Hello Everyone,
My name is Adam, I am 22 years old and have been smoking 10 cigarettes a day for about 6 years.
I have tried to quit many times before, with varying degrees of success, but have decided that this will be the last day I smoke, no matter what.
I have joined the forum so that I can share my experience, get support along my journey and so that I can revisit what I have written in the days, weeks, months and years to come.
I remember the first time I ever tried a cigarette, as many of you do.
I was only around 12 or 13 years old.
It was in the garden of an old flat I used to live in with my mum and brother.
My mum had asked me to get her one from her handbag and I decided to light it for her whilst out of sight, so I took a puff whilst holding the lighter up to it.
It tasted disgusting!
This is a key thing I remember, why then can it taste so horrid, yet now I seem to think it is so 'nice'?
My mum had smoked around 20 cigarettes a day for many years.
I remember she told me she was about 19 years old when she began smoking.
She too had tried to quit many times before.
My mum died in hospital on the 26th December 2011 at around 10:30pm, from two consecutive heart attacks.
I was not there to see her leave this world, this was my naive decision, I regret it to this day.
She was diagnosed with Sarcoma cancer around two years prior to her death, this cancer travels in the bloodstream.
It attached to her lungs, which were weak from smoking and covered the vast majority of both lungs.
I remember she could not walk more than 50 feet without being out of breath.
My mum was my absolute world.
Most people would think this would stop you from smoking, for fear of the same fate, but if anything it had the opposite effect.
Whilst it attached to her lungs, the cause of the cancer was not directly related to smoking, so I rebelled and smoked more, using it as a coping mechanism.
It was during the two years that my mum battled her cancer that I began to even consider quitting, before that I had no such inclination.
Since then, in a similar way to my mum battling her cancer, I have been battling to quit smoking.
I am able to go cold turkey for a number of days, even months, before forgetting the reasons that I quit and give into a craving.
I am fed up of this cycle!
I have thought many times before about why people quit and what drives them to succeed.
Before I was not sure of my answer to this question, now I am.
For me, it is not about the money, it is not about being hooked, it is not about not stinking of smoke, it is not even about my health, my fitness or my future.
For me, it is for my mum, it is to make her proud to see who I can become, it is to give her grandchildren and a successful son.
It is so that I can be sure that when she looks down on me, that I see the huge smile I know she has, that she knows exactly what I have overcome and that I can be a free man again.
I will begin a huge battle tomorrow, a battle against my laziness, a battle against my motivation, my angst and frustration.
For her, I will win.
x
Hello - Day 1 newbie!
Day 1 for the final time
Week 2 for me.. day 15
