.. and you can probably guess what that was, can't you?
2 months ago I went to Tuscany, neigh, two weeks before that I had just one cigarette at a smoking friend's wedding. The holiday, I didn't smoke but the romantic sign for the Tabaccheria ('scuse my italian) niggled at me. When I came home I needed to do something. I toyed with the idea of taking a lover (my sanity was at stake after all) but after deliberating on a couple of would-be's I decided that it really wasn't in the best interest of my relationship so sanity won over my health and I started smoking again.
Within a day or two I could feel the physical harm the smoke was doing to me... it was running through my veins, I could feel it clogging up my arteries and slowing me down. I waited for that moment to pass but it just didn't seem to. Now. two months on, my body feels like it has the first signs of arthritis - I wake up aching during the night and in the morning .. it's actually sore to move. I'm out of breath and thoroughly p'd off with myself. One day I shall read this and remind myself of my reasons to stop.
So, I need to keep a level head and keep a low profile with this one. My sanity will, presumably, return one day but here goes...
DGee, rogue, Boo, Alex, Pll, HB, the soon-to-be-dancing-princess mash and of course the lovely Capitan .. in fact ALL the unsung heroes fighting the weed .. you and your resilience, have my admiration and applause!!!
Sorry you're having a bad time, but so sanity won over my health and I started smoking again ???
I just dont buy that anymore.
All the best, anyway.
Esso, It's weird I know.... I think smoking suppresses many feelings and energy in us. Think about it (god, I have) The time leading up to the holiday was planning, then the holiday and then ...? At that time of needy, heightened awareness it was an easy fix but really i was going a bit crazy. Yes, I should have battled it out and got back to normality using whatever other means was available but as it was nicotine that was on my mind I used it as an easy fix.
It's a very fine line .. hopefully I now have the ammunition to make that line wider and will leave no gap for doubt. That's what I want.
Right now I don't feel bad .. but have a sense of hope that I didn't have last night.
You gave in to the lure of the false memories - the demon whispered that you were missing out on a pleasure in life. You're not the first to stumble and fall for that reason. By the sound of it, there's not been much pleasure in evidence. Bloody demons. :mad:
I'm really sorry, you were doing so great. I hope that the 'one day' you stop again will be one day soon.
Esso, It's weird I know.... I think smoking suppresses many feelings and energy in us. Think about it (god, I have) The time leading up to the holiday was planning, then the holiday and then ...? At that time of needy, heightened awareness it was an easy fix but really i was going a bit crazy. Yes, I should have battled it out and got back to normality using whatever other means was available but as it was nicotine that was on my mind I used it as an easy fix.
It's a very fine line .. hopefully I now have the ammunition to make that line wider and will leave no gap for doubt. That's what I want.
Right now I don't feel bad .. but have a sense of hope that I didn't have last night.
It is holidays that worry me. I have yet to pass that trigger!
False pleasures indeed .. more like subduing my awareness and every thread of life that is in me. If the government passed a law that we must smoke can you imagine the outcry .. I'd be up there at the front of the march (in a strange kind of way they do but I'm not going to get political) and the rebellious stubbornness in me would absolutely refuse to entertain the thought of smoking!
I recall reading a lot about holiday triggers .. but kind of missed the one about post-holidays .. silly me!
Thanks for your well wishes .. bought some patches today, gave my baccy to a homeless smoker and, now that I have made my mind up, tomorrow will be .. err interesting .. and healthy
lol you sure that a gril alex?
2 months ago I went to Tuscany, neigh, two weeks before that I had just one cigarette at a smoking friend's wedding. The holiday, I didn't smoke but the romantic sign for the Tabaccheria ('scuse my italian) niggled at me. When I came home I needed to do something. I toyed with the idea of taking a lover (my sanity was at stake after all) but after deliberating on a couple of would-be's I decided that it really wasn't in the best interest of my relationship so INsanity won over my health and I started smoking again.
Within a day or two I could feel the physical harm the smoke was doing to me... it was running through my veins, I could feel it clogging up my arteries and slowing me down. I waited for that moment to pass but it just didn't seem to. Now. two months on, my body feels like it has the first signs of arthritis - I wake up aching during the night and in the morning .. it's actually sore to move. I'm out of breath and thoroughly p'd off with myself. One day I shall read this and remind myself of my reasons to stop.
So, I need to keep a level head and keep a low profile with this one. My sanity will, presumably, return one day but here goes...
DGee, rogue, Boo, Alex, Pll, HB, the soon-to-be-dancing-princess mash and of course the lovely Capitan .. in fact ALL the unsung heroes fighting the weed .. you and your resilience, have my admiration and applause!!!
I'm sorry to hear you were (hopefully temporarily) insane. (I fixed that for you in your post.)
After 136 days, I keep thinking that I'll stop thinking about smoking. And perhaps one day I will. But it still sounds appealing every now and then. Particularly when I'm bored or in a funk.
That's called stinking thinking and it's a leading cause of temporary insanity.
You took up smoking again and immediately felt physically ill. I am glad you felt these symptoms - perhaps they will convince you to STOP SMOKING again immediately.
If you don't, then rogue, Boo, Alex, Pll, HB, the soon-to-be-dancing-princess mash and of course the lovely Capitan .. in fact ALL the unsung heroes fighting the weed are going to come find you and beat you upside your head until you quit smoking again.
Oh Suze, sorry to hear that. There's something going around at the mo - so many people struggling and losing the fight after months of sterling effort. It's not fair. :mad:.
Best wishes - I hope you can convince yourself to jump back on that wagon very very soon.
