9 months & Struggling

[nsd_user663_15646]

I'm at 9 months-ish now but it's not getting any damn easier. Well maybe a litte, I have good days now but and some bad days aren't non-stop thinking about smoking. I had a while where the urge was gone but now it's doing my head in. Some days I see people smoking and I'm so jealous.

I was really considering stealing a few fags from my flatmate the other day and I'm not the sort who does that sort of thing- I leave his stuff alone. But I tried to rationalize it like maybe I'll just take them, have a few, not like it and put myself off again. Like that's going to happen!

I quit because I was having surgery and smoking is bad for healing. I'm all healed now. I love a pint and a fag on a summer evening. I like having a smoke while I'm at work. I want to start again so so so so so much! I'm really cracking up. I'm trying to hold onto the thought that now I've had my surgery I want to be fit and healthy. I like running faster and being able to do stairs easier but I'm not sure if that's because I've had surgery now and I'm able to exercise so not to do with smoking per se. That really undermines my motivation.

I'm 20, I can't be smoking on and off for most of my life. Then I try to rationalize that with well I otherwise look after myself, it's not like any of my blood relatives have ever had cancer, we all need our vices. Then I think I have a year of uni left so maybe I can just smoke for that.

I want to make a deal with myself that I'll start again but limit it. I thought it'd be easier by now. Quitting barely feels worth the effort after so long of putting up with it.

Really, what do I do? What do you do when the determination/motivation is running try? Does the urge ever really go away?

Sorry for the rant- I half just need to vent somewhere

[nsd_user663_14771]

hi sponge, does your flatmate smoke inside the house? if you are inhaling second hand smoke, even if not in the same room, if you can smell it it is getting into your system and making you addicted again. when you are addicted, it puts these thoughts into your head that you like smoking, that you miss it. if you are posting here then its a safe bet that some part of you hates smoking and wants to stay quit, so thats where you need to look maybe for your motivation, to the part of you that just posted?

i guess we are all different, different ways of dealing with the quit work for us, but on my last quit i felt the way you are saying it tonight, that i was always missing it, this quit i read alan carrs book and it made a difference there, i know now that it is only the addiction that makes me feel like i enjoy smoking, other than the addiction there is nothing there, nothing at all, just a leaf gently burning and taking away my health, nothing more nothing less.

[nsd_user663_15646]

No, he smokes outside. We're on the second floor so I don't even see him smoke. I was at my parents' for the last few weeks and my dad smokes. But I really made an effort not to be around his smoke- I mostly got him to smoke outside or at least at the door. The few times he didn't smoke inside he kept the door closed and I didn't go into the room. So what second hand smoke I was getting was really minimal. But usually when I'm at my parents' I want to smoke less because I have less social triggers there. It has been worse since I got back home- maybe it's withdrawing from second hand smoke or having the social triggers. It feels more like social triggers.

I think it might be more that I feel like I shouldn't- as if it's some sort of rule. Things like my three closest mates will be really disappointed in me. Things that should be my real personal reasons (rather than the sense of obligation) not to smoke feel tedious. I honestly feel like I love smoking. To me it's not a leaf burning away, taking away my health it's near bliss. It was worth going without that for the sake of my surgery scars healing nicely because that meant more to me than I can explain. But now not so much.

[nsd_user663_20558]

Nobody can convince you not to smoke. It's down to you and your personal choice. But before you pick up that fag and light it consider this:

1) You're 20 now, and you have managed to quit for 9 months. Don't assume that if you start smoking again you will be able to do it next time. Light one now, and that could be it for the next ten, twenty, thirty years. Think of the cost! Do you really want to be handing over thousands of pounds a year to the tobacco companies for the privilege of slowly killing yourself?

2) Smokers are ever more becoming social pariahs. That's not going to improve. You run the risk of seriously turning off potential friends and partners because of your habit. Social? Really?

3) Smoke if you want, but do NOT kid yourself that you won't get sick just because there's no family history. Because that is really just spectacular denial. Smoke if you want, but make sure you understand damn well what you're doing to yourself by making that choice.

I sound really harsh I know. But speaking as someone who swore they'd quit as soon as they left uni and put out their last fag at the age of 43, I just can't bear to think of you throwing away this quit.

Smoking may look like a nice fun place to be but look harder. It's a prison, sponge. And trust me, you don't want to be sitting in there twenty years from now, smelly, with aged skin, struggling to breathe properly, coughing up crud, in fear for your health, and so far down the line that it's a thousand times harder to get out and adjust to the real world.

You're out. Please stay out.

H

[nsd_user663_14771]

hmm, can i try again

you think that smoking is near bliss, because smoking tricks the brain into giving you a reward. The reward it gives you is the same as the reward it would normally give you when you accomlished something real, like doing well in a uni essay for example.

by shortcutting to the reward, your conscious self is deciding what you need rewarding for, sounds good, but your conscious self is not the best person to decide how you should live your life, sorry! you will reward yourself for some good things sure, but on average you will reward yourself for unhealthy choices.

your unconscious self will make good choices on rewards, for example it will reward you for exercising, eating well, so cial ising well, being productive in general,

you can get the bliss from smoking, but if you don't smoke you can get the same bliss from life, just not 'on demand', you have to earn it

i guess i'm trying to say don't give up on the smoke free life, it's special, it's mysterious, you have to work hard at it in order to figure it out, but when you do its bliss, but bliss with a meaning, life's meaning,

dunno if that helps at all, but it helped me to write it best of luck

[nsd_user663_26699]

I'd really like you to understand what it's like to be 50 or 60 years old, having gone through the hardship of experiencing a smoking-related disease, or having lost someone close to you pass away from contracting a smoking-related disease. Then I could excuse you for asking such questions.

Please do your research. It's not because other people in the family haven't had cancer that it can't happen to you.

Alex.