What inspired you to finally quit?

[nsd_user663_3192]

I'm really interested in hearing other people's quit stories - i.e, what inspired you to finally knock the fags on the head?

My inspiration was simple: I'm someone who always has 'great plans' for my life - what to do in the future (I want to climb mount kili in 2009!) - I had a moment of (clarity?)last weekend, where I realised that what is the point in having a bunch of great plans if they are rendered undoable because I am ill with a smoking related illness etc? As a smoker I was always paranoid - I have a sore throat - obviously throat cancer....a cough = lung cancer etc

Another final straw was that I have recently started a new job a few weeks ago...and one of my colleagues came accross me having a fag in the street outside work. He said to me 'oh. I didn't realise that you smoked' and I felt so embarrassed!!

I realised that the simple answer to my paranoia / embarrassment etc is just not to smoke anymore! There isn't anything that I really enjoy about smoking....I hated feeling like a leper if I sparked up in the street / outside work / the pub etc....I hated smelling of old fags (no amount of perfume can cover).

I figured that if I was giving up something that embarrassed me, made me feel paranoid, damaged my health, essentially robbed me of money, made me stink, then I wasn't really giving anything up!

Oh, and also my younger brother successfully quit - and if he can do it then I bl**dy well can

Can others leave their stories as well? I find it makes inspiring reading!

Laura x

[nsd_user663_2783]

I think what gave me the push to stop smoking was the health factor for one. I couldn't get up the stairs without being out of breath. I thought crikey if I'm like this now what will I be like in another six months. I also have high cholesterol so have to have blood tests to make sure it is stable every month. So I took the bull by the horns one day while I was at the surgery and said I want to stop. I have never looked back. Another factor, and a most important one to me, is I have 5 grandchildren aged 7, 6, 4, 2, and 1 and I would really love to see them grow up to adulthood.

I can't remember what it was like to smoke and don't want to now and I certainly don't want to smell like an old ashtray now. Apart from the kitchen , where my oh has a smoke (with the window open), my home is now smoke free and it is sooooo nice to go in and not smell cigs.

Anyway, those are my reasons.

All the best Laura in your quit.

Janxx

[nsd_user663_3192]

These are all such inspiring stories - thanks for sharing them

I think its hard to remember you aren't alone when you finally quit - that there are other people in the world going through the same withdrawal madness....

I guess that's why these forums are so good! I'm at work at the moment (cheeky I know) but everyone I work with has NEVER smoked...so they don't really understand

[nsd_user663_2629]

i couldnt give up till i was ready - no amount of moaning from husband, m.i.l children or doctors had any impact at all, id feel a bit guilty but not enough to stop. Then i started dancing lindy hop / swing jive loved it but was wheezin after one dance, that was it purely selfish, but it has worked and so far so good. i now detest the smell of stale smoke and moan about it constantly! which i never thought id do.

[nsd_user663_2863]

Hi Laura,

That's such a good question.

This time it somehow is a defininbg moment for me. I'm 57...I've smoked since 15. So, for me, it's like..." OK, if not now, when??." You've told yourself you want to quit for so many years, and played with the energy, but no...really..if not this time you might as well accept that there is no time you won' t be smoking 'til they put you in the box...

And . you know what? I'm curiousd to retrace the steps that took me into this particular cul-de sac.

Why choose to pull on a herb that gives you little in ther way of euphoria or a good night out?

I don't get it? Where is the pay-off? What I'm seeing is a habit that is subtly attached to so much of my sense of what the world is like....Certain situations call for a fag. HAPPY SITUATIONS, SAD SITUATIONS, SOCIAL SITUATIONS..For me. stopping smoking is to challenge that. And what happens? In sort, increaed awareness around what thise situations mean to me. Cos what a fag gives is a sufficiently complex set of behaviours to put in the way of stuff I find uncomfortable. New people? Let's be cool and smoke a fag...Difficult situations...let;'s wait a minute and smoke a fag to get some distance..I find. having used the weed for 40 -odd years, that it is my 'freind' in many many ways and that each time I don't run for the smoke screen I get some clarity about my longstanding lack of appropriate adjustment in those situations...and I get a chance to choose again - just at that time - what I will do instead of hiding behind a fag.

It IS interesting!!

Enough of the deep stuff.

Stay stopped !

