What the........just why?!

[PorkandPancakes]

I've been reading old posts. Perusing the Quit Train's library of past quitters. Some stay, some float in then float straight out again. Some seem to have battled and won (Evelyn, my utmost respect to the struggles and perseverance you have shown, your quit seems so very well earned) and some seem to battle then lose. And it got me to thinking about my own Quit. So unexpected and unplanned. Like so many others, I would wish I was quitting every time I laid down before sleep. I would chastise myself for smoking. I would promise I was going to cut down. Uggh. All the lies. And now, I can't shake the anger at myself. The tobacco companies. The people that perpetuate the myth 'quitting is soooo HARD'. They should stop doing adverts showing the damage tobacco causes and change tack. Quit smoking adverts with the slogan 'quitting is easy' and 'never take another puff'. Why aren't these approaches in the mainstream?! Why did I have to 'discover' this secret? Why don't I know that quitting doesn't have to be hard?! I just despair at the loss of lives, years, time, health, money, happiness, self-esteem.... If a group of people killed as many as cigarettes did then we'd be enraged. We'd fight back. Instead, we accommodate it. Sorry for the rant. I think quitting is like a break up. You go through stages of grief. I've done 'sadness/missing it', hoping to leave anger behind shortly and head into 'moving on'

 

In the meantime just 'RARRRRRR' at the tobacco industry and mainstream beliefs that made it so much easier for me to hide behind for too long.

[MarylandQuitter]

I think all of us can identify with parts of this.  However, it's the past; a past that has become who we are today.  It can't be undone and there are no re-do's but use your realizations about this addiction to ensure that you never, ever take another puff.  It's the only way. :)

[Doreensfree]

PP....anger is good....never give the murdering ******** any more of your time,money.life...

I too spend a while being so angry at them,at me...for being so blind for 52 years...

But MQ...words ...of moving forward....helped me through it....itnis the only way.... We carnt turn back the clock..

Just live the future smoke free...

Your doing great.... And will stay quit...I know you will...xx

[bakon]

I believe it's 80 percent or more mental. Until a person truly has gone over that tipping point the quit is up in the air. But once you decide your done, nope can work. It's probably not even a number percent. I quit for two years about 20 years ago because someone said I couldn't.

 

So the commercials would need to change minds.

[beacon]

I know I have regrets for smoking for more than 30 years because of the damage to my health. I never tried to quit before this time because I thought it would be too hard and because I thought I would be you g and healthy forever. :) However, I am quit now at least and I don't think I will ever smoke again. I come here and the other place to spread the word,

[Jenny]

Yup, when you finally see that it's not the impossible task you were led to believe it's mind blowing!   I remember the feelings of regret.   Even now in conversations with smokers who find out I quit I will hear how difficult it is from them.  I always tell them it's really not that hard..I'm one of the biggest babies I know.   Really low tolerance for discomfort.   If I can do it.....

[REZ]

I guess it's like the movie "The Matrix"

He takes a blue pill to see the world as it really is.

For us, once we quit smoking, we see this addiction for what it really is!

[PorkandPancakes]

It's all true. I know I have to move past the regret and anger but it us so very frustrating. It's funny because, other than drinking too much in the first week, I haven't struggled once with a strong 'crave'. I don't get them. I get 'thoughts' which I shut down pretty quick. Ice spoken before about my methods. I know this is my sticky quit. There is no other choice....... So why, if I'm really honest, do I still hear the nicodemon? Why do I hear, very faintly, 'quitting is so easy, you could be a 'social' smoker'. I know I can't but more importantly, I don't want that. I don't want to smoke. But those voices, buried deep within my mind..... I don't listen and I'm ignoring but it's a vulnerability, isn't it? Why isn't it gone yet? When does it stop (please tell me it's not 25 years later like my mother who still say 'ooh, I still miss a good cigarette' which we all know doesn't exist)

[Evelyn]

I'm no exception, you are neither, Bakon isn't and Jenny is not. We all thought we looked in the mirror and saw a dead shadow fearing we'd never conquer. The truth is is lies within us. All smokers are surrounded with lies by the smoke lobby, and addiction does the trick it let us keep thinking we could never break the chains.

 

I think many underestaemate the power of the mind. Easy Peasy right?

I believe 98 % of lotsa things in life lie in the mind, Thoughts are a huge weapon (in mind) and I really think 85 % of the people don't realise how much they influence or can influence their way of coping / seeying things.

 

I never knew a lot(most) of my emotions were influenced by so many things but since I've recognised myself as an empath I can change the length of my respond on something for example if egghead (from MY house) disappears and leaves his duties, tasks and sh*t I USED to be so pissed off it bothered me the whole morning, today I interfered my thoughts bowing them into *not my bussines* you know what I mean?

 

You can be affected in my case as an empath in your beginproces as a quiter and CHOOSE to change course.

