It stinks!: I haven't quit yet - I'm waiting... - No Smoking Day

No Smoking Day

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It stinks!

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I haven't quit yet - I'm waiting for the big No Smoking Day tomorrow to offer me all the support I need, and I'm planning a special YouTube video (I'm scribbling ideas for the script as they occur to me) of smoking my very last cigarette ever on camera, while providing a running commentary WHY it's my last.

(I was going to type "... hopefully last ..." but thought no, let's have some positive thinking here!)

Based on current consumption levels, I should have ONE fag left in the packet when I go to bed tonight, and that will be the only one I smoke tomorrow, especially for the video.

No Smoking Days have come and gone and I've managed to ignore them all, and I'm not even conscious of having remembered tomorrow's date, but somehow I have done so subconsciously.

The thing that has made me decide to quit is an apparently insignificant event a couple of hours ago.

I did a HUGE pile of laundry (3 machinesfull) earlier today and for various reasons ended up dumping all the clean clothes on the sofa in this room as I had to go out. (Note: this is the only room in the house in which I permit myself to smoke.) I returned after four hours and started folding, etc., my clean laundry. Except I noticed very quickly that IT ALL STANK!

Not of sweat and dirt, etc (the washine machine had done its job well) but of stale fag smoke from having spent four hours in a room in which a cigarette hadn't been smoked for hours and hours.

And now I need to wash everything all over again, because I REALLY don't want to stink like a stale ashtray as soon as I put my clothes on in the morning. And then it struck me, I probably can't even tell how badly I must stink all the time, and everyone around me is just too kind to say. So I've decided to take the initiative and NOT STINK (at least, not of stale ciggy smoke, and not voluntarily) EVER AGAIN.

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nsd_user663_3029
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15 Replies
nsd_user663_2743 profile image
nsd_user663_2743

bring on tomorrow, you stinky!! :D you will smell lovely then :)

good luck x

nsd_user663_2629 profile image
nsd_user663_2629

It is what has kept me going - good luck stinky and dont 4get to post link :D

jojo

I have been quit for 2 Months, 1 Week, 3 Days, 21 hours, 13 minutes and 39 seconds (70 days). I have saved £321.10 by not smoking 1,417 cigarettes. I have saved 4 Days, 22 hours and 5 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 01/01/2008 00:05

oops sorry Plumski - lol

nsd_user663_2743 profile image
nsd_user663_2743

It is what has kept me going - good luck stinky and dont 4get to post link :D

jojo

I have been quit for 2 Months, 1 Week, 3 Days, 21 hours, 13 minutes and 39 seconds (70 days). I have saved £321.10 by not smoking 1,417 cigarettes. I have saved 4 Days, 22 hours and 5 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 01/01/2008 00:05

oops sorry Plumski - lol

pmsl :D :eek:

nsd_user663_3029 profile image
nsd_user663_3029

Negative reinforcement has never really worked on me. I'm a stubborn bugger. Just not towards myself and my bad points, sadly. :D

However, being called stinky by everyone in this thread is actually having having the desired effect, so please, everyone, continue on that theme, and shame me into realising how badly I must stink (just thank all the internet gods that you can't smell this side of this screen!). Multiply your worst imagination by ten, and you might come close...

(Since I started going through the posts on this forum a couple of hours ago, I have had two fags. Which is less than half usual....)

BTW I have put some of the basic facts of my addiction in my sig since writing the original post.

nsd_user663_2629 profile image
nsd_user663_2629

Good morning stinks

Are u ready?? I am sure you will succeed this time, the forum does help alot in the early stages as there is always someone in the same boat who understands EXACTLY what you are goin thru.

Now get yourself on youtube clean out all your ashtrays and chuck em in the shed - you wont need them again ;)

jojo

I have been quit for 2 Months, 1 Week, 4 Days, 7 hours, 23 minutes and 57 seconds (71 days). I have saved £323.02 by not smoking 1,426 cigarettes. I have saved 4 Days, 22 hours and 50 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 01/01/2008 00:05

nsd_user663_2826 profile image
nsd_user663_2826

Morning Plumski

I saw this and thought of you:

mickhagen.com/images/stink.jpg

Good luck for today!;)

nsd_user663_3029 profile image
nsd_user663_3029

Morning Update

I said that I expected to have one fag left in the packet when I got up this morning.

