After Quitting Smoking

[norm]

I quit 26years ago, I was smoking 3 packs (60cigs) a day when I quit.

I enjoyed smoking and didn't really have any desire to quit, but I had made a promise to my wife that is we moved to Cayman Islands I would quit. Now I didn't think there was a snowballs chance of moving there so a safe promise.

Damned If we didn't move there a few months after the promise was made. Being a man of my word, I didn't waffle just decided a promise is a promise.

So I quit the day we arrived and have never had one since. Must say my experience in quitting wasn't all that bad. Didn't use any aids just willpower. It was most difficult when we would be with friends who would do there best to sabotage you quitting. You know blowing smoke your way offering you one all the time etc.

I seriously think I would have been dead by now if I hadn't quit. Must say even now at times a cigarette sounds good, but I will never ever have another one. I never nag people about quitting but won't allow it in our house or car. But that is never a issue, have balconies for smokers.

I think I have saved enough in the last 26 years to pay for a very nice holiday. But we are so content here we are in no hurry to go anywhere else in the near future.

Quit and stay quit you will live a much longer and healthy life.

[Huahinian]

Prior to March of this year, I smoked 30+ ciggies a day. I had a heart attack and was in ICU for 8 days with tubes down my throat so smoking was impossible! I have not had a cigarette since although there are still times when I fancy one.

I did stop once before for 18 months but succumbed in a weak moment.

When you stop, you become a reformed smoker BUT STILL A SMOKER!

[T.I.G.R.]

I was tempted to chime in yesterday but didn't. Malcom rekindled my need to share.

I had parents who smoked three packs a day each and thus picked up the habit when I was ten......no kidding.

I got up to my own three packs a day for quite a few years then married a non-smoker and started attempting to quit. I forget how many starts and stops I had, but the longest I ever went was for a year; then my 16 year old moved in with me and he smoked......it wasn't long before I was back at it.

I remarried my beautiful Thai sweetie twenty years ago in 1988, and finally in 1993 I decided I'd made her suffer enough and vowed to give them up for good. I was going to use the patch, which had just become available, but after my doc insisted I take a course on not smoking at the hospital, and two aborted attempts to get them at the drugstore (12 miles from our house on mountain roads) I said to hell with it. I didn't need their patches. Being a stubborn sort, that was enough reason for me never to touch another one, and to this day I've been smoke free.

Malcominthemiddle you should ease up on the poor smokers a bit.....until you've been in their shoes you have no idea how difficult it is.

Good luck to all of you who are trying, or will try. It takes a ton of willpower but just keep at it. Eventually you'll be successful.

[malcolminthemiddle]

Malcominthemiddle you should ease up on the poor smokers a bit.....until you've been in their shoes you have no idea how difficult it is.

Actually I was a committed smoker for more than 25 years. My quit date was November 5th, 2002. I haven't had a puff since.

I was not nagging, I know that is counter productive. I do try to show people the futility of their habit. For that I do not apologise.

I also "quit" many times in those 25 years.

I eventually quit because I didn't want to smoke any more. I planned to have a long and healthy retirement. Before quitting I educated myself using www.whyquit.com set my quit date and stopped while adopting their motto NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF.

I am proud of myself for quitting which I consider to be one of my major life achievements.

There is no good reason to smoke, there are plenty to quit.

[sandman67]

Malcominthemiddle

your posts show all the evangelistic hooraying and lack of understanding I associate with ASH members and reformed smokers.... nice. may I say on behalf of the militant smoker crowd how much we enjoy such twaddle.....

My smoking is a life choice, just as your choice to not smoke is yours. I dont ram my point down your neck whilst waving a big smiley banner so why do you think that would work on me? 16 years of constant health message barrages via all media, parents and several exes nagging me, and one grandfather dying of lung cancer didn't put me off....so telling me food tastes better is hardly going to work.

I choose to smoke knowing that every time I light up it is killing me. I choose not to give up, I choose to enjoy my life now. The end bit...old, infirm, drooling in a chair...those extra few years at the end....sod that you can keep them. Smoking is a pleasure....and I wont miss those extra few years at the end of my time here at all....I fear those years.

Y see Malcolm I know its killing me and i dont care. Drinking alcohol / eating some foods / driving or riding / crossing roads here may well kill you someday.....I dont recommend you stop though. I recommend you treat every day as your last and enjoy them as much as possible. Run away from the reaper as much as you like....he always gets you in the end. My fillosify is have a laugh till he turns up and try to leave he crowd laughing as you exit stage left......

Oh....and nicotine is a depressant not a stimulant. It calms you down....hence the fact Im puffing away like Steamboat Willie now....

sometimes Norseman that promise is hard to keep.....

so.....back to the OP....

Well, as you can see from the above Im still a smoker, but in my 30s I was addicted to another substance...and yes it was a stimulant. Kicking the habit was hellish but very very necessary. I was depressed and the detox process was hell...erratic mood swings, sickness, depression. A month in hell..... but I had to do it. Luckily I had sympathetic support from friends who helped. Counseling did sod all....made me more depressed in fact. At the end of the day it was gut determination that got me through.

Kicking any habit is a very personal thing, and what works on you may well not work on me. Support and understanding are key....

As Mr Cocker so rightly said.... "I get by with a little help from my friends".

