So what to realistically expect in the coming days/months whatever.

[JB 883]

Coming up on six months smoke free. I ain't sure about this journey. Kind of weird. So it is like this -

 

I honest to god did not think i would last. My attempt at quitting on Oct 6th was 1/2 hearted really. I remember thinking, "if i actually last one month..."

But the first three months were not even bad, not even the first few days. At three weeks i was at a friend's and she was smoking weed and a cigarette (some disgusting ones like Maverick BLEH! ).

I had no desire to smoke anything even when someone is there puffing away. She looked like a welfare woman that night.

 

So right about Jan 6th, my third month complete, craves hit harder than i thought possible. I did not give in but I was irritable, wanted to try a pack of every brand that exists but especially one brand called True cause I thought they looked really cool. Got on my old smoker's site to see if they still existed, if they were good etc. I am not sure what stopped me from buying. I would look over cigarette displays to see what they had. 

So now i worry and wonder when the next hard battle will hit. That three-month battle blind-sided me. I know some relapse after years of quit and I think, how, why? Don't they know it is walking back to hell?

 

I do though notice some here had smoked like 40 or 50 years but are still around. I smoked 15 years and I often think, "Well shoot, I prolly could have smoked another 25 years and been OK".

Yeah I still want it. Nights like this, I want to try different brands, see if they are as pleasurable as the ads said.

 

So for physical stuff -

I had read that after so many months or whatever, one might cough up nasty blackish stuff as the lungs clean themselves. I have not experienced this. Is it too soon or did my sexy lungs just not collect any tar? Smell and taste still work but I am used to having them now so it does not seem as intense as when i first quit and they came back. For a new addiction - Pepsi. Yep, it plopped it's butt RIGHT where Miss "Eve" used to sit. (Eve was my brand, I still love her but I will not let her take my life away.) I have forgotten what it was like to have to cough a certain way so my breath would not rattle as I try to sleep.

 

So yeah I have no clue what is going on or how i refrain from relapse. I am not one for pledges and promises. It is like apathy.

 

SO... if anyone needs advice on how to keep a quit, do not ask me because I do not even know how I do it. Maybe cause Eve is $7 a pack and i prefer not to spend the money.

 

[Sslip]

Hey JB, seems like you have a seriously good quit in progress. I guess the experiences you have had simply demonstrate how we are all individuals. For some pledging is a useful part of their quit and others it will not be. It is about pulling out of the toolkit those things that are useful in our own circumstances. 

 

Thanks for posting and stay strong. 

[despair not]

Hi Jet

 

At 6 months you are over the worst but the nicodemon will still sneak up on you every chance they get especially when you are down or some life event overwhelms you.

To succeed you have to convince yourself that smoking is no longer an option and that its something you used to do that you have now grown out of.

 

[Sazerac]

 

 RED FLAG ALERT !!!

You have said things that are stunning examples of  bargaining with your addiction 

and 

'romancing the cigarette'.

This can only bring  disaster.  

 

"cause I thought they looked really cool"

"I want to try different brands, see if they are as pleasurable as the ads said."

"  Eve was my brand, I still love her"

 "... look over cigarette displays to see what they had."

  "Well shoot, I prolly could have smoked another 25 years and been OK".

 

You cannot bargain with addiction. 

Either you feed it or starve it into oblivion

and romancing is psychologically serving up a banquet.

You need to stop it. 

You are torturing yourself and giving your addiction more power, more opportunities to keep you enslaved.

I don't understand this statement. 

 "I am not one for pledges and promises. It is like apathy." 

  Do you mean pledges and promises are like apathy to you?

If this is what you mean  (forgive me if I have misunderstood)

you need to acknowledge that pledges and promises are merely tools to help fight a deadly addiction.

 

Making the commitment to myself 

to never lighting up another cigarette EVER

and NOPE-ing publicly for a few years

gave me strength and extra motivation when I needed it.

 

This completely surprised me...I had always been an adamant commitment-phobe.

Funny, how one grows and changes.

 

So, stand firm, don't vandalize your quit, protect it. 

