What now? Starting to lose hope

[Ardraven]

Hello,

I joined this forum on impulse cause I saw it and I really want to quit smoking. The trouble is I haven't done anything about quitting for 2 years at least & I have no idea or inspiration about what to try next.

I smoke more the more stressed I am. This is a problem cause I have mental health issues, a chronic pain condition and have been going through a series of stressful life events for the past 6 years. I am always stressed to the eyeballs. I have become a heavy smoker again. I have also married another smoker so for the first time in my life I have someone else who smokes living with me.

I have made several attempts to quit smoking in the past. I have used many different strategies, some more helpful than others. The pattern is always similar.

To simplify the complex history just a little, I have always picked a time when I'm relatively relaxed to make my attempt. I seem to cope very well with my quit all the while my stress levels are fairly low and I start to feel really positive and full of hope. Then as soon as I get stressed out again I start to suffer horribly with psychological cravings. Bad enough that I genuinely feel like I'm losing my mind. Then I start smoking again within 3 days of that. This is a huge relief initially and then I feel like a demoralised, useless, failure. Then I can't face another quit attempt for a while.

I haven't had any less stressful patch to plan a quit attempt for in the longest time and I've been feeling like I've tried everything I think of without success. So my plans to get smoke free have kind of fallen by the wayside and I've built up a sort of inertia about it where the issue keeps getting pushed to the back of my mind.

To add to all of that I don't just want to quit. I really need to quit. I have just been diagnosed with early stage COPD. The only way I can stop this from becoming a condition that seriously impacts my life on top of the limiting physical health problems I am already dealing with is to quit smoking NOW! And I've had a scare because a good friend who smoked as much as me got diagnosed with lung cancer and died quickly after that as it turned out to be aggressive cancer. He was close to my age too.

So with these thoughts running through my mind when I saw this board I thought I might as well type out the whole sorry mess and post it here. While I'm short on hope I thought if there was any small chance that someone might reply and something they say might spark off some sort of forward movement then it's worth a try. What do I have to lose?

[Briarwood Administrator LONG TERM WINNER]

Hi Ardraven and welcome to Quit Support👋

First of all I will say there is always hope👍

This terrific community will make a big difference as lots of lovely people here who understands how difficult this can be.

Many of us suffer with COPD and know the very best thing for that is quitting the cigs.

You can’t eat an elephant whole as the saying goes.....you have to break it down into smaller pieces. The same goes for your quit.

Let’s help you make a plan and help you prepare for the best way that will work for you.

Lots of this you can find under pinned posts.

Another good idea is meditation and mindfulness too, which are great ways to calm everything down.

My hubby also smokes but it’s still doable. I can honestly say it’s the best thing I’ve done.

You can do it too🚭✅

We look forward to supporting you on your journey🤗xx

[Ardraven 3 YEAR WINNER in reply to Briarwood]

Thank you for the reply, the welcome and the ideas 🙂

[Lizzie74 LONG TERM WINNER]

Hi there, well done for taking the first steps by joining this site, there is a whole heap of useful information on the pinned posts. Everyone on this forum knows what it is like to to quit or try to quit the dreadful mr nic, but with support & somewhere to share your achievements & occasionally vent you can succeed 😀

[Ardraven 3 YEAR WINNER in reply to Lizzie74]

Thank you for the advice. I will definitely have to read more in the pinned posts methinks. I definitely want to do this even knowing that it's likely to be difficult cause my son was adopted after I lost a long court battle to be allowed to care for him. There is a chance he will come looking for his birth family when he becomes an adult and I really want to be alive if he does.

[TheTabbyCat Administrator LONG TERM WINNER]

Hi Ardraven,

Welcome to Quit Support.💙

It’s never easy to quit but it’s easier with a little support.💪

As Briarwood suggests you need a plan to be able to quit successfully. Decide whether you want to quit using NRT (nicotine replacement therapy) , are you going to try cold turkey,or are you going to ask your Doctor for medication.

Please read the pinned posts,📌 there is lots of information there. You will find the posts to the right or at the bottom of your screen depending which device you are using. Just click “posts” then click “pinned posts”.

May I suggest you drink plenty of water💧💦 to flush out the toxins and keep yourself hydrated.

Please let us know when you are ready so that we can assign you a winners' badge and add your name to the wall of winners.

If you feel you need any more help please don’t hesitate to ask. There is always someone here.

