MarylandQuitter

It's painful as fuuuu-dddddd--ge! I'll have to check out the splint. My brother has it really bad and the splint didn't help him. He's gonna need the surgery. My elbow though, man when it flares up or I whack it just right, geeze, almost puts me on my knees the pain is so bad. Now my hip is tightened up again. Can barely get out of bed in the morning. Pretty much have to roll out of bed on my knees and pull myself back up. lol Wear and tear is what the doc says. Stretches, ice and stretches. Sometimes I'll have my daughter push on my hip with her feet and the relief is instant and feels so damn good. She usually can't push hard enough but sometimes I can add some resistance and it pushes on my hip just right and it's so relieving it's almost like a high.

Ask babs about the time she called Allen Carr in London when she had a crave. :rofl:

I couldn't agree more.

Moderation. Mod. Er. Ation. Moderation. :) That's my answer and I'm sticking to it.

Of course. Our lives revolved around smoking and through it all, smoking we were. It's going to take some time for you to get used to living life free from this addiction. It's unlike any other addiction that I can think of because we had to have our drug every 20 minutes or so and we took it all day and most of the night just to feel normal and avert withdrawal. Sometimes when people first quit they feel like they're losing a friend for this very reason. It's no friend, of course, but because smoking was so engrained in every single thing we did day in and day out we saw it as such. Just in case anybody needs a reminder of whats kind of friend cigarettes are... My Cigarette, My Friend How do you feel about a friend who has to go everywhere with you? Not only does he tag along all the time, but since he is so offensive and vulgar, you become unwelcome when with him. He has a peculiar odor that sticks to you wherever you go. Others think both of you stink. He controls you totally. When he says jump, you jump. Sometimes in the middle of a blizzard or storm, he wants you to come to the store and pick him up. You would give your spouse hell if he or she did that to you all the time, but you can't argue with your friend. Sometimes, when you are out at a movie or play he says he wants you to go stand in the lobby with him and miss important scenes. Since he calls all the shots in your life, you go. Your friend doesn't like your choice of clothing either. Instead of politely telling you that you have lousy taste, he burns little holes in these items so you will want to throw them out. Sometimes, he tires of the furniture and gets rid of it too. Occasionally, he gets really nasty and decides the whole house must go. He gets pretty expensive to support. Not only is his knack of property destruction costly, but you must pay to keep him with you. In fact, he will cost you thousands of dollars over your lifetime. And you can count on one thing, he will never pay you a penny in return. Often at picnics you watch others playing vigorous activities and having lots of fun doing them. But your friend won't let you. He doesn't believe in physical activity. In his opinion, you are too old to have that kind of fun. So he kind of sits on your chest and makes it difficult for you to breathe. Now you don't want to go off and play with other people when you can't breathe, do you? Your friend does not believe in being healthy. He is really repulsed by the thought of you living a long and productive life. So every chance he gets he makes you sick. He helps you catch colds and flu. Not just by running out in the middle of the lousy weather to pick him up at the store. He is more creative than that. He carries thousands of poisons with him which he constantly blows in your face. When you inhale some of them, they wipe out cilia in your lungs which would have helped you prevent these diseases. But colds and flu are just his form of child's play. He especially likes diseases that slowly cripple you - like emphysema. He considers this disease great. Once he gets you to have this, you will give up all your other friends, family, career goals, activities - everything. You will just sit home and caress him, telling him what a great friend he is while you desperately gasp for air. But eventually your friend tires of you. He decides he no longer wishes to have your company. Instead of letting you go your separate ways, he decides to kill you. He has a wonderful arsenal of weapons behind him. In fact, he has been plotting your death since the day you met him. He picked all the top killers in society and did everything in his power to ensure you would get one of them. He overworked your heart and lungs. He clogged up the arteries to your heart, brain, and every other part of your body. In case you were too strong to succumb to this, he constantly exposed you to cancer causing agents. He knew he would get you sooner or later. Well, this is the story of your "friend," your cigarette. No real friend would do all this to you. Cigarettes are the worst possible enemies you ever had. They are expensive, addictive, socially unacceptable, and deadly. Consider all this and NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF! Joel

Welcome, Joy and congrats on making the decision to quit. :) How many years did you smoke?

You quit 90 days ago (3 months) if you quit on 22 DEC 2014. From and including: Monday, December 22, 2014 To, but not including Sunday, March 22, 2015 Result: 90 daysIt is 90 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date Or 3 months excluding the end date

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmrIydnXIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAq0rL8E4hM

Congrats!!! Get rid of the mice yet? :dirol:

You got this, Mike.

Get some ginger roots, peel them and then pound them to break them up a bit (don't need a lot!) and toss them in some boiling water with cut up chicken breast and black pepper. Cook until the chicken is cooked (obviously, lol) and make sure to not only eat the chicken and ginger but also the broth. This is a southern Asia secret and it works.