Well, I ended up with six. Consumption last night was well down, largely because of reading this forum, but also because I deliberately left my fags elsewhere in the house, so that every one had to be a deliberate act of going upstairs, getting one and coming back down to light it. Just the foolishness of that was a pretty good motivator!

I have thus far smoked two of the six and have got busy so am unable to make my video for a while (and I still have three more to smoke before I do it anyway). ;)

I need to go out very soon and won't be back until the late afternoon. It is going to be very hard to keep myself motivated because where I'm going, I'll be seeing a lot of smokers crouched outside office blocks and pubs.

I am HOPING I can turn that to my psychological advatange by thinking "Hey, that's STUPID! I don't want to look like that any more!" but I suspect that a far more likely reaction will be "I want one, I want one!" and fighting the urge is gonna be HARD!

nsd_user663_3029 profile image
nsd_user663_3029

Yes, I'm stopping.

Sorry, I didn't make it clear that I was going to finish this packet (I have a psychological block against waste which is bigger than any psychological blocks associated with giving up smoking; yes, I know I could simply give them to someone, but that's not the same thing) and the last fag in the packet will be my last ever.

We each have our own mechanisms, and whilst I'm aware that this kind of countdown approach is unlikely to work for most people, I'm hoping that it might in my case, and is why I'm documenting (not here in public, because I simply can't) all the details of each one from my last packet.

Basically, I'm working on the principle of deferred gratification: I know that I now have three fags left, and knowing that I have that last one available but am deliberately putting off smoking it for as long as possible is actually helping me to cope.

In automatic mode (i.e. fags readily available), I pretty much chain smoke (perhaps I should say I USED TO chain smoke), going through five or more an hour at peak times. Forcing myself to make each one a deliberate act and noting when and why I've taken it and anything else associated with smoking it has brought me down to smoking enough to keep my nocotine levels up but disassociating the act of smoking from the usual triggers, and the time between each one is getting longer and longer.

I need to go out and expect to be gone about six hours. I am not taking the packet with my last three fags with me. Assuming I manage to resist the temptation to buy any (if I could, I would be leaving the house with no money or plastic at all to make it impossible to succumb!) I will probably end up having the last one around midnight.

The irony of still technically being a smoker throughout No Smoking Day and actually having my last one as No Smoking Day draws to a close isn't lost on me. As I said before, I'm a contrary bugger. :D

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nsd_user663_3029

NSD2008 has technically been over for over an hour, so here's an update.

Things have worked better than I'd hoped when I posted last night/this morning.

This morning, I had five (not six, as I'd stated) fags left. The intention was for these to last as long as possible. Two went down in fairly rapid succession, about half an hour apart. The third was smoked about 2 hours after that, at 12.06pm. I then had to go out.

The situation: 2 fags left in packet, on my bedroom table. I am out of the house running various errands. I ALMOST give in to the temptation to buy a pack of ten on about four or five separate occasions. Luckily for me, none of the shops I visit sell my preferred brand. I think to myself that if I'm not SO desperate as to smoke any old shit, I can just beat this!

I get home several hours later. I eat my dinner, not surprisingly a low point. I KNOW I have two fags upstairs, and on a few occasions I get to the top of the stairs but instead of turning right to my bedroom, my feet (rather than my brain) take me left to the loo.

Spending the evening in front of the telly and then the computer, I get urges/cravings several times. But I still manage not to go upstairs.

I have given myself a pat on the back, but I won't expect anyone else to give me one until I can honestly say that the packet STILL contains two unsmoked fags 24 hours from now.

I am shortly going to bed. My bedroom contains two fags. Will I be able to ignore them? (I don't allow myself to smoke in my bedroom, and I don't think I have any fire-making apparatus up there, either.) I hope I'll be able to report in the morning that I didn't give in to temptation.