Bill XX

[nsd_user663_3179]

Hi Laura

I stopped smoking because of chest pains. I have a heart condition and have been on beta blockers for 2 years now. I can remember the pain in my chest when I had a fag. It felt so tight I was using my daughters asmtha medication to try and ease the tightness. Also I was having heart palpitations - and they feel horrible. Every time I lit up my chest hurt but of course I still smoked the damn thing, if I smell smoke now it makes my chest hurt as if in sympathy with the smokers lungs - strange. The weird thing is that I know I can do things that scare me without needing the fags. when I stopped smoking last year I had a flight booked to go see my mum and dad. They moved 3 years ago to Sri Lanka and I was so scared of flying. I always said to them they would never see me over there and they would have to come home to see me and the kids, but I got on a plane for the first time in my life and actually enjoyed it!!!!. Started smoking again about 4 weeks after I came back and even though I blame hubby for it (long story) the faults all mine. When I gave up again 10th april my daughter said that when she found out I had started smoking again last year she went up to her room and just couldnt stop crying, I think thats another good reason to stay smoke free.

[nsd_user663_2931]

Having bronchitis after every damn cold.

Oh, and money.

[nickywalton]

hi Laura...

I've smoked all my life and accepted that I would always smoke - it was what I did.. my family accepted it too - all but one that is, my b/f...he nagged and nagged...but I knew that I couldn't

"do it for him" as he kept asking...I could only do it for me... I've spent last 25 years trying to quit and failing...

My logic was that smoking didn't stop me doing anything I wanted to do, I had no "symptoms" e.g. cough or chest problems...even having breast cancer wasn't enough to stop me (researched til I found where it said br cancr not caused by smoking!!!!!)...

Just before Xmas last yr we were in London for few days & when I checked into my hotel there was sign saying "non smoking hotel"...I went nuts Spent next hour and half on phone standing on street (smoking) trying to find a smoking room in central London...they don't exist (at price I could afford). Problem was resolved but afterwards I felt SO stupid/embarrassed about way I reacted -total blind panic,tears,tantrum a 2yr old would've been proud!!!...And it has haunted me ever since so when I found this forum where I knew there would be other people going through the same trauma I thought I had to face, I decided the time was right for ME...

so far so good, no-one is more suprised than me but my kids are thrilled...as is the b/f!!

loads of luck with your quit, sure you can do it...

nicky

[nsd_user663_2984]

How many years I would knock off my life if I didn't quit!!! The potential to add on some borrowed time through quitting is also a huge incentive.

[nsd_user663_3190]

I was in the pub last week, standing out in the beer garden with a pint and a ciggy. It was freezing cold and pelting down with rain but we were still out there braving it. After about half an hour, I looked at my hands which felt stiff. They were actually blue, and my knuckles were purple. I mean properly turning dark blue!! I looked again in the house next day and I noticed for the first time that my knuckles were always bright pink and my hands are always cold - 33 years old, with not too bad a lifestyle apart from smoking, with that kind of circulation!!

So that was it. I work in a stressful job and I just thought if I don't do this then I'm either gonna be dead of a cardiac or a stroke by the time I'm 40 and there are far too many things I want to do in my life for that kinda timescale. That's it. Finito.

[nsd_user663_3190]

lol

That is the quitmeter Sue - I just tweaked it a little

[nsd_user663_3190]

Thanks a lot Sue!! Really appreciate the support, it's making it a lot easier and actually a lot more fun than it should be being able to come on here and chat to you guys. So thanks x x

You're a canny bunch as we say here in Geordieland

[nsd_user663_2629]

hey chris

well done on the quit, just as a bit of incentive, as you said you have a stressy job, i always reache for a fag if things went wrong, but had a really shite time with work the other week and it wasnt till it was all resolved that i realised i hadnt even thought about having a cig. now that is progress, and it will be u too before u know it

good luck

jojo

[nsd_user663_3097]

My reasons to quit:

1. I felt like a slave

2. I felt out of control

3. I felt I was second to my slavemaster

4. I felt pains in my chest

5. I felt for my parents asking me to constantly quit when i would visit them

6. I may be a live kidney donor

7. I felt sick of only being able to run for 6 - 10 minutes before having to stop - 4 weeks later i can run for over 35 mins and over 5.5 km before i stop.

[nsd_user663_2497]

For me personally there was not one thing that finally inspired me to quit, its just that this time I was in the right 'place' and finally able to let it go, once and for all.

I'd been trying for years and it finally clicked. Although, thinking about it, I suppose I was inspired by my previous failures. Perhaps, that was one aspect.