Susana

Aft´noon! -5

We´ll get our own private jet from Heathrow and jump over the pond in style. Who is coming from Europe? You, Stu, Sue, myself... let´s stock it with nice white wine for the journey!

Can I drive? :girl_crazy: Can I drive? :girl_crazy: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeez! :girl_smile:

HAVE A GREAT NON-SMOKING BIRTHDAY!!!!! :give_heart:

Tiffany!!!! :give_heart2: You shouldn´t feel sorry at all, you should feel PROUD OF YOURSELF! You are tackling those issues that may be interfering with your quit. Talking about them. Listening to other people´s views on these issues (people who love you, by the way, and want to see you succeed). Finding ways to strengthen your resolve day by day. Well done you for being honest with yourself! What you did yesterday was amazing. To be so honest with yourself, to explain how you feel and to let us see where the difficulties reside and try and give you ideas on how to sort out these difficulties, was enough reason to feel good. Well done you for tackling difficult issues openly! I don´t know if we helped you or not. Only you know deep down if you have a clearer idea of where you are at after yesterday´s conversation. I hope we did. Also, you may have helped other people too, who may have had the same thoughts and the same doubts but didn´t know how to express them or are not registered here but are reading, or simply were not brave enough to face those thoughts in the first place. Well done you for being so brave! Nothing to be sorry for. Be proud of yourself. I am proud of you. :good:

Bummer! I shouldn't have answered so quickly so that peoplr could see Julie's as last post... :-(

Julieeeeeeeeee!!!!! So good to 'see' you!! :-)

Morning! -5

Wakey wakey! Let's celebrate the start of a beautifl smoke-free joy-ful day. Let's not smoke today! NOPE For me. :-)

-5

Cinq

Cinque

You did it!!! So proud of you. Well played, my friend. The kitten must be huge by now!!!!! ;-)

That was painful to watch.... :cray:

Say bye bye and good riddance to Hell Week! You´ll never have to do it again. That first week is the worst bit. Now you are over it and it is time to celebrate!

I just wanted you to know that we are here when you are ready. Please do not be afraid to post even if you are not yet quit. It may help you get ready to take the jump. I did it. And it worked for me. It may just work for you. Looking forward to having you back on board! :give_heart:

Tiff, you know I´m not an advocate of "tough love" when it is applied to somebody who has thrown themselves off a cliff and are at the bottom hurting and complaining and feeling like idiots. But you sound like you are on top of the cliff and considering giving it a try. So you´ll have to listen to some hard truths. First, a fact that nobody has highlighted but I think it is paramount to keep in mind here: cancer hits smokers. Passive smokers, active smokers, 60-a-day smokers and ocassional smokers. Smoking causes cancer. Just 1 cigarette (ONE) has enough chemicals to cause cancer. Smoking kills. Full stop. level 1.- Some people never quit until smoking kills them , and they die with a cigarette in their lips (whether they are social smokers, after-dinner smokers or chain smokers). Usually cancer is the killer, because by the time it shows its ugly face it is usually too late. level 2.- Then there are the other side-effects of smoking: COPD, heart disease, vascular disease (lots of smokers end up losing limbs) etc. etc. Caught early these diseases are usually curable or can be tamed into a chronic conditions that make life difficult but not necessarily kill. Those who have a predisposition to these problems should not smoke. Nobody should smoke, but even moreso those who KNOW FOR A FACT that if they smoke they will 100% die of smoking. It is a no brainer. level 3.- Then, lastly, we can debate about addiction. Addiction per se doesn´t harm or kill. Like in that program, so favoured by myself "My strange addiction", we see people addicted to the weirdest things (sunbeds, shopping, gambling, cosmetic surgery, shagging their car, sleeping with their hair dryer on...). The problem with addiction is that you lose control of your life to your addiction. You can´t have a normal life because your addiction gets in the way. Addiction makes people miserable. It may not kill them, but it makes them miserable. Here we are ALL ADDICTS. But some of us are addicts who are at level 3 (miserable but apparently healthy), some of us are level-2 addicts (miserable and unhealthy), and some are level-1 addicts (miserable, unhealthy, and in actual risk of death). Where would you put yourself? At what level? And don´t tell me you don´t feel miserable because if you were a happy smoking bunny you will not be posting. We love you. We want you to succeed, but sometimes you are your worst enemy. That junkie brain of yours, who is the Einstein of the junkies, and persistent it is too, my god! Please read, listen, think, and do not smoke. Post. And do not smoke. If you have to be here posting all week and letting us have a look into that hyper-active monkey of yours, so be it, as long as you give us the tools to help you. We have to get there with you, once and for all. (((((((((((((((((((((((Tiffany))))))))))))))))))))))) Smoking can cost an arm and a leg. Please read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-360870/Smoking-cost-arm-leg--literally.html

