Genecanuck

Hey, its another Friday and that time again for all of you special window lickers to pat yourself on the back for another smoke free week. So who is a certified professional window licker this week?

Unfortunatley, this thread is moving way beyond the original purpose of supporting @Dee to deal with her heath problem and remain smoke free. This shingles debate is becoming counterproductive. We have a situation where we have an internet troll who is becoming disruptive. @MarylandQuitter... if you are still around, please review this thread and address this issue. Many thanks. Gene

Hello @MLMR... I do not suffer from clinical depression but I know a thing or two about situational depression. The biggest trigger I believe I have left in my practice to be a smoke free human being is thinking often that smoking can help me when I feel anger or depression. A death in the family or feeling really angry or under pressure always sends my mind racing, thinking that a cigeratte will somehow comfort me or make me feel better. One of the things that helped me is to deeply re-examine my belief system about smoking. As Dan1 says below in his post, " [a] cigarette is not capable of making us think, feel, or experience a single thing, other than a bit of nausea and a somewhat elevated heartbeat". I am still working on ignoring that background stinking thinking noice that pops up once in a while in my head that smoking can help me feel better when I feel depressed. As Dan1 says, that "wanna smoke... fades as the belief that 'smoking helps' fades." The fact that you are still coming here @MLMR says that your desire to to be a non smoker is much stronger than your belief that smoking can do anything to help you. You just have to give yourself more time to allow that false belief that smoking can help to fade into the background. Keep coming here and keep our quit. Kind Regards, Gene Dan1: 2007-03-17 on Quitnet Why is this so hard? It's a question worth asking, and I'm convinced that the usual answers aren't good enough. After all, continuing to smoke is easy - just ask anyone here. And being free of smoking is even easier - just ask anyone who's made it, or anyone who's never smoked, or simply consult your own common sense. So why is the path from 'easy' to 'easier' so hard? Maybe you're taking the wrong path. And no, I'm not engaging in the senseless debate about Cold Turkey vs meds. That has an answer as individual as your personality. How you answer that question is in no way related to how someone else did or should answer it. No, the wrong path is in thinking of this as a battle of will. It simply is not, and making it seem like one is the only thing that makes this difficult. “Will” can only do one thing: follow your own pre-existing values. You can use it to smoke or to not smoke with equal ease. The thing that you can't do for long is turn it against you - to make yourself act against your own self interests. If you struggle, there is one simple reason: You believe that smoking provides you with something you want or need - in short, you value smoking. When you struggle to not smoke, all you are doing is asking your will to act against your values. That is a source of tremendous stress and anxiety, and those in turn cause all of the 'quit symptoms' that make this so hellish. Every failed quit is simply willpower finding it's triumph - by re-aligning your actions to your values. In this state of affairs, smoking is a victory of the will, not a failure, No wonder we find that it feels so good. But it doesn't have to be this way. Instead of fighting against the thought to smoke, get to know it a little. Find out where it came from, what it's real purpose is. Your body and brain don't want to smoke - but they may desire some change that you incorrectly believe smoking can give. A cigarette is not capable of making us think, feel, or experience a single thing, other than a bit of nausea and a somewhat elevated heartbeat. It can't make us happy, contented, or relaxed. All these other things (and a thousand others) are strictly a question of the interpretation of that otherwise meaningless event. But by believing the myth that cigarettes have the power to change our thoughts, fears, wishes, or circumstances, we run from something that we needn't fear, and strengthen the very notions that have us reaching again and again for that little white tube of death. 21 months ago, I quit smoking with the assumption that I would smoke again. It was not that I wanted to, planned to, or thought I would need to. Instead, it was a confidence in my ability to be stupid. I simply assumed that sooner or later I would screw up. This turned out to be a great benefit. Instead of growing tense over an impossibly high-seeming perfection, I could instead think about how to prevent the inevitable stumble from turning into a fall. And on that path I found a signpost to freedom: That the "stumble" wasn't in actually smoking, but in thinking positively about smoking. The "fall" wasn't smoking the pack, not even taking a puff. The "fall" was in holding on to incorrect values. Smoking was simply the most obvious external sign that my beliefs were screwed up. At that point, it could hardly matter if I smoked or not - fighting was in itself a failure. That might sound like I'm setting the bar even higher than not smoking - that you're somehow not allowed to even think of smoking. But that's exactly wrong. I'm inviting you instead to think deeply about smoking, about what it means to you, about why you believe these things that the vast majority of the world can't even understand. Each thought of smoking becomes an opportunity to understand how and where your beliefs and values are wrong, and to realign them to your greater truth - that you do not want to smoke. That's why you started this journey, isn't it? Now, changing beliefs isn't easy, but it's not hard, either. Mostly, it just takes time. And you have plenty of time. Instead of spending time fighting with yourself, spend it understanding that the very thing you are fighting over is a mistake, an error. Suddenly, the fight is gone. Yes, it's still annoying listening to that endless 'wanna smoke?' mental drumbeat. But that fades as the belief that 'smoking helps' fades. And yes, you will from time to time experience symptoms. But as long as you recognize that quitting didn't cause them (at least, not in the sense of 'needing' nicotine) and that smoking has no way to help them (that power resides only in you, and always did), they will pass, and there will be no struggle. Yes, it can be hard. But it doesn't have to be. If you find too much 'hard' between 'easy' and 'easier', check your map. Either you've made a wrong turn, or you're using the wrong map. Dan. 640 days (21 months) smoke free. 12798 cigarettes not smoked. $2,240.00 and 3 months, 7 days, 18 hours of your life saved. "Life is either a great adventure, or it is nothing."

