comrade simba

I always got a kick out of chick bands.

Cheap food is nice, but I prefer free. Thus, I grow stuff. And take a look down and around when you're outside for edible plants and trees/bushes that are in fruit or bearing nuts. If you know how to look there is almost always something to eat most places. Stop and check to see if the roadkill squirrel or raccoon is fresh and relatively undamaged. Now that I moved to town I should get back to raiding dumpsters!

I had hoped the vape pipe would have been a cigarette replacement but alas, it just didn't have a satisfying lung hit. I'm not the type to settle for cheap imitations; had to go ahead and suffer through a real quit. Watching smokers smoke gives me a giggle but watching vapers vaping makes me feel embarrased for them. "Have you no self esteem?" Bwahahaha. Okay, I'll admit to it - a bit of self righteous "quit" ego stroking feels damn good sometimes.

Have you kept track of the number of craves you have already made it through? Five or six? Maybe a dozen or so? Perhaps more than that? You might also have gone through the same number as most of us - like HUNDREDS Auugh! Auugh! The next crave will be no worse than the last, And by the same mechanics, less frequent as time goes on. It'll be okay.

Sazerac - please tell me you're a howard zinn fan, too! I'm currently going through Morris Berman's stuff. Hard to find most of it online - rare it is that a pirate torrent doesn't exist for a published work.

Lmao - from day two - "Watching your counters is helpful too. No problems so far, son in hospital with broken hand. Getting surgery now, so just sitting around watching people walk by carrying their oxygen. Easy." Me? I spent the first days in a fever induced semi coma, and the chest hurt to much to choke down more than a puff or two. The vape pipe was making me gag. After I sorta came to I lived on the forums and read the literature. The joel videos were my favorite. Read the Allan Carr book right off the bat.

I did nothing but read the quit info and watch Joel videos for most of the first week. Looking back, making the quit paramount to everything else made it easy to see that lighting up the first one made the quit a total loss. But, many here have said when you shitcan one quit you can make a new one that isn't tainted by the former. New quit, new life. Go for it.

The beginings of being a nonsmoker are starting to show up. I've had a few days go by where I realized I hadn't thought about not thinking about smoking. I also went to visit some friends at their house that smoked, and it didn't even register as a problem - the only alarm was thinking breathing in the smoke would damage me, being ultra sensitive about my health lately, heh heh. I'm getting an idea that the dietary changes I made may be lessening the cues and urges to smoke. Probably trying to find a silver lining to the heart attack cloud but heh whatever works, right? Swapping huge amounts of coffee for a cup of green tea a day and maybe one cup of coffee means I'm not all jittery so the deep triggers aren't going off. Kicking sugar, refined products, wheat and flour has been a withdrawal all its own; "I want a donut!" is more than likely drowning out thoughts of wanting a cigarette. Of course, I got it easy in a way - damage to the body from smoking and eating crap food got moved from the theoretical column to the in your face side. In summary, even though I got hit with a bomb I'm generally better off than I was 8 months ago. Before the quit I was leading a life of deterioration. Quitting smiking cut the stress, allowed me to treat the move to town as a positive, didn't have to go through withdrawal in the hospital and during this last month of taking it easy. Factor in the successful quit made it easier to kick sugar, etc. Bunch of odd reasons to be glad I don't smoke, and I'm glad I stuck it out long enough to get here. Thanks to all of you on the qt, best wishes to the new riders. Life in the club car beats walking along side the tracks.

Yeah, I'm off wheat as part of my new heart attack diet - I call it a Paleo/Mampire diet. Other than some oatmeal I'm grain free. Kicking wheat at the same time as kicking all sugar was a three day block of time damn near as tough as kicking the smoking. I feel a lot better all around once you discount the cardic recovery bit, though. A doughnut is a cigarete is a fried cheeze doodle.

out pops a three lock box. I insert limes.

Awww, you guys remembered, heh heh. Long day today, and I'm pretty tired and brain dead. I'll post an 8 month update tomorrow. Gave sazerac a "like" for the jumper cables!

And all Father Comrade has to say is "been there done that"... insert a couple of cups of coffee just to keep from falling asleep

And after almost a month in the coke machine it smells better than it did when it went in! I put in another skunk for "company".

The guys doing the cutting are truly awesome. No worries, Bonnie. Bring your girl her favorite stuffed animal.

I'm the guy you don't want to talk trash to in meatspace. But hey, it's the internet so, whatever. Americans have for the most part forgotten how to be civil to each other. Crabs in a pot clawing at anyone trying to get ahead as you futily fight towards an unreachable top. Namesake from the Simba Rebellion. Those guys weren't fooling around. Took on Empire and damn near won. "Comrade" is to remind that we don't exist in a vacuum. Know who the Belgians are, and act appropriately.

Think of it as crack. Stay out of the crackhouse. That may seem a bit harsh but why play with fire so early in the game? I don't like being around people smoking even after 7 months. Keep your quit as the most important thing and you'll probably keep your quit :D

Good job! 11 month marks are exciting cuz it's short time 'till the one year!

Good job Olaf!

Thanks for sharing how crappy it was and how lousy you feel about it now! That's the kind of pep talk I need to keep my Rationalizer shut up. At a 12 step meetings I always ask the relapser did you puke? Did you lose a job? Did you wake up next to something horid? Than I thank them for doing the dirty work for me. Thanks jackie! ;)

Absolutely none! Beating on the internet all day! Cardio Rehab will start next week. Until then I am as close to inert as it gets Woo hoo!

Most of the time I think they think we're lying. Hey - they're justified in that, too. Addicts lie - it's a job requirement. I went througha bunch of this during the heart attack thing. Had a Nurse say "no smoking" when I walked by the desk letting her know I was shuffling off to the cafeteria out of boredom. I asked if she had ever quit smoking and when she said no I said then you have no idea how much work I put into the last 7 months. Once they put a stethoscope to your chest you get a little credibility though. And, I don't particularly give a rat's ass if they believe me or not. It's my 7 months, piss off, God.

Woo hoo for the Late January Quitters' Club. Attaboy!

Sorry - I don't do guilt. Maybe the fine the city threatened you with for letting your grass get to high made you fire up the lawnmower and suck in the particle that killed you? Maybe it was your jet ski? A stray nuke particle from fukushima? Super hold number 67 hair spray? Face it, we wouldn't want to live a lifestyle that wasn't dependent on toxifying our environment. How would we get to WalMart?

Didn't want to have a heart attack, bwahahaha!

Looks like I'm out of the woods. Had a non-reaction to the anticlot medication so the stent reclogged and I had to go through the whole thing all over again 4 days later. This time during prep for the cath insertion the heart went bazzoo and out came the jumper cables. MAN, THAT HURTS! Had to zap me three times. Now, I've been in some "spots" in my less than monkish life but I think that counted as close to dead as I've gotten. Newbs - I smoked heavy for 40 years since I was a kid. I'm alive. Quitting was worth it. And if you haven't been smoking that long well, I wish now that I hadn't either. You don't want the jumper cables... :-D