DGee .. soz babes I know I let you and me down .. can't believe you are now so far ahead :o( .. not sure what 'beating you upside your head means' but I expect it is wishing me well in a groovy american kind of way :o)
Rogue, the collie rascal is still fantastic and will be getting a few more walks in future. Great to see you are here healthy and strong .. well done :o)
You know I thought afterwards of others who were here before .. Denise and those lovely ladies from the group .. hope you are all well .. and Vike .. Shazza .. and the established quitters, the midways and the newbies .. I shall shut up now but I just didn't want to miss anyone out.
and Haze .. don't worry about the holidays - you will be fine. I opened the door a couple of weeks before and like HB said, let that demon peek in .. that's when my consciousness got a bit overtaken by the unconsciousness which was Mr Nic himself. Lesson learnt - don't mess with the nico demon - he ain't worth it!
Think I’m pretty well done with this place and this thread has put the tin lid on it, but I was getting extremely concerned about the whinge factor in general. In the very early days of my quit, this place did help my motivation, as it seemed people really did support each other through what, in the early days, is quite a traumatic process. However, and I can say this quite truthfully as I am now very well informed about the whole nicotine addiction, withdrawal, cessation process, I do feel a lot of people are really missing the point in here. If you (one) are still suffering, or seeming to suffer physical withdrawal symptoms more than 10 to 14 days after quitting, and are also suffering genuine cravings more than 20+ days after quitting, then I would suggest you’re simply not ready to quit. Go back to smoking, because you’re ‘woe is me I’m so unhappy I can’t smoke anymore’ lifestyle, will be genuinely more painful than dying an early death of cancer, COPD, or whatever.
That sentiment seems to be the driver behind the posting of this thread, so good luck with that. But I can’t just sod off without making a couple more observations. I was the first person to reply to this thread and the response I got to my questioning, was, Esso, It's weird I know.... I think smoking suppresses many feelings and energy in us. Think about it (god, I have) Hello! Does it shite as much. All smoking does is satisfy an addiction to nicotine. It does absolutely nothing else.
And thinking back to the original post I have to question the mental attitude of the person behind it; I toyed with the idea of taking a lover (my sanity was at stake after all) but after deliberating on a couple of would-be's I decided that it really wasn't in the best interest of my relationship so sanity won over my health and I started smoking again. I have re-read that statement many times, because quite frankly it beggars belief. Firstly I am intrigued as to the arrogance of the assumption that the ‘couple of would-be’s’ would obviously be eternally grateful for such an opportunity and would take-up the offer of a uncomplicated relationship based purely on sex at the drop of a hat! Well, obvious when you think about it, all blokes’ brains are in their bollox, so it’s a given, innit. Then there’s the aspect of returning to serious self-harm for ‘the best interest of my relationship’ and ‘sanity’. I don’t think I’ve ever read a bigger load of tosh in all my natural, and I’ve been round the block a few times I can tell you.
So that’s it folks, done with this place. Cheers for the help I did actually feel in the early days, and genuine best wishes to those trying to quit.
The eternal truth that I have now learned and has so far has enabled my quit to succeed, and the one that had escaped me all my life until now, is; actually I’m a nice person and I love me and respect me , and I aint doing the self-loathing and self-harm trip any ****ing more.
Mods, quite happy for this post to be deleted.
Gone.
takes all sorts
Well I seem to have touched a raw nerve with you Esso! not everyone sees the world in the same way and we have no idea where we each come from. We come from different places and I will not try to explain my reasons to you .. Soz .. I didn't mean to winge and depress you.
But, with the fear of upsetting you further .. good luck with the rest of your quit
C'mon folks. Let's not get all bent out of shape for a difference of opinion, philosophy, lifestyle, values etc. After all, we are all individuals together.
Awww suze...Its not easy and if anyone tells you it is either didnt smoke or is living in space!!. and you are still with us you just had a little nock back so get back up dust yaself off and beat the devil
Karri, can't remember .. possibly too much detail lol
what i was trying (and still am) to do is understand this addiction and when and why my mindset could change to go from not smoking to thinking it's ok to do so. sometimes it seems the easiest thing in the world to do but other times it's easy to simply 'forget' the reasons. so i wrote this thread whilst trying to describe the path that took me back to smoking again. it was the first cig that opened the door to the others and after that, instead of being ok with not smoking, it became a constant battle culminating in imbalance and crazy ideas. hope that makes sense.
ps in honesty, don't you think that stopping smoking can make you go a bit loopy too?
what i was trying (and still am) to do is understand this addiction and when and why my mindset could change to go from not smoking to thinking it's ok to do so.
I think I can understand that, but I may be wrong. Is it something to do with not seeing an immediate impact from smoking, meaning the long-term risks are minimized in comparison to the current urge? I know that for me in the past when I attempted to quit, I got a point where I said to myself "just a few more won't hurt... I can always quit tomorrow", or "just one isn't going to kill me". It's extremely difficult (at least for me) to really believe that I could possibly die from the long-term effects, because I don't see any immediate impact.
Maybe for you, something else is triggering this "ah, feck it!" attitude?
BTW my gf went from 8 months quit to full-time smoking again just a month or so ago, and I've yet to understand what triggered her (we need to talk :D).
Hi Suze. Trying to stop smoking has made me go a bit loopy. I have a real problem with the "forever" scenario and until I can feel comfortable with it then my attempts are always going to be failures.
I think the "forever" scenario ties into what I was saying above... The future potential consequences are so far away that it's very difficult to imagine how they could possibly affect you now. That, and the fact that if you're still romancing with the idea of smoking... Forever is just too bloody far away to imagine "going without, forever more". Under these circumstances, best to try the AA method. One day at a time. "I will not smoke today", and when you wake up tomorrow, repeat the same thing. I'm not sure it would work, but I think anything is worth a try.
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