[crazy88]

I am a smoker .I have never tried to quit .I have cut down to 1 or 2 a day at various points .I used to dink 20 cups of coffee a day .One day i woke up and did not fancy a cup .Have not drunk more than 2-3 cups a year since .It would be nice if I woke up one morning feeling the same about cigarettes .I think the point about reformed smokers is probably correct .How could anyone ever forget how Gooooooodddd a smoke is after a fantastic meal ? Glass of single malt and smoke of your choice mmmmmmmmmm..... go on,have a fag

Also if they can make alcohol free beer and zero caffiene coffee then why not smokes that aren't that bad for you ? Or even good for you ?

Crazy 88

[sandman67]

Crazy

nice idea mate but when you breathe smoke in is the particles entering your lungs with the tar that do the damage....healthy fags is a bit of an impossibility....we live in hope tho

they could start by not soaking the tobacco in chemicals (propellants and flavor enhancers). There was a brand in the UK in the 90s that were chemical free and "organic".....didn't sell as they cost more so went off the market. Shame as I liked them.

My favorites were marketed by a mate of mine.... Death Cigarettes.... remember them? Now called Black Death....



Not so fast Nick O Teen!!!!!

[malcolminthemiddle]

Malcominthemiddle

your posts show all the evangelistic hooraying and lack of understanding I associate with ASH members and reformed smokers.... nice. may I say on behalf of the militant smoker crowd how much we enjoy such twaddle.....
:

Mr Sadman,

You are wrong, I am not the anti smoking evangelist you describe. I don't care if you smoke or not, why should I?

Fact is most smokers wish they didn't smoke. They just haven't found the way to quit. I did and I make no apology for passing that experience on, you can take it or leave it, up to you.

[sandman67]

Malc

nice mate...Sadman....thats a good one. Id laugh louder but, sad addict that I am, Id probably hock up a bit of lung or have a jammer.

I made a promise to Norseman so Im outtahere....

have fun children

[sargeant]

Quote malc does that mean

In answer to a long question the answer to my ignoble shame is


YUP YUP just wait till your pecker dont do what you expect

[sargeant]

Sorry malc
i forgot to add when your peckker wont play and viagara will kill you
Beer screws your pills that are keeping you alive and leaves me feeling like crap

why the hell should i worry about how long i live

[Francois]

I quit 26years ago, I was smoking 3 packs (60cigs) a day when I quit.

Same for me... I quit 30 years ago...

I'm rather of a binary type : 0 or 1, I smoke or I don't :-)

I've lost a couple of friends who were heavy smoker (ca. 60 cigarettes a day). One died from a lung cancer, the other from heart attack...

Several mates from my crew had a heart attack and all were heavy smokers...

So the choice is quickly done and I do not regret to have quit...

Nonetheless, I have to say that it is sometimes a bit difficult not to get a habana :-)))

[malcolminthemiddle]

Oh....and nicotine is a depressant not a stimulant. It calms you down....hence the fact Im puffing away like Steamboat Willie now....

Wrong

Nicotine is a stimulant, speeding up the heart by about 20 beats per minute with every cigarette, it raises blood pressure, is a vasoconstrictor - which means it makes arteries all over the body become smaller making it harder for the heart to pump through the constricted arteries - and it causes the body to release its stores of fat and cholesterol into the blood.

The heart has to work harder to overcome all of these effects. To work harder the heart, like every other muscle in the body, needs extra amounts of oxygen for the additional workload. The oxygen has to be transported through the blood. But carbon monoxide from tobacco smoke literally poisons the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. So this results in the heart having to work harder to get more blood to itself to work harder, because it's working harder. This is a circle. A vicious and deadly circle when it comes down to it. www.whyquit.com

For those smokers who want to quit, education is the key.

[hhfarang]

I made a promise to Norseman so Im outtahere....

Aha! Sandman, I was wondering why you have been so polite...no that's not the right word... restrained lately. I thought you had stopped drinking or stuffed a rag in the dummy's mouth!

I like the new you!

[sandman67]

nicotine is a mental depressant....it calms you down.

The process of smoking is what speeds your heart up...you are in effect choking yourself...denying your body oxygen. Hold your breath.....your heart speeds up....easy. This in turn triggers other body systems that do act as stimulants, but nicotine just slows your mental processes down....and poisons your body.

educate till you are blue in the face.....the UK government have tried for so many years...utterly pointless and ineffective. Children still take up smoking despite having it hammered into them that smoking is bad....

What they found worked best was making smoking: 1) prohibitively expensive; and, 2) socially (now legally) unacceptable in a public space.

If education worked then the health warnings on packs would not have had to be made ever bigger....now in the west they are considering plastering those horror pictures on the packs....that will not work either.

Most people I know who have given up did so for a life choice reason...they had kids, got married, etc. One or two did it on medical advice....heart issues. None did it because of education....and all of them that succeeded did so with a hell of a lot of willpower and support.

Anyone who succeeds I admire...they have greater willpower and control than me.

Kicking smoking is equal to kicking Heroin, Speed, Coke or Crack..... so hats off to all who beat it.

HHF

awwww Im blushing

yeah mate....I locked Conky back in his suitcase and threw him back in the pond in the swamp.....he really was a prat eh?

Thing is hes made of wood and metal....so he doesn't need oxygen

bugger....should have cremated him.