Daily Check-in Part VIII...

[TTOSBT]

Made it through Day 4!
I went to a party last night.
There was LOTS of drinking.
I am so glad that I do not drink or I would for sure have been smoking.
Off to have a beautiful day on the lake. My hubby's bday!
My bday was this week too so this is our first smoke free set of birthdays!!!!

[Impurrfect]

Way to TTOSBT!!!

I totally forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday the other day, so I now wish you and your hubby both HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! and it's totally awesome that you are both smoke free!!!! What a great gift you've given yourselves and each other!

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

[Dime]

Hi Everyone,

Today is four months in the quit for me. This has been a wonderful experience. Can't remember the last time I had a craving for a cigarette. When people smoke around me now I find it kind of offensive. How quickly we can turn the other cheek! LOL

So I have not smoked 3.666 cigarettes, saved $884.72 and added 17 1/2 days to my theoretical life expectancy.

Everyone is doing great here with the quit!!

[KOOKS]

Hi folks, I'm still doing ok......3 1/2 months smokefree!!

Well Done Dime on reaching 4 months. You still sound really upbeat.....brilliant stuff!

I also hate being near smokers the smell is disgusting! I've lost a wee bit of my positivity though and I need to get it back, so I'll be visiting here more often.

Well Done to everyone especially the newcomers.....keep up the good work everyone and keep posting....I need your posts to get me back on the positivity track!

[Dime]

Hi Kooks!

Nice to see you here. Congrats on your 3 1/2 months! You have done such a good job with your quit and have been so helpful here. Your posts helped me so much to realize that quitting is only as tough as we allow it to be.

You are proof positive that you can get through tough times and not have to smoke.

Yes indeed the new folks here are doing fantastic!!

Oh almost forgot to mention to the new folks that coffee seems to have more effect when first quitting. I had heard this and found out first hand that I had to drink less coffee early on.

Keep up the quit everyone!!

[TTOSBT]

Good morning everyone!
Today is Day 6 for me. Yay!
Not real upbeat today. I don't feel well for some reason but I am happy to not be smoking!!
Hi Kooks and Dime! That is so great that you both have months!!
I LOVE the way I smell today!!!!

[Dime]

Your doing great TTOSBT!


The nice part is when you realize that you can have a bad day and still not smoke. I always thought they would make me feel better but I finally realized that they were making me feel much worse. When I got used to not smoking in my mind I realized that my body was much more relaxed from not having those toxins pumped around my bloodstream.

[outonalimb]

Wow !! Everyone is doing so well !! Congrats on the long quits Dime and Kooks...you've inspired me !! And TTOSBT...you're doing great !! Keep going !!

Today is day 13 !!! Hhhooorrraaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KOOKS]

I feel so much better already! It was a BIG mistake to stop posting on the forum. What a great feeling to know that you have inspired people!!! That will certainly keep me going. You inspire me too......Thanks Peeps!

[outonalimb]

I'm at day 15 today !!

Thats 15 packs of cigarettes...which equals 300 gross, stinky, smelly cigarettes NOT smoked. I also have an additional $97.50 in my pocket ! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray !!

[bjork]

Hello everybody!

Just thought I'd chime in and say "Hi". I am on day 15 without a cigarette.

I have found that coffee triggers me as well. Especially now that I am not working. I could've just sat and smoked most of my mornings away poking around on line for hours.

The past 2 weeks have been great!

[KOOKS]

Well Done outonalimb and bjork on your 15 days!!

I was the same with coffee, I had to practically cut it out. I used to have about 8-10 or more cups a day. I have one or two a week now. Drink loads of tea.

Why don't you both treat yourselves to something nice with the money you've saved.......you deserve it!

Keep it up and stay positive!

[TTOSBT]

Day 8!!
I LOVE smelling good all day!
Congrats to you guys.
I can't wait to say I have 2 weeks!!!

[scaredykat]

Today is day 32 for me. I can't believe I made it over a month.

Congrats on everyone's smoke free time. We can all do it together.

[KOOKS]

TTOSBT and Scaredycat well done on 8 and 32 days........fantastic! It's great to be reading about all the success stories.


I love smelling nice all the time!.....

.....and you're right scaredycat we can all do it together.....it helps so much to know that we are all rooting for each other.

Keep posting and keep positive...........and keep with the winners!

[Impurrfect]

Wow, everyone is doing GREAT!!!!! I watched a girl get out of her car, today, smoking and my first thought was "YUK!!!!!"

I still live with 2 smokers, but I stay in my room with the doors closed. I love not smoking!!!

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

[scaredykat]

I love not smoking too Amy.