If so, check out the following video. Short video discusses key topic areas that enhance an individuals ability to quit and stay off of smoking. The following videos explore these individual areas: Topic one: Why you smoke Video: Why do smokers smoke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9AmZ... 18 minutes 9 seconds Topic 2: Why you should quit Videos: Heart and circulatory diseases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xt9v... 19 minutes 19 seconds Lung cancer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFNv8... 18 minutes 49 seconds Feel what it is like to breathe with emphysema https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf0ts... 8 minutes and 47 seconds The palmolive bottle demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVbUG... 7 minutes 46 seconds Premature deaths caused by smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5a7D... 12 minutes 34 seconds Topic 3: How to stop How to quit smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l27zW... 13 minutes 47 seconds Topic 4: How to stay off Never take another puff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYNWI... 4 minutes 22 seconds Total time for all of the videos above is just around 91 minutes. A_Benefits_Time_Table.pdf

lol I don't have them where I live now but I know exactly what you're talking about. They congregate on the steps of buildings and smoke and skate and there always seems to be a a couple of girls (the groupie type) hanging out with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NaudLrGk9g

...TOBACCO WARS vividly portrays what the companies really knew about the link between smoking and disease, explains how mankind became seduced by such a dangerous product, provides a status report on Big Tobacco today, and looks towards the future of this most controversial of industries. http://www.quittrain.com/topic/4812-tobacco-wars-documentary-episodes-1-2-3/

Not today. Not ever. Nope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PVjcIO4MT4

Hell NOPE!

Synopsis: TOBACCO WARS is a comprehensive history of the cigarette, providing an in-depth, balanced, and often shocking look at the tobacco industry. The series' three one-hour episodes are organized chronologically, from the advent of the cigarette through its ascension to one of the most profitable consumer products the world has ever seen. Via first person accounts and insider documentation, TOBACCO WARS vividly portrays what the companies really knew about the link between smoking and disease, explains how mankind became seduced by such a dangerous product, provides a status report on Big Tobacco today, and looks towards the future of this most controversial of industries.

You have no idea how good this song sounds through a good system. Just got the CD from his studio one county over from me. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNqbqnH3AM

I've had a colonoscopy and I was all worked up about it. When it was over I thought, "that's what I got all worked up over". When I woke up and went home, I couldn't tell that I even had one done. No pain, wasn't sore and I got a clean bill of health. When I have to go back for another, I won't be worked up at all over it. It's an inconvenience beforehand, but it's not like you're sitting on the toilet sick from food poisoning. It's just that you have to go to the bathroom and you're not sick, an inconvenience for sure but the procedure itself was like it never happened. I was so worked up while I was waiting to to be wheeled in that I asked the nurse how many they do per day and she said "on average, 50". I instantly felt better because I knew for them it was completely routine and not a big deal at all. Then I looked at all the other people there for the same thing I was. A lot of older people so I figure if they could handle it, I surely could. Well, I guess there was one uncomfortable part. The doctor who performed the colonoscopy was my neighbor! lol

NOT ONE PUFF, EVER. Not today. Not ever.

A little off topic, but I wanted to address this. It was an illusion that smoking ever helped us with anything. There is not one positive thing that it ever did for us. It can't relieve stress or relax us because nicotine raises our blood pressure, increases our heart rate and sends adrenaline coursing through our veins. Stress relief? Hardly. We thought it relieved stress because once the nicotine wore off (~every 20-30 minutes) we went into mild physical withdrawal which is by nature "stressful". So, we smoked to alleviate the stress of nicotine withdrawal and just assumed that it relieved all the other stresses in our lives, which it never did. If there were one, just one positive thing that smoking provided it would be all over the packs. You don't think that big tobacco wanted to prove that smoking relieved stress? You bet they did but they couldn't and never will be able to. Weight control? There are tons of overweight smokers. They were all rationalizations willingly accepted so we could feel better about smoking and the damage we knew it was causing. We didn't become nicotine addicts the first time we puffed on a cigarette. We had to work at it. There was nothing enjoyable about inhaling smoke into our young, pink lungs. We coughed. Out throats burned. Some even got nauseous. The list of bad side effects could go on and on but yet we puffed away until we got hooked and then rationalized smoking for years, decades even. I still maintain that we never enjoyed smoking in the first place. Sure, there was the occasional cigarette that we enjoyed but most of them, we hated and only smoked to get rid of the withdrawal symptoms. If anybody thinks that they somehow benefited from smoking, more time is needed to learn about this addiction and all that it entails. If you still believe in the cigarette, you could feel like you're somehow missing out on something by quitting when that couldn't be farther from the truth. As long as you believe that smoking benefits you in some way, what's going to happen when a crisis comes your way? I can tell you that I had believed that smoking relieved stress and when a crisis happened I smoked for a week. It didn't relieve anything and all it did was ruin a 9 month quit. There is nothing positive to be had from smoking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVEyGdqwjmQ I Smoke Because I Like Smoking Video discusses how people who often say the smoke because they like smoking can come to realize that they really smoke because they don't like not smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCkt_ajgTQE

Gotcha! Congrats! Keep it this time, alright?