stopping smoking again

[*Ceridwen]

soooooo....
as a commitment to looking after myself I have booked a counsellor who deals with issues of families of alcoholics - start seeing her in 4 weeks AND

drum roll....

I have given up smoking again - today is almost day 1 - I had a cigarette 1st thing (6hrs ago), soaked the rest of the packet in water and threw it in the bin and put on a patch.

This feels like a half-way house of doing things & I succeeded better when I gave up cold turkey (when pregnant and lasted 2.5 years), rather than my last 4 attempts at quitting with patches (all in the last couple of months). I have each time ended up taking the patch off and just having ONE cigarette that night (which magically became 30 a day within 24hrs).

So I’m asking for your top tips and strategies (If you would be so kind!!)

Other than DON’T SMOKE ANY CIGGARETTES – which I know pretty much covers it all,

Below is my list of reasons why I don’t want to smoke anymore:

1) My son is asthmatic (I don’t smoke in doors or around him – but the guilt is overwhelming)
2) I am ruining my health, I fall prey to every cold, which immediately becomes a chest infection.
3) I am probably killing myself. Slowly. And paying for the privilege.
4) Smoking costs a fortune, I could use the money to pay off my debts: I could use the money to help purple lizards land on the moon and it would be a better use of it.
5) The coughing racks my body so much that I have to wear small incontinence pads when I have a chest infection: I am 35.
6) I am drained of energy: I wake up exhausted.
7) I smell: I don’t want to smell.
8) My teeth are stained and horrible, I don’t want to smile too much
9) I am ashamed that I smoke: I work for an organisation concerned with the treatment and prevention of cancer.
10) In any situation I am limited by my supply of and access to cigarettes, craving nicotine and panicking about not having any cigarettes clouds some of my work decisions, time with my son, social occasions.

There is not one good reason to smoke, none.

Any help gratefully received.

[cali]

Hi Ceridwen-
Great job on stopping-I know it's not easy. I also stopped a few times in my life time for long periods of time. Most recently I stopped 3/12/06. Many folks had told me about whyquit.com but I only visited it for the first time this past May.

It has absolutely changed my life. I have read the personal stories so many times that they are engrained in my heart. For the first several weeks of of visiting, I cried a lot. It just made a huge impression on me.

When I think of smoking which I do sometimes just like I think of drinking, the people that I read about over and over again come into my mind. It gives me strength to know that I made the right decision, and through their deaths they will be remembered, and missed by I'm sure millons that didn't even know them that feel the way I do.

Stay on the beam-you can do it!

[historyteach]

So, how's it going?
Let us know how you're doing.
And if you have struggled, remember, it's one day at a time. You can start over each and every day. And we're here for you.

Shalom!