May I remind you not to post any personal information.

Good luck with your quit.🍀🚭xx

[Ardraven 3 YEAR WINNER]

Thanks for all the suggestions and information. There looks to be some useful stuff there

[Hidden]

Welcome to the group Ardraven..if you got copd and it's early stage you can stop it from getting worse.. don't do like I have and get left with 20% of lung.. I'm on alot of pills as well hon and I used it for a excuse but you can do this if you feel like it gets to ruff get on here and someone will chat with you until it passes.. this group has helped me so much.. give us a chance 🍀🍀😎

[Hidden]

I think it would benefit you to read a post submitted today called "Mind Games" by tubby54. Everyone here is very kind and supportive so when you do decide to act, this is the place to be. It may also help you to consider how much hurt and bitterness and illness, both physical and mental, that people go through in a lifetime and that again, you are not alone. In a perverse way you are much luckier than I have been for my child died at five months old - a fact I do not disclose easily but hope it might help you! Given a fair wind and calm seas you do stand a chance of seeing your child again, whereas I will not and there are millions of people like me who have to deal with that silently for the rest of their lives.

The habit of smoking is (to me) likened to the use of a lamp post for a drunk - as a prop and not enlightenment! We all need props in life, some get them from family, coffee, religion, shopping, work commitment, being fastidious in ones work, personality or the really dangerous ones like drink, smoking and drugs. However, where most props carry one through the bad times, the really dangerous ones actually make one feel even worse because they all just take away, they never offer anything positive in return.

That I feel is the first lesson to learn for all of the dangerous ones will, given time, kill us! Why not pop into the British Heart Foundation section and read of the damage smoking really does to your arteries, where bypass surgery is necessary - thats when they have to saw open the chest to get to ones heart, stop it, use a machine to keep you alive, find a new vein, usually from the leg and graft it into place and repair the saw cut on the way out - and thats a common operation - if they catch the disease in time!

Mental health issues if not handled well, will need a doctors intervention to be able to manage - first priority - look after your health.

Perhaps my reply will not be what you expected however I mean well and no matter what your life experiences, there comes a time to quit or acknowledge that you do not care and are prepared to die for your useless, expensive habit. If you were able to stop, consider how much money you could save, how you could change your life, what you might be able to offer your off spring in the future, if you were able to see then again? You need a goal to replace the addiction. Health, future, car, holiday, happiness, nice home, good clothes, re train for a new job, flying lessons, etc etc.

The sky is the limit my friend, nothing is impossible if you have the will power to go and get what you want!

[Ardraven 3 YEAR WINNER in reply to Hidden]

I actually liked your reply. Don't get me wrong I'm sorry to hear about the grief you've suffered but I'm grateful to anyone who takes the time to speak their truth to me. After all if every time I posted all the replies were exactly what I expected there wouldn't be nearly as much point writing and reading them in the first place. I'm definitely guilty of sweeping my own knowledge of the harm I'm doing myself under the carpet as a coping mechanism. Facing up to that is a part of motivating myself to do something about it as much as the benefits of stopping and getting the motivation to do it is at least as important as finding strategies for the process. I'm sorry if my post brought up painful memories for you. I know from my own experiences dealing with PTSD that there are always people worse off and better off from the point of view of a hypothetical objective observer. I'm not under any illusion that I have a monopoly on stress or pain. These things are just in reality such objective experiences that all we can do is speak from our own and help each other get by as best we can and I thank you for your efforts to do so for me.

[Hidden]

Not seen you in a couple days just wanted to see how you are doing.. hug's 😊😊

[Ardraven 3 YEAR WINNER]

Yeah I haven't been online for 10 days or so, it happens from time to time when I don't have the concentration to deal with anything that isn't a basic necessity but I always turn up again like the proverbial bad penny!

I have been giving thought to ways I could give myself the best chance of quitting when I've had a few spare minutes. I'm getting some specific therapy sessions designed to help with the mental side of chronic physical symptoms at the moment and I have my latest appointment tomorrow so I thought I'd raise the issue as affecting both when I speak to the psychologist tomorrow to see if she has any useful suggestions. It's slightly left field as the sessions were given to me due to my chronic pain originally but it's got to be worth asking. I also have to book my annual health check when I'm at the health centre and I know that they will raise smoking and offer support again at that so I figure it's worth seeing if I can get helpful suggestions out of both and take that forward in to my own planning.