I don´t think smoking suppresses anything, or nicotine. It is a bit of junkie thinking to give smoking the power to actually "do" something. It only does one thing: keep us addicted. A non smoker going through a crisis will not think "hum, the accounts don´t balance, I´ll smoke a cigarette and see if I think more clearly" Only a smoker would think that... because he is an addict and he doesn´t think like a "normal" (as in "non-smoking") person. But I did notice something when I quit last year after 20 + years smoking 2 packs a day. I could call it "enhanced self-awareness". On those 20 + years, how many times did I hear "that will kill you" "you are killing yourself" "that is bad for you"... how many people around us have we SEEN die of smoking, how many times have we read "smoking kills"... For 20+ years!!!!! Yet we still smoke another one, and another one, and another one... To be subject to this constant "attack" and still carry on smoking, we must have had to suppress some self-protection resort inside our brains. Suicidal people don´t kill themselves slowly, they go for quick and painless deaths. And sometimes they don´t die and it is like "OMG what was I thinking of???" We are killing ourselves slowly. We know it. We chose to do it... surely we have suppressed something up there. It is not a moment of obfuscation, it is one day, and another, and another... 20+ years. When I quit I suddenly started feeling "different". Actually I started "feeling". Somethings I felt I liked, like I felt more self-esteem and started looking after my appearance better, somethings I felt I didn´t like, like I realised my marriage was over and had been for quite a while. But I did feel more alive than I had done in a very very long time. In fact I discovered I had some health issues that had gone unnoticed... not because they were not noticeable but because I wasn´t even paying attention. "I am killing myself slowly and I will die of smoking in a few years, so what is the point of looking inside things anyway?" (sort of) And then you start feeling. And you feel things that are not right and you feel that you can make them right. And that spreads to other areas of life. So yes, we have quit. We are back to normal and can live life to the full like non-smokers do... hang on... only we have a plus point over them. We have actually quit. We are at the "OMG what was I thinking of??? stage. Heightened awareness. Sorry about the rant. I have this problem with words... why use two if two hundred will do? :P

Sue, I tried to PM you but your inbox is full... probably from everybody´s PM´s asking for news on Julie... Please pass my love on to her. And my best wishes. I honestly hope she is OK. It would be great if she made an appearance on Friday for her 6-monthly! (not that I want to put any pressure on her...)

It is helping me as it does ease the "physical" cravings. It does nothing at a psychological level though. If I fancy a cigarette i fancy a cigarette, sitting in the porch chain smoking, not just chewing away. But at least if I have one of those anxious moments it does give me a feeling of relief. It calms me down. I did an "experiment" last year. I was well into my quit, 2-3 months, I don´t remember. I found gum in my desk drawer and chewed one... to see what would happen. And what happened? Nothing. I didn´t feel a thing. No tingling, no nothing. Just a bad-tasting chewing gum. By that time I was truly over the physical stage and the nicotine on its own had no effect whatsoever. Smokers smoke to feel normal, as non-smokers feel all the time. This differentiates nicotine from other drugs: if you smoke a joint, or snort some coke, you do feel "something". It makes you feel different. Even if it is just once. These drugs, or alcohol, have a "positive" effect. They do produce an effect. However nicotine, smoking, doesn´t produce any effect. You smoke the first cigarette and you feel exactly the same as before, only it tastes strange and it may make you a bit lightheaded (like when you are blowing on a fire, nothing to do with the nicotine). The nicotine only causes an effect on the addict. It is a "negative" effect. Because you are addicted to it you don´t feel well when you don´t have it, so you have to have it to feel ... normal. Then you feel normal for a while, until your body processes the nicotine, you crave it again, and you have to have another shot so that you can go back to... normal. It is like Allen Carr´s example of the tight shoe. Those that wear comfy shoes don´t think of their feet. They just walk around happily. Smokers are wearing shoes two sizes too small so that they can feel the "ahhhhhhh" when they take the shoes off. Idiotic. I´m looking at ditching the gum now. I´m going longer and longer periods without chewing. I´ll let you know when I finally become nicotine-free. I remember it is not as bad as quitting smoking, but it does feel like quitting something. I used to say that quitting with the gum is like quitting twice. I don´t want to leave it too long... Edited to add: Do not even think of experimenting with these things!!!!!!!!! After my "experiment" I did relapse, so please DO NOT TOUCH NICOTINE EVER AGAIN

Lunchtime here, I´m late... but I´ve been in meetings all day. I will not smoke today. No way. N.O.P.E.