 

Many have said a craving is only a thought not a command. Personally I'm starting to begin to grasp the power of the mind. So THINK. Choose to think differently. :)

 

Or you can skip this blabla and just think Easy Peasy ;)

 

just wanted to give an example. You think I'm so strong. I think I'm a weasy, I had to leave my piggie at the vet in their care as I practicly emotionally collapsed, in my effort of savinghim.My strongest is my weakest point. :)

 

Same there for you, use it in your advantage. Form your thoughts, choose them wisely and life will throw hairballs at ye but positive thinking is the battle already won :)

 

Now keep going, you're doing great

[comrade simba]

I always have to go back to the coke machine game to find out how long it's been since I logged on last, heh heh.

 

I didn't think any group had a higher attrition rate than AA, but quit smoking forums got them beat by a mile. Makes it just that much more special when one of us gets our first year. I noticed Evelyn is in the home stretch, that will be one heck of a christmas cheer!

[Sunnyside]

Pancake you won't have the thoughts that you are getting now all the time, and it certainly won't take 25 years to sort it out.

 

You have a better frame of mind than I ever did at the start. I just couldn't let go. I walked around with a packet of tobacco all the time for the first month. It scared the hell out of me. I hated it but I didn't, if I could only smoke occasionally but I couldn't.

 

Time is an amazing healer, just keep ignoring the voice, just keep taking it day by day and one day you will stop and realised ' I haven't thought about smoking today, it does rear it head every so often now but just a memory, a split second thought that get's dismissed very easily.

 

It is annoying that we have given son much time and money to the tobacco companies. But there's nothing anyone of us can do about it now but move on, I use to play hockey when I was younger but I don't anymore, I use to smoke too but I don't anymore

[El Bandito]

A decent rant is good for the soul! All 100% right P&P.

 

You are doing great!

[sgt.barney]

Sarge preaches the Easy Peasy because the bullshit came from *BOTH* sides.

 

Unsuccessful Quitters : "I couldn't do it. It was too damned <whine> *haaaaaard* ..."

 

Successful Quitters : "Jeebus that was the hardest damned thing I ever did!"

 

 

Don't believe a word of it, folks.

 

 

 

 

Easy Peasy

[buMbLeB]

Sarge preaches the Easy Peasy because the bullshit came from *BOTH* sides.

 

Unsuccessful Quitters : "I couldn't do it. It was too damned <whine> *haaaaaard* ..."

 

Successful Quitters : "Jeebus that was the hardest damned thing I ever did!"

 

 

Don't believe a word of it, folks.

 

I dunno. It wasn't the hardest thing I ever did, and it was easier than I expected (because I thought it was impossible), but it was still pretty damn hard. Worthwhile things often are.

 

Maybe not everyone had the same experience as you?

[PorkandPancakes]

I dunno. It wasn't the hardest thing I ever did, and it was easier than I expected (because I thought it was impossible), but it was still pretty damn hard. Worthwhile things often are.

 

Maybe not everyone had the same experience as you?

I can't speak for the Sarge but from my own quit, I can only say almost all of the battle seems to be in our minds. My quit has not been that hard and I guess 'easy peasy' compared to the stories I've heard and read about in forums. And that is wholly down to my attitude towards smoking having been changed. However, I recognise that isn't the case for everyone. I haven't been around long but I've been reading lots of posts all over the forums and you can see people skid into the forum on their knees screaming about every hour achieved and you can almost predict they will screech back out to smoking again and you wish you could make them see they are perpetuating their own myth. If I could get them to see they make it hard for themselves by having that internal fight and romancing the cig. Just calm down. Take a breath. Open your eyes. They're the ones that even when successfully quit, still say 'I could still smoke a cigarette now' and 'I loved smoking'. I just think they've tortured themselves unnecessarily. It's easier than that. But not for everyone, I guess.

[sharonsiff]

Hi PAP I found it to be a mixture of both, both in my mind and physical effects. When I say physical effects I just mean years of smoking where masking a couple of health issues, so without the cigs, they came to the surface and made me feel quite poorly both mentally and physically. Yet for so many others it can be a breeze, can be irritating that they can't reach for a smoke, but nothing more that irritation that they refuse to allow to become an issue.

 

Everyone is different because everyone has different mental health, and physical health. The good news is though that wether it is easy peasy or hellish it can be done. At least for those who do find it a struggle they have here.

 

Congratulations on your almost two months...you sound in a very good place, mentally.

[Sunnyside]

I found it hard, but by keeping going now I can see that I certainly didn't make it easy for myself either.

 

As much as I wanted to quit. I hadn't properly let go of the thought of smoking. I had read and read about how cigarettes did nothing for me, and i could see it and understood. In the back of my mind I still believed I was missing something. I would even visualize smoking the taste and smell and screw my face up at the thought of it. But that thought was there and it wouldn't go away.

 

When i hit a year I felt like a weight had been lifted but my brain was trying the 'you have quit now, so let celebrate and have one!' Soon after the year I had my last big paddy and actually did my own head in focusing on smoking. I decided there and then, that was it I am done with smoking. I suffered with anxiety and depression through it all of which I'm still on meds for. I have to say though I did make it harder on myself and when I finally stop thinking of myself as a smoker I became free.

 

Mind set isn't everything but it really does help. Pancake you are definitely in the zone.

[MichelleDoesntSmoke]

What is the coke machine game?

[MichelleDoesntSmoke]

And whats a paddy? LOL I'm confuuuuuused