Hello everyone and hope your all continuing to fight the good fight; after a while you start to realise that your not in a battle with nicotine, it's a full scale war and has to be approached with that frame of mind. It will be two weeks since I last smoked at nine PM tonight. So what advice can I give to other, would be, abstainers.
Firstly, do anything, absolutely anything, to get through that first day. This will probably be your biggest stumbling block. It's important to prepare in advance and don't try to quit on your birthday or a Monday when you are likely to face stressful situations.( Family or Work, lol ).
Get rid of all your cigarettes and empty your ashtray into a jar of water. Some people keep the jar and have a sniff of it when they have a craving later! I think its probably enough to make them impossible to light.
Clean up all of your ashtrays as they will be a trigger point.
Plan a distraction activity for when you get a craving, I go out for a brisk walk.
Anticipate and prepare for situations where you are likely to feel like smoking, IE visiting friends etc.
Take pleasure in your renewed sense of smell and taste.
Give yourself a regular treat with all the money that you have saved, although a crate of Special Brew that I treated myself to at the start of the week probably isn't a good idea. Still I haven't smoked yet!
Above all, realise that this will be a life changing step for yourself and fully convince yourself never to start again, this is considerably easier said than done.
Keep in touch with the forum and post a daily blog for the first week, encouragement is vital and they give you loads of support.
Hope this helps.
Martin
PS Will write a three week blog next weekend.
I can’t believe I missed it
