Hi All,
Day three can be a real toughie (it was for me) and sometimes it feels like it's never going to end. I used this forum constantly during the first few days of my quit (my boss was very understanding! :)) and it really helped to read that people a bit further along in their quits were finding that it gets easier. I didn't believe it at first, but the hope was there!
I wanted to write a little bit of what I've learned in the hope that it might help you through some of those tough moments in your quit.
I have learned that:
It really does get easier! Although lots of people will say this, it can be very difficult to believe it when you feel like you'd sever a limb with a butter knife for a cigarette. I kept going in the hope that at some point I could spend just a few minutes without thinking about smoking. I did it! Then I held on a bit longer, going hours at a time without thinking about smoking. Now, in just week five of my quit I can go entire days without thinking about it, and when I do it's just a passing thought. No big deal. It really does get easier, I promise!
My coffee doesn't taste any different! On previous quit attempts I had deprived myself of some of my favourite things - coffee being one of them. Not only was I miserable because I couldn't have a cigarette in the morning, I now couldn't even have a coffee. We all know that's it's just not possible to enjoy a coffee without a ciggie, right? Well I promise you now that it's just not true! In fact, my coffee tastes better now that it ever did while I was smoking ! I take less sugar too! 
This quit I promised not to deprive myself of anything. Why should I sacrifice some of my favourite things just because I've decided to stop smoking?! Cigarettes have ruled my life for long enough thank you!
I can still have a social life! The vast majority of my friends smoke. So does my boyfriend, and half of my family. Smoking has been a part of every social event I have ever attended since I started - how could I possibly stop now? Everyone smokes - I'll be a social outcast! Now I've quit I know that the complete opposite is true. I now spend more time being social as I'm not stood outside moaning about the cold/rain/wind/price of cigarettes! I can now hold an entire conversation without drifting off to think about smoking or suffering the embarrassment of saying 'I'm sorry, would you mind if I just popped out for five minutes' all the time! It's the smokers that are anti-social not us!
I smell gorgeous! I honestly had no idea just how smelly I used to be as a smoker. I knew it was bad but I seriously ponged! All those meetings where I was sat around a table of non-smokers - how they must have hated sitting with me. How polite they were not to edge their chairs over towards the person sitting the other side of them to escape my eau d'ashtray. I have a new found level of respect for tolerant non-smokers.
I can run, skip, jump, scream and mosh like never before! As a young'un, I didn't realise the true extent of the damage that smoking had already done to my health. Don't get me wrong, I know how damaging it is, but I didn't realise it happened so fast. It was only once I'd quit and seen the improvements in my health that I could see how bad I was before. After less than five weeks I can see and feel the massive benefits that stopping smoking has given me. I'm full of life! I've got so much stamina and more energy than I know what to do with! And, well lets just say that relations with my wonderful boyfriend have never been better - I can't get enough of him!
These are just some of the things I have learned since stopping smoking. I'm not even five weeks in yet - I can't wait to see what the next five have to offer, and the next, and the next.
Good luck to all of you with your quits. Never stop trying. No matter what life throws at you, no matter how tough things get, no cigarette can ever taste as good as freedom feels.
xxx
- best of luck with your quit. xxx