Hello @Kdad.... I hear you. I had many slips in my past. You made the right decison to throw the pack away. Good for you for not giving up on your quit and coming right back here. You've got this @Kdad. Here is what my friend Dan1 had to say about a slip.... RE: See you at a later date From danl1 on 11/5/2004 9:02:23 AM I did the exact same thing. Several times, in fact. Then I tossed that pack, joined up here, and got on with things. That was 487 days ago. It's not about strength, ultimately. It's certainly not about being worthy. It's about understanding that they really don't have anything to offer you. If you will listen to you heart, you will see that you've just learned a big hunk of that. You simply need to pay attention to your higher angels. Yes, there are the times when it seems that we 'just want to.' That is not about being weak, or stupid, or anything like that. It is simply about being confused - on a level and in a way that makes it seem that you don't have control, because it's a non-verbal part of you that feels that way. Maybe you are not in a place to be here for a while. But still, be quit. If things go the wrong way, don't be disappointed, be constructive. A diet group I sat in on once had a phrase: "There is no failure, only feedback." It's a tough way to find things out, and I don't believe that it's necessary to smoke in order to learn how not to, but while you are in that place, you may as well look around and see what there is to see. -Didn’t do much for you, did it? -Made you feel pretty crappy physically, didn't it? -Didn’t make you feel all that great about yourself, either. And so on. Bottom line, smoking simply isn't worth it. There is not a single thing to be had from smoking that can't be had better, simpler, safer, faster, and cheaper in another way. There are just a few parts of our brains that take a little more convincing than others. All it takes is patience. It doesn't take strength, willpower or perseverance. In fact, those are the exact qualities that find you back smoking after you have already decided to quit. The amount of energy we expend fighting with ourselves to smoke after we have quit is simply amazing. That's right - you haven't been fighting to quit these past weeks - that, you had already done. You've been fighting to smoke. Stop that. Be kind to yourself, and pay attention to what's really going on in and around you. There's no bit of life that smoking can improve. You know it, now you need to work on believing it.

Many thanks! My quit is starting to feel like my new normal. I really do appreicate all your support. Kind Regards, Gene

ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin - Special Extended Version

Hey @Kdad.... You received a lot of good feedback from our amazing Quit-train family. There is another way to look at what we have to move through to overcome this addiction we have: the underlying causes of nicotine withdrawl. Here is a post from Dan1, someone I admired from Quitnet Cravings do not exist. Dan 1, March 18, 2007. Cravings - that tightness in the gut, the lungs, the throat. The moodiness, anxiety, and irritability. Those things that seem to be your body and mind SCREAMING for a smoke - they don’t exist. Oh, the symptoms are real, but they are the symptoms of stress, not a `craving`. That stress might have been caused by withdrawal, maybe by fighting a desire or `craving`, or often enough by the puts and takes of everyday life. We’ve come to call it a craving only because we’ve been self-medicating our stress for so long with nicotine that we don’t properly recognize stress when it smacks us in the face. It’s time to learn more effective, much safer methods of stress management. Apply them here, and the `cravings` disappear in short order.

Thats awesome @Kdad ... not one puff ever. You are doing great. Have a good day.

@BAT inspired me

Happy New Year @Penguin... and congrats on a solid quit

Happy New Year @Kdad... Just checking in with you to see how you are doing? @QuittingGirl... has offered some good insight. The cravings do go away with time. Keep your precious quit @Kdad.. and let us know how you are doing. Kind Regards

@bakon .... Joining you to end 2024 as a Non-Smoker and starting the new year as a non smoker

Welcome back @MichelleDoesntSmoke2025.... I understand where you are because I use to be a serial quitter as well. Lets both make 2025 our FINAL quit.

You've got this @Penguin ..... good for you for deciding to keep your quit in the midst of some challeging times. You are an inspiration.

My Sweet Lord George Harrison

@Runfree

Wishing all my Quittrain friends a Merry Christmas from Canada's National Capital.... and all the very best in 2025.

Hey, its another Friday and that time again for all of you special window lickers to pat yourself on the back for another smoke free week. So who is a certified professional window licker this week?