Post by Ann on Sept 16, 2004 13:22:51 GMT -5
I have been quit for 5 Months, 1 Week, 1 Day, 19 hours, 28 minutes and 35 seconds (159 days). I have saved $735.13 by not smoking 6,392 cigarettes. I have saved 1 Month, 1 Week, 3 Days, 22 hours and 48 minutes of my life.
What those stats don't tell you is that I have smoked (as Ernie aka efr has so eloquently stated) 'professionally' for 35 years. I am a male of 51 and average size and weight. Quitting has had its price. I put on about 10 pounds. I am unconcerned about that. I have gained and lost weight before. No biggie. Just cut out the biggie fries and burgers for a while.
After a few practice quits and failures I resigned to the idea that I loved to smoke. I hated the idea that I would have to put up with anything that deprived me from smoking, even a single hour was a gigantic inconvenience! I loved the smell, the flavor, but I hated what it was doing to me. I hated the cough, the nightime rattling while sleeping. The smokers laugh and all the symptoms that whispered that I was on the slide headed for death's doorstep. I then began wondering what I would do if I coughed up blood. Would I quit then? Would it be too late? And about that time I began to take more notice in the friends I kept. Smokers. Bloodshot eyes. Ashen skin. Lines in their faces. And for those who didn't smoke ... they looked alive! I began to guess who smoked and who didn't. Picking out strangers everywhere and anywhere and without realizing it guessing was easy and accurate. I looked in the mirror and saw with horror that hollow eyed line-marked ashen complexion. Was it all this obvious or did I have a nack for this? You be the judge. But I will tell you this ...
I plunged myself (quite determindly) into this quit. After all, I was no longer healthy enough to enjoy smoking anyway. My lung capacity was shockingly small (I did not know how limited at the time) and most of the time, when I took a drag off a cigarette, it was small ones because otherwise I would choke and cough vigorously to the point of gagging. Yet still, for the first plunge I failed within 4 hours. Following that, depression set in, for I felt as if I was one of those who would eventually resign to the idea that smoking was not possible for me. Is that sad or what? But the days that followed enlightened me to the fact that I will quit persay 'a smoker's death' rash and painfully and in dire desparity for never having tried harder to quit now. Or I would quit on my own terms ... yes, with ME in control! The key was Quitting on my terms. With that, I knew I could choose my own tools and work my own plan ... I would be in control of this, and for that I chose February 22nd 2004. I chose NRT's (the lozenge) because I felt I had better control of usage, when I needed them et cetra.
Those first few days were brutal still. Better with the lozenge. I knew that without them I went around restless and confounded. I simply could not concentrate and lost (slightly) my sense of balance. All along I knew this was due to higher oxygen levels reaching my brain. To think I had gone around for 35 years on such oxygen levels that would affect me like this when brought back to normal! Yes, even in that state of being I marveled at that.
And now 159 days later, my arms do not fall asleep on me when I try to sleep. The circulation in my fingers must have been bad because now even my finger nails grow faster and I can separate sheets of paper using just the feeling in my finger tips! I never expected this. Moreover the puffy veins in my legs around my shins have all but disappeared and I thought this was something normal-to do with heredity or something. My complexion and color are at a par of that with non smokers. I can breath deeper that ever I can imagine in a long long while. And with those long deep breaths ... never followed by a single cough! I do not long for a cigarette or have craves that outlasts a sneeze in length. And for once I can truly say I have had entire days when I did not think of a cigarette not once! I have passed smokers, smelled smokers and so on, but not associated the thought of having a cigarette, especially since I remain busy, my mind on other things. Did you hear what I said? My mind is on other things! Amazing isn't it? When I was shackled to the cigarette, my mind was occupied setting aside time to inventory for the outing, the weekend the 8 hour shift, the fact that my bic was running low or not on and on. Dealing with the lose of all that planning was tough at first because it led me into slapping my shirt pocket or testing my wallet for the cash ... and now I am over all that! It feels great and my life is so much more uncomplicated. Simply, I am happy.
I am also scared. I realize that with one puff, all this wonderful health would be destroyed and I would have to endure all the quit withdrawls again. Smoking would immediately constrict my arteries and bring about chest pain, difficulty breathing, foggyheadedness everything including tension. Ironic eh? And I thought lighting up relieved tension. I lived that lie for 35 years. Found out a simple deep breath or two does 10X better. I can relax better than I can recall. I relax like I did at 15 just before I started smoking.
I know this sound like some kind of rant or brag. Call it what you want. I wrote it for the benefits of guys/girls who are going or about to go through what I went through and wondering what life is like 5 months up the road. I read many a testimony of folks quit along the same time as I am now and to tell you the truth, I did not believe half of them back then. I do now. It is true and it is amazing. You can heal in ways that go beyond what you thought possible, trust me.
