Exactly what event made you quit this time?????

Reading Davofgy's thread about the tongue thing etc. got me thinking about why i quit.

I dont mean the usual stuff like to save money, my health (a general term), for my kids etc. i mean what was the thing that made me finally say

"thats it!! i will quit this F$%£ing thing!!!!"

For me it was seeing two work colleagues both get cancer, one of the mouth, the other in the lung and brain.

Despite seeing various members of my family die from smoking related illnesses years ago i still smoked. When you are younger you think you are immortal.

But i think the various niggly illnesses and unwell feelings over the past few years had been praying on my mind (start of smokers cough, running out of breath when training, every headache being a brain tumour, every cold was lung cancer, yeah i know typical guy/manflu type thing!!) coupled with these two colleagues, finally scared the S4it out of me and i realised that i had to do something.

So, the question is, what finally made YOU realise that you HAD to quit and that there would be no going back?

14 Replies

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  • It was me turning the big 40!!! thought i have to stop now to get the most benefits, also want to be sexy at forty-and not ill-health and premature aging knocking on my door-I know I know!!! alittle shallow perhaps, but it takes allsorts!!;)

  • Hi John

    Good post.

    Hearing my OH coughing (when at home) and thinking good grief do I sound like that and realising I did when my mum said "oh jan" when I coughed. Waking up in the morning and putting that first cig, drawing on it and then getting that awful taste in my mouth. The sad look I got from my eldest granddaughter (she's 8) when she found me in the kitchen with a cig (a good few weeks ago I might hasten to add). That will always stay with me.

    I don't want an early demise, I'm only 57 but feel like a 48 year old, even more so since I stopped again (can't seem to find one though :D:D).

    I will conquer this addiction.

    Jan

    xx

    I will not be controlled by a plant

  • Well I've posted this before, but I was involved in a discussion on a martial arts forum, the thread was about smoking and training. After posting a few responses I read back what I had said to justify smoking (mostly to myself) and it was just stupid. I could see I was in denial and knew what I had to do.

    It was a kind of light bulb moment, and since I was online when it happened I sifted through my old bookmarks and re-established my connection with this place. The 1st attempt here lasted 6 posts and only a few days back in 2006 thankfully this time I stuck around long enough to learn something!

  • Having my teeth whitened in December and paying £200 for the pleasure and needing veneers on my top teeth because of how awful they had become. Also, the start of a hacking cough which was slowly getting worse and the advent of my 40th at the end of Jan 2009 . I did not wish to be a smoker in my 40's. I loved the first smoke in the morning and strangely, its the one I don't miss!

  • The day I realised that I smoked to fill that little hole left by the previous fag and that despite publicly being willing to take out a front page ad to the contrary, in reality I didn’t enjoy a single fag I smoked.

    It didn’t take long to realise that all those good times were just as good, if not better, without fags…. :o

  • There were lots of small reasons, money, smell, social aspect and big reasons, health, wanting to have babies etc etc but the main one is

    to quote the late, great Allen Carr:

    I was sick of the slavery.

    And that's just it. I was sick and bloody tired of thinking about smoking, about running out of cigarettes about checking for my lighter ... and all for what?

    To feel normal? The nicotine normal? For fifteen minutes after every cigarette i could forget about it until the nicotine left my body and then the thought processes would start again. It is so fabulous to spend days and even weeks!! NOT thinking about it. I couldn't give a monkeys if there is a covered smoking area or a smoking area at all, going on short journeys is brilliant now! take during the heavy snow. I was stuck on a bus for THREE hours (my ass was numb). I stayed on the bus for the full three hours. Had i remained a smoker i would have been off that bus into the heavy (slow moving) traffic and chugging on my cancer sticks like nobodies business. I merely smugly watched the smokers get off and light up. The driver (obviously a non smoker himself) told them if you get off then you are not getting back on. Hurrah!

    So yes, an end to the slavery. There are enough things to worry about in this life without accommodating a life threatening 'habit' in it as well.

