Little did I know reading these posts a year ago and wondering what the hell the penthouse looked like and if I would ever move in .. did I think I would be stood on the doorstep banging on the door to come in!!!!!!!!
As of 19th January 2011 I have quit for 1 year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One year for you, and one day for me!! If there was one single thing/help/quote/thought that helped you, what was it? Well done you, fantastic, Jeremy
Hey Jeremy,
Welcome to the world of quitting and well done on making the decision and achieving day 1!!!!
I can probably offer two things that helped me .... firstly and most importantly is SHEER WILLPOWER. Whatever method you use to quit you must have the willpower to succeed and a whole lot of determination. The ONLY reason people fail to quit is because they let their craving get the better of them.... I don't care what anyone says, I think I have earned the right to say that after a few failed attempts and finally success! It is your craving it belongs to you, your mind and your body ... and YOU ultimately have control over all of the aforementioned with a little thing called WILLPOWER!!!
To begin with of course other factors control the body aspect ... the addiction factor but by using your willpower that time passes and there is no longer a physical addiction. This is where my second "thing" comes in .... your mind! This is the worst enemy when quitting as it has SO MUCH learned behaviour and it is this that you need to crack to succeed. I cannot praise Allan Carr's (not the comedian - google this one, v interesting man) book "How to quit smoking" enough!!!! You are supposed to read it before you quit to prepare you but I actually used it as a distraction after I had already been quit for about 2 weeks and it helped me understand everthing I was feeling as I went through it .. it really does help you see the psycholgical links and how ridiculous they are!!!
I still am not on safe ground but thanks to this thinking from the book I always say to myself "what the hell would be the point in starting again .. it won't improve your life" and this is so true I Just don't bother!!
It has been a very hard journey as I did it cold turkey and sheer bloody-mindeness but I think it gets easier by the day and I reckon this year is going to be a whole lot better!
Put your seat belt on and expect a rocky ride but if you are prepared to brave it you will have saved your own life.
WILLPOWER my friend. Get the book xxxxx
P.s in the initial days I updated my status on FB every six hours from when I quit i.e. 6 hours ....., then 12 hours later I put 12 hours .... this went on for a few days and you could see the hours growing and also when you get a crave you can check your status to see how confused everyone is and this takes your mind of the crave! Then when they finally guess what you are doing you can still check when you get a crave and the encouragement keeps you going. All of sudden you find you are only updating the days then then the weeks then it just gets easier and you update the smoking status monthly!!! GOOD LUCK x
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