Start to consciously replace junkie thoughts with life affirming thoughts 

or thoughts about things that turn you on.

This will encourage your endorphins to serve you instead of being gangstered by addiction.

 

To answer your heading, what to realistically expect ?

In short time,

with intent and focus, 

your head will be free from smokey thoughts .

Edited March 24, 2018 by Sazerac

[Reciprocity]

Smoking is it's own little microcosm that attaches to us for life the minute we light that first smoke in our misinformed youth. That first smoke leads to addiction and every smoke afterwards feeds the addiction. It has nothing to do with anything else going on in our lives yet we begin to mentally attach ourselves to smoking through almost everything we do in our lives as smokers. Smoking makes nothing better in our life - never did and never will no, the reason we think smoking makes things better or easier in our lives is that if we don't keep feeding the addiction regularly, the addiction takes over and starts making us very uncomfortable. We feed the addiction and we feel "right" again. No, the addiction feels right again. Our sadness or joy outside of smoking has not changed one bit.

 

Don't romance the cigarette folks because when you do, you keep the addiction fresh and alive in your mind. Smoking does nothing for you. It's an addiction that demands to be constantly fed and that is all it is.

[WeegieWoman]

Hi jetblack, i quit 6th november so we are close ish in our quit dates. Id tried quitting loads of times before as well. I smoked for around 15 years also maybe a bit longer. Ive not been coughing up any gunk either. So some similarities in our quits. Ive not hit a hard time though. God knows how but my quit has been plain sailing and im just running with it. 

 

Dont fret about the future, just deal with today. Six months is amazing and you must be doing a lot right to have got to this point. Throw that away and you could be back here in 15 years time as a 30 year smoker. 

 

Keep yourself busy, do things that make you happy, splash the cash youre saving not spending on fags. You are responsible for you, so do everything you can to help yourself. The dreaming about fags has to stop, or at least lessen. Lets the thoughts come and go, remind yourself you dont smoke. And then move on. 

 

Thats just how i roll anyway. Hey why dont you try a nope pledge, you never know it migt help  

[jillar]

Thinking you could have smoked for another 25 years in total junkie thinking. Ask anyone of us 25 plus year smokers and you will see that our breathing has suffered, our faces more than likely show smokers wrinkles, recovery is way harder the older you get,  the list could go on and on. I don't know anyone of us that don't wish we would have quit at 15 years but thought the same as you are trying to talk yourself into.

 

[despair not]

Jet

Forgot to mention they reckon if you quit before you are 35 yrs old you can undo most of the damage smoking has caused.#

 

That's not permission to smoke till 35 if you are younger than that.

[Jenny]

Hi there Jet, congratulations on your nearly 6 months smoke free.  You have come so far!

There are many stages to a quit and right now you're in the bargaining stage.  Your addictive mind is trying to justify smoking again and if you continue to allow that you will relapse.  How do people relapse? ANSWER:  They talk themselves into it by thinking they can smoke a little longer without health issues or that they can smoke just for a while to get through a stressful time and then quit again.  What will it hurt right?   Smoking doesn't help life stress.  It actually adds to it.  There is nothing calming about it!  No one who smoked for any length of time is immune from potential health problems but clearly the longer you smoke the more damaging the effects are.  I smoked for 28 years and I so regret not quitting sooner.  I regret the time I spent smoking, searching for a place to smoke and stressing out when I couldn't smoke.  I went to Disney with my family and my main focus was finding the smoking areas.  Often I didn't travel at all because it was so complicated as a smoker and I would rather smoke.    I chose smoking over almost everything.  Is this the life you want to return to?  What did smoking take away from you?  That's where your focus needs to be.  Take control of those thoughts and allow yourself to heal.   Time helps I promise you that.  

[onthemark]

Jet, I was one of those people who thought I could smoke for another 25 years and lost a quit when i was your age. It was a lie. I quit smoking, never coughed and ended up with lung cancer. Some people here have COPD or heart disease or other cancers caused by smoking. Other people worry they smoked so long they might end up sick because of it and some of them are right. Don't be one of us.