Sazerac

Hi Roopy. What a fabulous quit you have working for you !

Happy Seven Months of Freedom, Roopy and welcome back, so glad you are here.

Start making a new memory at the gas station. Go wash your windows, check your tire pressure, buy some water and a small reward for beating a crave, changing a pattern. You don't smoke anymore. End of.

You are more powerful than any damn crave, Kdad, and craves are not commands. Force yourself to think of something pleasant or as @Whispers says, 'move a muscle, change a thought' You quit smoking. Those days are over. Begin to embrace the new, it won't be gnarly long.

You will have good days and bad days, stay vigilent. Give your body time to heal. Here is a post about The Great Smoke Free Brain Fog

It is great to see you get riled up. This has been ammunition in many of our quits. Check out this blog The Great Tobacco PlagueDr Frank Ashall's experience of the horrors of tobacco

Happy Birthday !

no, the smoking lounge is not the saddest place, standing outside a hospital is the saddest place

Hello Sean, Welcome to our merry little band of successful quitters ! So glad you found us. You may find this post helpful 10 Ways To Effectively Use This Forum To Help Yourself Quit Smoking As @jillar said, you must want to quit more than you want to smoke. It is all in the mindset. We all know quitting smoking is possible, you just need to make a commitment to yourself. As per your cutting back... our friend, Joel, has a few words about this Almost five years ago, I quit cold turkey on a whim. It was the best decision I have ever made in my life. You will love the freedom, Sean. Let us know when you are ready !

Hello Mark, I'm glad we have successful quitters like Weege to help you with specifics about the patch. It is brilliant that you have quit smoking ! You have amassed a bundle of your personal power by quitting smoking, this will serve you well. Use it when you want to deal with your nicotine addiction. The power is in your hands and I have confidence in your success. Fortify yourself with as much information as you can. The Harmful Effects of Nicotine When you decide to stop administering nicotine to your body you will, undoubtedly, go through some degree of withdrawal. Withdrawal will not kill you. @Sirius had a profound post today, 'Next time a craving plunks down on your face ask yourself, "What price you are willing to pay to own yourself?" ' S

Those are great, Jo. I love your work. I forgot yesterday, will make it up today. Just learned that water colour pencils are not that great on canvas, it isn't absorbent enough, they don't 'set'. You can't add layers but, you sure can lift colour out. lol. So, it's useful in that way. For permanence, apply an acrylic medium, carefully, or spray with fixative. Then you can paint over with acrylics but not WC pencils. Ahhh...the learning curve...I won't be using them on canvas anymore. I have a ton of WC paper....why I didn't use it, I don't know. Didn't research, didn't know. Not sure whether to proceed or not. It's no masterpiece....I may just wipe it out and start again with compatible materials.

bump

I think I took too long in forcing myself to think of other things, it was a real mind fcuk. The first few weeks were intense, gradually the thoughts became dimmer. Forcing myself to look at some beauty, replacing the smokey thought with a thought or a visual of something beautiful really helped me, I would also think, say, scream, 'FREE YOUR HEAD' , often using my outside voice for this...and the usual expletives. I gave this quitting smoking 'whim' of mine a year. I thought, after a year I will re-evaluate. Of course, after a year....of perseverance and commitment and education....there was no way I would return to slavery. You are asking the same question I asked. How long ! Well, it can last a while. The important thing is that it won't last. Remember....you thought about smoking every 20 or so minutes for YEARS. The difference is that now you aren't feeding your addiction so, you notice. Give yourself some time. You're in the thick of it now, I PROMISE, things will settle down to a new normal and you will be a changed man

Congratulations, Mw.

Congratulations, Tammy on your three months of Freedom ! You have a splendid quit working for you and I love reading your posts,your positivity is contagious. Thank you for your posts and your support, you really make a difference. s

excellent news, Kdad ! Soon, much of the poison will be gone from your body. Stay focused and protect your quit. You are a hero to yourself and to us, you quit smoking !

57 hours now TobacNo ! Already, your body has begun it's magical repair. Blood pressure and pulse rate, your blood oxygen level are returning to normal and damaged nerve endings have started to regrow ! Drink plenty of water to flush waste products from your kidneys and liver, you are purging your body from a long list of awful chemicals. Fruit juice will help your blood sugar levels. Take one day at a time, you will have good days/bad days. You don't smoke anymore ! So glad you are here,

Eating the ricotta tart and feeling really charged about the new influx of quitters and our current newbies. It makes me really happy to see people quitting smoking. It is such an exciting, life changing event.

I'm a hard headed old lady too, Sierra. I won my freedom from nicotine by using that hard headed-ness to my advantage. Nicotine couldn't win because I refused to be defeated. You will turn this around, too.

I'm sorry you chose to smoke, Sierra and I am glad you are back. Pledging to NOPE is a great start to a successful quit but, only if you are committed to the pledge, committed to yourself and your quit. Words aren't enough. Quitting takes action or, non-action in this case...to never ever put a cigarette in your mouth and fire it up. It takes time for a non smoker to no longer 'desire or want to light up'. TIME. Time that you must take for yourself, time that allows your body to heal itself from the poisons of nicotine. Honestly, I can think of no better use of your time. Quitting smoking brings so many rewards (physically, mentally and emotionally), you will be as blown away as we are. Continue educating yourself about nicotine addiction. This will help you to succeed. You have the power to quit smoking, I have no doubt about it. You may get mighty uncomfortable but, remember quitting smoking won't kill you. 'Craves are not a command ! ' and your desire to smoke will fade slowly away, this I promise.

hey @notsmokinjo, How do you make the w/c pencils permanent ? Spray with fixative ?

No matter what is going on in your life, no matter what ! You must put your quit first. Protect it as you would something precious because it is...it is extraordinarily precious. Remember this wise equation from our friend, Cristóbal The Proper Sequence is: YOU --> QUIT --> LIFE.

Nice to see you happy in the rain and out of the rain, Parsley ! This is great news. I bet our Ticker Wizard, @Nancy, can help you...she has helped so many ! Send her a pm, I'm sure she'll be happy to help when she can.