In the words of Mad Eye Moody.....

[PorkandPancakes]

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!

The above is a Harry Potter reference for those who don't know but the message is quite clear.

 

I had a funny experience overnight which prompted this post. I was at work, on a night shift. We had just left a job and were stood, around 2am, in the dark, chatting to some colleagues. One took out his pack of cigs and said simply "Do you smoke?" As he offered the pack in my direction. And it was there. The hint of a bygone age. The whisper of "Oh, go on then"... Almost an Echo of me. I actually felt my fingers flinch in an automatic response. It was but a fraction of a second before my actual response was "no thanks, I quit"but for just that moment it flicked through my thoughts.

 

I think that might be the first time someone has directly and completely innocently offered me a cigarette since I quit (I had not met this colleague before) and this was just another trigger to experience but afterwards it left me thinking about it.

 

Because I realised that I am only ever a single puff away from smoking. I know that sounds daft when we are here saying this stuff all the time to others but when it catches you like that it never fails to amaze me. I am a million miles away from the smoker I was yet so close I can almost touch it. So, to quote the Wizards....

 

CONSTANT VIGILENCE!!

[beacon]

 

Good job for resisting.  On the other hand, didn't you feel a little good when you said, no I don't smoke, thank you. I think part of quitting is becoming a nonsmoker in your own mind.  In the beginning I thought of myself as a  new quitter and then for a long time I felt like a faker at being a nonsmoker. At the store  I would buy gum instead of a pack of cigs and I would snicker to myself and think how I was pretending to be a nonsmoker.  I noticed everyone smoking every where and I used to tell everyone that I had just quit. If I was offered a smoke, I had to tell them my quitting story and I must admit I made several blow hard speeches to my old smoking friends about how I quit and they should too. 

 

Over time this changed and I am a nonsmoker now. It is a different mind set and I only feel sorry for the people who still smoke as I know they are going to have to quit too and go through it, or worse, keep smoking and get sick. 

 

I agree vigilance is the key and I know that NOPE keeps my as a nonsmoker. 

[MarylandQuitter]

I adopted Sir Ernest Shackleton's family motto in 2001.  Fortitudine Vincimus—"by endurance we conquer"