Hi
I'm just popping in and say hi to everyone on or considering their first day without smoking. I recently passed a year off them and wanted to offer you all as much encouragement as I can.
Don't be fooled by my January 2011 quite date - that failed after almost a year, then I battled it hard on and off for another 18 months - stopped for a few days then on, sometimes I'd been off them for 2-3 months and then back on.
To be honest my energy to go through it all was almost done and I knew that If I didn't succeed I'd be a smoker for probably teh rest of my life or for another few years at least.
And so I did, and on 18 August last year, one last almighty push I said to myself, I cycle to work every day and I listed to Alan Carrs book on my ipod as I cycled in and home, sometimes all I did for days was that and then crawled into bed at night to hide, but I kept going. I remember saying that if I made it through yesterday I can make it through today, and that was all - and sometimes it was just getting through the next hour was all that mattered.
And slowly, very slowly, painfully slowly those awful awful cravings wore off, sometimes they came back and were as powerful as ever but generally they got less frequent and less intense, until now I can barely remember the last time I felt like smoking.
It probably took about 8/9 months I think to not really feel on guard about them and even now I'm sure I could fall back in again if I was stupid enough to do so, but I now know that I couldn't go through it again so I won't risk it.
Good luck to all of you, its worth it
