A Year Without Cigarettes

May 21st marked a full year without cigarettes.

How am I doing? I didn't think about it until May 23rd.

The freedom from smoking has changed my life. I could sit here and tell you about being able to hustle up stairs, or that my clothes don't stink or how good food tastes, but in reality the biggest thing about being smoke-free, aside from physical health, is purely psychological - I am free from an addiction. My life no longe revolves around smoking. That speaks louder than anything else.

I plum forgot about my one-year anniversary because I simply don't think about smoking much anymore. Occasionally the topic will cross my mind, usually when talking to another smoker who also wants to quit. I tell them what they've heard is true - you have to want to quit. You have to want it more than anything else. Most people who smoke like smoking, even if they really can't see why anymore. The satisfaction factor for their cravings has earned the title of "something I like to do".

I no longer think about when my next break is, or if I can sneak out between breaks to catch a smoke. I don't have to remember to suck one down before a movie, or a dinner out. No more standing in bad weather, or cracking the car window. Its not that the cessation of these activities is a big deal in and of themselves, its that I don't even think about doing them. It's natural to not do them.

A few days ago, I walked out of a diner where a couple of men were standing outside, and one remarked that he was going to ask me for a light but I didn't look like someone who smoked. Wow!, I thought in my head. Something else I hadn't considered - people who smoke generally look like people who smoke. That comment made my whole day - I was telling friends "hey, I don't look like I smoke" (of course, there's always the wise cracker who says "yeah, but you're still ugly").

So, unless I have a relapse - and I don't see it happening - you likely wont hear from me again. Since I don't smoke, and I don't think about smoking, I've simply run out of things I can say about it. And that's great - not having a thing to say about smoking, because it's so not part of who I am and what I do.

I am an ex-smoker. I hope all of you reach your one-year anniversary and become true ex-smokers, too.

Write About Quitting Smoking

Hello. Do you want to quit smoking? Have you tried many times only to go right back to the addiction?

Have you already quit smoking? Do you have valuable advice to share with others still struggling with the habit?

If you answered yes to either of these questions and enjoy writing, then we want you! All of us here either smoke and want to quit, or used to smoke but have already quit. We write about the struggles and the nicotine addicition. We share different methods to stop smoking. We support and commiserate with each other's stories.

If you would like to write for this blog and be a part of this effort, please contact me at kb@kellfinder.com. Please put "quit smoking" in the subject line. Thank you!

Smoking…what does it really cost?

Yesterday had been a better day on my not smoking. That was until I got a call from the mechanic shop…They were calling to let me know how much it was to fix one of our cars. $453.45 was the grand total.

I got to thinking, if I wasn’t smoking what all could I buy, with cigarettes just at $5.00 per pack?

• 4 packs = one month of internet service
• 10 packs = dinner at a nice restaurant
• 90.69 packs = fixing my car
• 392.99 packs = 7 day, 6 night hotel and airfare in Cancun
• 4574 pack = ’07 Saturn VUE Green Line Hybrid

The cost of this nasty habit is really sad when you think about it.

Photo thanks to Flikr

Unique And Creative Tip To Stop Smoking

Yesterday, I received a comment on my medical blog about “Kicking The Smoking Habit” from The Cheap Gourmet and she agreed to let me share it with all of you. This is a great and very creative tip. While you would look a bit funny using this in public, it would be great for the car and home.

“My mom quit smoking last year after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She cut a drinking straw to the same length of her cigarette. Next, she tightly rolled up a paper napkin and inserted it into the straw. This gave her the effect of actually smoking because the napkin acts like a cigarette filter. When she "puffs" on the straw, she gets a similar feel as if she were smoking the cigarette.

Nine months later, she is still smoke-free and once in awhile she will reach for her "fake" cigarette. She smoked for nearly 50 years and this was the only thing she used to quit. I wish you much success on your journey and hope this tip helps you.”

Day 1 - Dru's quit day

Wow, not even lunch time and this is getting difficult. I actually was surprised last night I finished my last pack at 12:00 am. So I woke up this morning with out the ability to smoke. Everything was already gone. I was able to get out of the house fine without smoking but then the coffee and car ride to work killed me. Yes, killed me... I can honestly say this is going to be very hard. I am not a macho man and do see myself break down in the fetal position by the end of the day. If I can only make it though work. I brought the 3x5 cards to work that the kids made me and posted them on my desk. One of my smoking buddies walked though my office on the way to the morning smoke break and I actually caught myself thinking, "is it really that important that my daughter thinks I smell bad."
I am realizing that coffee is a very large trigger. Every sip makes me want to warm my lungs with the refeshing warm smoke.
All of this and I have only been at work for an hour.
THIS SUCKS, maybe I should start this quiting thing tomorrow... :D

Two days of Smoking Left

Last night I made a great attempt at cutting back on smoking before Monday gets here. The pipes froze in my apartment yesterday so me and the kids went to my parents house. GG (the kids Great Grandma) is visiting so after dinner we sat around and played cards. This means that after eating and helping the dinner cleanup I didn't go out for my ritual Cancer Stick.
About 5 hours later when the little one was asleep and my older one was getting ready for bed I grabbed my coat and started to head outside. Now came another situation that made me realize how important this is to my daughter. GG started with her lecture about not smoking like she usually does and my oldest came in the room and said, "GG, he can smoke all he wants right now without anyone yelling at him, so please leave him alone. Monday we can all yell at him." Now GG may only be 4 ft. tall but believe me she is a scary woman at 89 years old. I was very impressed that my 11 year old felt strongly enough about this contract to yell at her Great Grandmother.
Part of the contract that me and my daughter signed states, "Prior to the date above no one is authorized to comment on the smoking habits, unless this poses health or saftey risk to those around Dad. After the date choosen above Dad is not authorized to get mad or upset if someone throws out, or destroys any tobacco product or reminder of a tobacco product."
It looks like this is going to be held up 100 percent on her end and is ensuring no one ruins the deal.
I AM GETTING SCARED NOW!!!

