Day 21 - I can't belive I made it this far

[nsd_user663_13779]

Hello Everybody,

Today is 21 days for me since my last cigarette and I am happy to say I am making it. For me it seemed that the 2nd week was worse than the first three days and the only reason I can think of is that I may have been better prepared because I had read so many articles about nicotine withdrawal and the three days to get it out of your system so I may have started to let my guard down.

There are some things that I need to work on now. For the past three weeks I have greatly reduced the amount of contact I have with people and at times customers for fear that I will become stressed and possibly start smoking again. This week I need to concentrate on returning calls and being more social. I also need to work on finding a new stress relief. I find that the only time I truly wish I had a cigarette now is when I am stressed which happens way to often (part of being a business owner I guess) but I keep reminding myself that the same problems would arise even if I was still smoking.

For those of you that are in the earlier stages of quitting I say hang in there it does get way easier. For those of you that are at the same point I am in the quit I would say congratulations for staying strong and let’s beat this stupid addiction. For those of you that are further along than us I offer a sincere Thank you for being great role models and for posting information on your quit so those of us behind you could get an idea of what was in store for us.

I wish everyone well and together we can stop

[nsd_user663_7469]

Afternoon Sparky, 3 weeks quit and you are doing really well, I was the same the first few days were so good I was thinking who said quitting is hard then bang I went on a real downer and wanted to smoke but as you can see I didn’t and neither will you I’m sure.

You are so right that whether you smoke or not the stress is going to be there and having a ciggie will not make it any easier to deal with than if you don’t smoke, in fact you will find after a time you deal with stress so much better as you are not craving a ciggie as well as dealing with whatever is going on.

The Road to smoke free is not easy but it is so rewarding and will improve your life tenfold, take care and be kind to yourself.

Use the forum as much as you can its a massive help and I for one would not have made nearly 8 months with out it.

[nsd_user663_13736]

Day 21 here too!!

Well done.

I just need to stop eating !! Lol

[nsd_user663_13779]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.

I know about the eating thing BJM everything taste so good now. I keep telling myself that I haven't put on any weight since I quit smoking but the reality of it is that I just haven't been on a scale. Oh well weight gain has got to be easier to deal with than smoking and once I get a little more energy the exercising at night will start.

Jamangie, it’s encouraging for me to hear that you had the same difficulty as I did thinking the first few days were easy then BAM.I thought I was doing something wrong. I seriously considered giving up last week and with the help of this community here I hung in there.

Chrissie V, I have given lots of thought to the line in your post about "filling ya boots" and it is absolutely true. When the junkie mind calls I'm going to be in those boots stomping the junkie mind like putting out a ciggie.

Congratulations to all of you again on your quit and here we go for another day.

I have one word of advice this morning. If anyone here has anything lying around in plain site that has any smoking type of advertising on it I strongly suggest throwing it away. I had a day of wanting to smoke really badly and when I was just sitting at my desk looking around I noticed a business card right in front of me that someone had left and it had a picture of a "Marlboro" sponsored race car on the front of it. I didn't notice it before but I think my subconscious mind had been reading it for days and trying to tempt me. Off to the shredder it went.

Have a great day everybody