in a huge way. Again, we already have a very, very, very active quit smoking community and once future quitters stumble upon us, that is what they will see; an established, mature quit smoking community that is open to everybody, is free and is uncensored as much as we can possibly be while maintaining a friendly, open-minded community. We're working on adding some exciting additions to the site, one of which should be implemented very soon... I would like to give a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you. I've said that this is your community. Make it count for something. This, my friends, you have done and done very, very well.--MQ :good3:

Very, very funny. Lol

Sad to see you go Markus, but I understand. Stay well and please know that you always have spot here if you pass by our little town again.