Tom Walters
found on Quitnet
What those stats don't tell you is that I have smoked (as Ernie aka efr has so eloquently stated) 'professionally' for 35 years. I am a male of 51 and average size and weight. Quitting has had its price. I put on about 10 pounds. I am unconcerned about that. I have gained and lost weight before. No biggie. Just cut out the biggie fries and burgers for a while.
After a few practice quits and failures I resigned to the idea that I loved to smoke. I hated the idea that I would have to put up with anything that deprived me from smoking, even a single hour was a gigantic inconvenience! I loved the smell, the flavor, but I hated what it was doing to me. I hated the cough, the nightime rattling while sleeping. The smokers laugh and all the symptoms that whispered that I was on the slide headed for death's doorstep. I then began wondering what I would do if I coughed up blood. Would I quit then? Would it be too late? And about that time I began to take more notice in the friends I kept. Smokers. Bloodshot eyes. Ashen skin. Lines in their faces. And for those who didn't smoke ... they looked alive! I began to guess who smoked and who didn't. Picking out strangers everywhere and anywhere and without realizing it guessing was easy and accurate. I looked in the mirror and saw with horror that hollow eyed line-marked ashen complexion. Was it all this obvious or did I have a nack for this? You be the judge. But I will tell you this ...
I plunged myself (quite determindly) into this quit. After all, I was no longer healthy enough to enjoy smoking anyway. My lung capacity was shockingly small (I did not know how limited at the time) and most of the time, when I took a drag off a cigarette, it was small ones because otherwise I would choke and cough vigorously to the point of gagging. Yet still, for the first plunge I failed within 4 hours. Following that, depression set in, for I felt as if I was one of those who would eventually resign to the idea that smoking was not possible for me. Is that sad or what? But the days that followed enlightened me to the fact that I will quit persay 'a smoker's death' rash and painfully and in dire desparity for never having tried harder to quit now. Or I would quit on my own terms ... yes, with ME in control! The key was Quitting on my terms. With that, I knew I could choose my own tools and work my own plan ... I would be in control of this, and for that I chose February 22nd 2004. I chose NRT's (the lozenge) because I felt I had better control of usage, when I needed them et cetra.
Those first few days were brutal still. Better with the lozenge. I knew that without them I went around restless and confounded. I simply could not concentrate and lost (slightly) my sense of balance. All along I knew this was due to higher oxygen levels reaching my brain. To think I had gone around for 35 years on such oxygen levels that would affect me like this when brought back to normal! Yes, even in that state of being I marveled at that.
And now 159 days later, my arms do not fall asleep on me when I try to sleep. The circulation in my fingers must have been bad because now even my finger nails grow faster and I can separate sheets of paper using just the feeling in my finger tips! I never expected this. Moreover the puffy veins in my legs around my shins have all but disappeared and I thought this was something normal-to do with heredity or something. My complexion and color are at a par of that with non smokers. I can breath deeper that ever I can imagine in a long long while. And with those long deep breaths ... never followed by a single cough! I do not long for a cigarette or have craves that outlasts a sneeze in length. And for once I can truly say I have had entire days when I did not think of a cigarette not once! I have passed smokers, smelled smokers and so on, but not associated the thought of having a cigarette, especially since I remain busy, my mind on other things. Did you hear what I said? My mind is on other things! Amazing isn't it? When I was shackled to the cigarette, my mind was occupied setting aside time to inventory for the outing, the weekend the 8 hour shift, the fact that my bic was running low or not on and on. Dealing with the lose of all that planning was tough at first because it led me into slapping my shirt pocket or testing my wallet for the cash ... and now I am over all that! It feels great and my life is so much more uncomplicated. Simply, I am happy.
I am also scared. I realize that with one puff, all this wonderful health would be destroyed and I would have to endure all the quit withdrawls again. Smoking would immediately constrict my arteries and bring about chest pain, difficulty breathing, foggyheadedness everything including tension. Ironic eh? And I thought lighting up relieved tension. I lived that lie for 35 years. Found out a simple deep breath or two does 10X better. I can relax better than I can recall. I relax like I did at 15 just before I started smoking.
I know this sound like some kind of rant or brag. Call it what you want. I wrote it for the benefits of guys/girls who are going or about to go through what I went through and wondering what life is like 5 months up the road. I read many a testimony of folks quit along the same time as I am now and to tell you the truth, I did not believe half of them back then. I do now. It is true and it is amazing. You can heal in ways that go beyond what you thought possible, trust me.
Tom Walters
found on Quitnet