    Fairy has spoken.

    Fully paid up member of the 1 year club :p

  • Two main reasons..

    FEELING GUILT

    &

    BEING CONTROLLED

    I have felt guilty since my son was born and controlled by the addiction ever since. My feelings towards smoking had really changed and started to dislike it.

    I fell out of love with my affair with smoking.

    It turned to a hate of the control it had over me and i felt dictated by it and trapped.

    This time i knew i was ready to ditch it for good.

    No going back this time.

  • I quit this one and only time because I wanted to be in control of my life and not let smoking be in control of me.:eek:

  • In 2007 it was coming up to no smoking day and a friend had stopped in the new year. So i thought I may give it a go so march 2007 started to quit lasted 6 months. Cant stop trying since. xxxx

  • Shabba - snap! I really didn't want to be in my forties and smoking, however, I thought I'd give it up after my big fortieth birthday party, then there was some other excuse after another and so on ...

    Then at christmas I had the awful news that a lovely friend of mine had died on Christmas morning of cancer. The thing is, she never smoked in her life but died in her early thirties. I always felt guilty when I was in her company when I nipped out for a smoke because I knew she could do nothing about her cancer and here I was choosing to risk my health.

    I was really upset when she died so made a little promise to her that I would stop smoking.

    I am so pleased I have stopped before my 41st birthday!

  • Hi all,

    Not much of a story, I woke up one morning went down to the kitchen put the kettle on rolled a fag made the tea looked at the fag and thought why bother, binned the fag drunk the tea and that is it.

    Wayne

  • You're right .. that's not much of a story ...

    as easy as that! - after how long ? - and CT ? - and no problems

    To answer your queies B.B.

    I smoked for nearly 40 years 30 - 40 a day, Yes cold turkey and no not always plain sailing there have been a few hard days but that is to be expected.

    Wayne

  • Hi all,

    Not much of a story, I woke up one morning went down to the kitchen put the kettle on rolled a fag made the tea looked at the fag and thought why bother, binned the fag drunk the tea and that is it.

    Wayne

    I'm sure I'm not the only one who wishes that stopping had been as easy as that!

    I've explained before in this topic that the immediate decision to knock the fags on the head in my case was the smell. The big realisation was the day before NSD 2008, so making use of NSD materials seemed obvious, but ultimately this forum was all I needed.

    There was also something else in the background though. I was single but for all sorts of reasons had been off the dating scene for ages. I'd been actively looking around for a while and was amazed at how anti-smoking the gay community had become (yes, I am that way inclined for those who missed my few posts on the subject last summer) and frankly stopping smoking was an absolute necessity for the sake of my emotional and sexual well-being... And yeah, it worked! ;) It's amazing what difference not smelling makes!

  • My reason for quitting this time was my aunt being diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. It was a shock, but the real shock was the fact it had spread to her lymph nodes, liver, kidney's, bones etc & they weren't going to offer her any treatment.

    I came home from visiting her & looked this up on the internet & was horrified to learn this was nearly always the case with this form of cancer. I had always convinced myself I would get a warning 'if you dont stop smoking we'll have to chop you leg off' etc but I learnt your not always going to be 'lucky' enough to get a warning.

    Seeing my aunt devasted with this news and her saying if she knew this is what smoking would do to her she never would have started made me appreciate that I had a chance to turn things around, I never wanted to be the patient in the oncology ward, or my Son to be in the situation of my cousins devasted watching this happen.

    I have also sadly followed the case of Jade Goody during my quit, this may be morbid but has opened my eyes to how horrible cancer is.

    I found as a smoker I walked around with my eyes shut to the dangers, but they are now wide open & as scary as it has been facing up to the reality, I am certain I have changed my thinking and am sure I will never light up again.

    I am glad to report that my aunt demanded treatment and has shocked the doctors with her will to fight this disease, although very ill she's still with us thank goodness :)

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