mightyboosh

It's Stoptober soon here in the UK. Is there a similar thing elsewhere in the World? Anyhoo, it will be the first time that I don't have to avoid and hang my head in shame at the public info ads on the TV. I've allowed myself to feel a little smug about it, just a little.

Ha, people do become more annoying when you give up. The first thing I noticed when I quit was how much more energy I had after a few days. Hang in there with us, you can do it.

I thought you were going to post a pic of boxes or something. I'd work there. The grass is always greener though I suppose. Anyway, I quit whilst I was off work and when I went back I didn't know what to do with myself at break times. It used to be a case of desperately watching the clock so I could go to my car to inhale poisons and make my car messy and smelly. I've found other useful things to do now but it is weird at the beginning, weird but good.

Could we get to a million?

N O P E

224,113

197,515

159,260

150,883

81,901

Google says 6.5 trillion are sold each year so roughly you have not smoked 6.5 x 8 yrs = 52 trillion cigarettes (approx). Well done.

@mrsguest 145 for you. I think I'll do a running total instead. 44,598 so far.

I googled this and didn't realise it was so recent that it was allowed on F1 cars. Just think of how much lobbying and kicking and screaming the tobacco companies did as they saw their ads being banned all over the place. I remember the snooker World Championships being sponsored by Benson and Hedges and the players lighting up during broadcasts. "The advertising of cigarettes on Formula 1 cars has been banned since 2008. The 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix was the last time the Marlboro logo was seen on a Ferrari F1 car."

How many cigs have you not smoked since you quit? My ticker says 653 at the moment. I will add up all the replies after a couple of days. It will be illuminating I'm sure.

I'm a Nopester.

You must have some fond memories. I've been twice, in the 70's to race Superkarts and in 2006 for the Fifa World Cup. Both times were great trips and the locals were very friendly. The first time I remember having a burger and I thought it was the best thing ever made. It had weird things on it (to me at the time) such as lettuce and tomatoes and sauce. I've always wondered if it was an early McDonald's. The second time I had the best chicken kebab ever from a street vendor. I don't just remember the food folks.

If you had the opportunity, what is the one thing you would like to do the most. For me it would be to drive a Formula 1 car from the 70's. Forgive me for saying this but ideally a Lotus with the JPS paintwork.

I can't believe this is what the cig ads were like.

N N O O P P P E E E E N N N O O P P E E E N N N O O P P P E N N O O P E E E E

Don't worry, I've no intention of ever using one. It's just that now I'm a free man, I can see the whole NRT subject and its dangers more clearly.

I'm talking about e cigs. I love the look of and like to handle anything that's well engineered especially small, heavy and chunky items. E cigs fit that criteria perfectly and I'm sure I'm not alone in appreciating nicely made objects. Even the boxes they come in are a cut above a run-of-the-mill box. They've also become very tactile and the colours can be very attractive. In all honesty, they're a nice piece of kit but that's part of the problem now. Apart from delivering nicotine, they're a very attractive fashion item. Cigarette manufacturers have always tried to make their product appealing but they just had a box to work on whereas e cig design has endless possibilities. That must be stacking up to be a big problem as technology advances irrevocably. The liquids also smell good enough to drink - cookies and cream, pear drops, McDonald's apple pie etc etc. you name it, they have it. Even the dedicated e cig shops look trendy, upmarket and inviting. Now that the dangers of vaping are being realised, I wonder if the e cig makers will at some point be forced to make their product drab with graphic warning images on them, as cigarette makers were latterly obliged to do with their packaging. At the moment the whole package just looks too good.

Thanks all. I'm really pleased to have a decent amount of quit time behind me. It's going really well. I promise I will be celebrating many milestones in the future.

My ticker says 30 days at the moment and that reminded me that I quit a few years ago for 30 days. It was a weird quit in that I said to myself at the time that I WOULD start again if I did a month! This was to prove to myself that I could quit whenever I wanted to. This is the smoker's odd reasoning which we're all aware of, truly ridiculous thinking. It didn't work of course, I was back where I started, in the grip of a monster again. That's the warning. I read on here that Nicodemon does this to some people, a sort of complacency thing and a con trick to make us think we're in control. We're only in control if we NOPE with 100% conviction and don't test ourselves with such nonsense. The demon is very wily, full of tricks so watch out!

NOPE NOPE

Where?