So, long story short, despite being SO close to giving up on giving up (IYSWIM) god knows how many times today, I have not had a fag since 12.06 and according to the quitter proggie,

I have been quit for 13 hours, 11 minutes and 13 seconds (0 days). I have saved £5.76 by not smoking 25 cigarettes. I have saved 2 hours and 5 minutes of my life.

nsd_user663_1655 profile image
nsd_user663_1655

So heres me reading that, and congratulating you on doing so well so far... I have a thought... when you wake up, mail those last two ciggies to greenland, or china or something... just think, you'll be about 18 hours into your quit when you wake up... which is almost one full day... and after two more of those, nicotine is out of your system... neat how it works like that. Its up to you, but that seems far enough into the quit to keep going :P Whatever you decide, best of luck, you can do it!\

Vike.

nsd_user663_2629 profile image
nsd_user663_2629

Oh well done you that takes alot of willpower - dont think i could have done that, dont push your luck tho, get rid as soon as you wake up so no temptaion, run them under the tap and break up so they are REALLY gone :) by the way what is IYSWIM :confused:

nsd_user663_2826 profile image
nsd_user663_2826

by the way what is IYSWIM :confused:

"If you see what I mean" Jojo;)

nsd_user663_2629 profile image
nsd_user663_2629

Oh doh thanks :o

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nsd_user663_3029

Morning update.

I went to bed at about 2.30am (normal bedtime for me) - I saw the packet lying there, and checked that it still contained two fags. It did. Not a single twinge of desire.

(I should add that although I said that I don't "allow" myself to smoke in my bedroom, it's not that it's some kind of imposition, it's just something I have never done.)

I sleep like a log (as usual). I'm aware of having a strange smoking-related dream, but can't remember any details. At 6.30am the noise of someone going to the loo woke me. I opened my eyes and all I could see in front of my face was the packet. Oh, heck, I was SO in the mood! But I had no way to make fire. My inherent laziness got the better of me. I wasn't coming downstairs at that time just for a light. I turned over, disgusted at my lack of will-power (saved by laziness?) and went back to sleep.

9.00 my alarm clock goes off. I wake up staring at my fag packet. I check it still contains two fags. it does, but I have no desire to smoke them.

That was about an hour ago. I have since started redoing the laundry which started this chain of events on Tuesday. I am aware I stink to high heaven. I have deliberately not taken my shower yet - the more aware I am of how much I (still) stink and my clothes don't, the longer I will last.

I have had two coffees. The first one was a MAJOR trigger for urges and cravings. I went to my bedroom twice but managed to distract myself with something else. I took the fag packet off my bedside table and threw it over and behind my (HUGE) wardrobe.

I now know I have two fags in the house if I REALLY need them, but I'm going to have to work to get at them. And that's gonna make me feel silly, isn't it? Moving the wardrobe out of the way, just to get a damn cancer stick?

I am typing so much because I am getting some REALLY bad cravings right now (finishing off my second coffee of the day).

I think I need to get active, so I'm going to start spring-cleaning this room. Move everything out and clean every object individually. God, this room is filthy! I've only really permitted myself to smoke in here for the last year or so and it really needs decorating - considering I last did a paint job 3 years ago and the one before that was about 8 or 9 years previously, the fagging's not made it last very long, has it?

I ate all the chcocolate in the house last night (I have a major sweet tooth) to compensate for my lack of fags. I didn't plan that one too well.

I'm already a bit overwieght (as soon as I have the smoking cracked for a week and I decide I can safely call myself an ex-smoker, the money I will have saved is going towards gym membership) so the choccies aren't really doing me much good. I plan to go buy a big bag of carrots and to "smoke" them instead. (I like raw carrots, but I don't know how much I'm going to like them when this is over!)

I'm going to the cinema this afternoon. Coming out of the cinema is one of my biggest triggers (and the cinema I go to is surrounded by little shops, most of which sell fags) although I am going with a non-smoker who has already been instructed not to allow me to go into any of the shops. His view is, though, that I need to crack this myself and he is not going to stop me if I decide to give in. BUT.... he can get awfully sarccy and I really don't want him making variations on "I told you so" comments for the foreseeable future, so I have to try to keep out!

Sorry for typing so much, but right now it's the only way I can keep my fingers busy to deal with the over-powering urge to smash my wardrobe to bits and retreive those two fags! Disgusting!

Thanks for the support, folks, please keep it coming, and I'll keep you posted.

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nsd_user663_3029

YouTube video!

I had mentioned I'd make a video, so here it is, although it's not what I had planned:

youtube.com/watch?v=t7gf3IL...

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