Quitting An Addiction

Hello there ... My name is Ghosty, and I am an ex-smoker.

After thirty years of smoking, I have been smoke-free for seven months, plus a few days. I have never gone this long before, so I'm quite proud of myself for having made it this far. I don't brag much though - I also know that the chances of relapse are quite high before I reach the two year mark. Of all the things you may hear or read about people who have quit smoking, this is the easiest one to underestimate if you haven't quit yourself (or, even more so if you're not a smoker to begin with).

Surely the addiction is over with by now? Isn't this just a case of willpower at this point?

In a manner of speaking, yes. It's all willpower. My body gave up it's physical reliance on nicotine in the first month I had stopped smoking. The psychological addiction, however, is much more difficult for some people to deal with, and it's the hardest part of quitting smoking to explain to someone who has never smoked. Saying "it's a case of willpower," or "it's all in your head" doesn't quite translate into the reality of what's going on. It oversimplifies the situation a hundred fold.

So, allow me to use a parable for what I go though on a daily basis that a non-smoker might understand.

Let us say that you are used to sleeping with pillows on your bed. The chances are, you actually are used to doing that, but this being the wonderful wide Internet, one never knows ... and it makes for a better example that way. Let's say that you simply cannot get a good night's sleep without that wonderful down pillow you've come to rely on for years and years. It comforts you, cradles your head and muffles the outside sounds so nicely.

Then one day you realize that you must give up your wonderful pillow. It makes your neck stiff in the morning. You walk around with feathers sticking out of your ears. The thread count is a little low, and you have a cross-hatch pattern permanently etched into your cheeks. You've put up with these annoyances for a long time, because you sleep so well with your friend, the pillow. You'd bring your pillow with you to work, to restaurants, even on dates, just for little breaks to snuggle up to it for a few moments. Every hour or so. Sometimes more often if you can manage it.

You have your pillow while you drive, and after every meal, and before you go to bed (as ironic as that may seem). You cannot leave the house without your pillow. You cannot function without your pillow. Your whole life, everywhere you go, everything you do, is centered around your next opportunity to snuggle with your pillow.

Maybe the neck-aches get to be too much, or it becomes too expensive to keep your pillow-habit. Whatever the reason, you decide to quit. The first weeks are the worst - sleeping with a substitute, or no pillow at all, means no sleep at all. You're tired. You're cranky. You start doing other things to compensate, like trying to sleep at odd hours (or not getting up once you do get to sleep), or eating when you aren't really hungry. Eventually, those things start to wear off and you find that you can live without your old pillow. He wasn't good for you. You looked bizarre with feathers in your ears, anyway. And yet ...

Seven months later, you still think about your pillow. Still! You see someone else with their pillow, and you want yours. You enjoy a big meal, and you want your pillow. Drive your car, or type at your computer, or watch everyone else in the office go outside for a pillow break, and you want your pillow. Sometimes, for no apparent reason at all ... pillow. You have thoughts about buying a new pillow - a whole pack of pillows. How warm and comforting they were. How good they made you feel ...

And that's when you have to repeatedly tell yourself, no, they did NOT make you feel good. The feathers made it hard to breathe. Your neck hurt all the time. Whatever the reason for doing it, you have to remind yourself every single day that you are an ex-pillow user, because the back of your mind still wants irrational pillow-time!

Multiply that by 100. It's not an old want. It's an old need. Thirty years of my life centered around smoking. I must undo thirty years of trained, induced, reinforced behavior. That's why it's so hard to quit. The physical addiction is the easy part. The nicotine merely supported the trained behavior that I have to untrain myself in now. It's overcoming the daily, nagging, relentless urge to go back to the life I knew for so very long.

This thing that made it difficult to breathe, almost impossible to climb stairs, took much of my money, made my clothes stink, robbed me of the taste of good food, and inched me closer to cancer, emphysema and death every single day, and I have to fight my own mind to stay away from doing it anymore.

That is what quitting an addiction is like. That is what it's like to quit smoking.

I know I make it sound horrible, and in ways, it is. It is not as simple as "it's in your head." That expression is typically used by people who have never done it themselves. It is why the relapse rate is so high, and why ex-smokers tend to be very supportive of each other. We know it can be hell.

We're very proud of each other, and proud of ourselves, for making it though one more day.

Quit Smoking With Me

My name is Kelly and I have been smoking for 21 years. That sounds horrible especially since I am only 33 years old. I picked up my first cigarette when I was 12. If only I could go back in time and smack it right out of my own hand.

I am going to quit smoking. I am not sure if it will be later today, maybe tomorrow or possibly next week. Sound familiar? The truth is that I feel an urgent need to do it soon. I don’t know if my body is trying to tell me something like “do it soon or you will reach a point of no return”.

I have a lot to say about smoking. I won’t try to do it all in one post. I have 21 years worth of smoke talk and its effects on my way of living.

I do want to ask you to join me. Do you want to quit smoking? Are you thinking about it just a little? Have you already quit smoking? What I would like is to build a community here. I know there are thousands of quit smoking sites out there. I ask you to join mine. I started this on January 1st, 2008 for a reason. I want this to be the year of my success. It can be yours too. You will never get any pressure from me.

You can join this blog in two ways. You can participate by commenting or you can be a regular poster here. It is open to anyone that wants to talk about quitting smoking cigarettes. You can contact me if you would like to post to this blog and I will get you all set up. I am positive that together we can get this done!!!