Today is Day 34 for me. I pick up my 30 day chip last night at Nicotine Anonymous. It was a great meeting last night. The topic was step 1 and we were talking about how we we powerless over nicotine and how it made our lives unmanageable.

I talk about the cigarette burns in my furniture and rugs on the floor. That's defiently unmanageable.

Have a great smoke-free weekend everyone.

[bjork]

I love smelling nice too!

Everytime a smoker walks by, I just think to myself, "I used to smell like that!" I like smelling clean much better!!!

I also pay attention to people's coughs. Smoker's cough is really a miserable sounding cough. I don't want any more of that!!

[TTOSBT]

Day 10! Double digits

[TTOSBT]

Hi SV!
I am so glad to hear you say that.
I hope I feel that way some day.
As it is, it is HARD!!!!!!

[KOOKS]

You're doing great TTOSBT. The more you focus on something else, the easier it will be.

[Impurrfect]

((TTOSBT))

You will feel that way, I promise. You will get to the point where you wonder what the heck you ever saw in cigarettes/smoking in the first place. It just takes a little time.

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

[SeekSobriety]

Things to be grateful for as a non smoker or if you still smoke this could be things to look forward to:

in no particular order

Feeling comfortable around our children and families without having them feel sad for us as smokers.

being a more positive roll model for the children in our lives.

Not having a terrible taste in the mouth/throat

Not smelling like a ash tray and stinking up a room/office/theater/store/restaurant with the horrible smell of stale cigarette when entering or exiting or just sitting in a room.

Not having clothes and jackets stink and have to be washed much more often.

Having our lungs begin to heal and having the death cough and emphesyma cough dissapear (if we were luck enough to stop early enough)

The hundreds of dollars a month we are saving immediately.

The hundreds of thousands of dollars in health costs we are saving in the future.

The bonus of hopefully allowing us to spend more time living and loving our families and freinds since hopefully we will not be dying a horrific lung cancer death from smoking (no guarantees but quiting smoking does give us much much better odds)

Not being a social outcast and having the nicotine and the cigarettes control our lives.

Being able to sit through a movie or a air plane flight like a normal human without fixating on when we can get more of the drug nicotine into our system.

Being free to live life without the shackles of addiction to tobacco and nicotine.

There are many ways to quit smoking. Many find cold turkey the most successfull but some need extra help. Talk to your doctor you may be a good candidate for a medicine and nicotine replacement based therapy, if the doctor is not experienced in the treatment of nicotine addiction perhaps you can get a referal to a specialist who is.
But I would deffinatly give cold turkey a good 14 day trial, once you are passed 72 hours you have passed the hump.
Limit caffiene intake temproaraly and remove yourself from trigger situations as much as possible in the first few weeks, join Nicotine Anonymous, call a freind who has quit or who does not smoke for encouragement and for fun non smoke filled get togethers.

Congratulations to all here on this board! Together we can and do overcome this addiction one breath at a time by following the simple rule. Never take another puff no matter what. There is never a good enough excuse to go back to smoking (as much as the addict voice in our head would like us to rationalize otherwise) and when the voice gets to loud we drown it out with a brisk 5 minute walk/jog or flight of stairs.
As long as we follow that golden rule we can stay free from the bondage of nicotine and tobacco! ! ! ! ! YEAH!!!!!!

[KOOKS]

Thinking about Montell Williams and how he has to cope on a daily basis with the excrutiating pain he has to live with as a result of multiple sclerosis.

He awakes to the feeling of a red hot poker going through his foot which travels up to his knee. He takes about 20 pills at a time which helps a little but doesn't take away the pain and their is no cure.

He also experiences pain in his jaw.

Montell says after the initial devastation and feeling sorry for himself when he was diagnosed he picked himself up off the floor and made a decision to change his attitude, he has now learned to live with his illness. He was diagnosed more than 17 years ago.

He "flips" his mind when a negative thought comes in and looks for the positive in any situation.

This is the way I have been coping with quitting.

I am not suffering excruciating pain and I've not been diagnosed with a life threatening illness.

I feel irritable at times if I focus on the problem. That's all, just irritable, but if I dwell on it the feeling gets worse and worse and worse.

Listening to Montell has just made it that much easier for me.

I feel humbled and grateful too.

[TTOSBT]

Very inspirational this morning. Thanks guys.
So I went to my Sat night AA speaker meeting last night.
This is a big trigger cause there is a break between the 10 minute speaker and the main speaker and everyone goes out to smoke and socialize.
I could not do that last night.
In fact, I could not hug a couple friends that were smoking but told them to come find me when they were done.
I am just too new at this.
BUT I am on Day 12!!!!