One YEAR smoke free. Wow. Truly, you all had way more faith in me than I had in myself, and it has only been the last couple of months that I have become confident, that I have been in social situations and not WANTED a smoke, not that the thought doesn’t cross my mind, it does, but ….
My journey to quit smoking began to support my family to quit, it WAS NOT MY idea at all. I liked smoking, I had smoked for years, my partner Dan smoked, my teenage daughter smoked (against my approval of course) we smoking in our home. My 9 year old daughter was a “second hand smoker” with the cough to show for it. So last June when my daughter announced that she wanted to quit, we all joined in. Dan had been talking about quitting for a long time and I knew that EVENTUALLY I had to, we all have to EVENTUALLY right? But did it have to be NOW??? I was not happy. So we quit smoking in the house, step one, set our quit dates, step two, stocked up on “The Patch”, ditched all the ashtrays, you all know the drill. Dan quit 3 days before me, I still had a pack or 2 left out of my carton, my quit date was the 11 July 2002, darn if the day didn’t actually COME and I had to ACTUALLY give up my smokes …. For ever!!!!!!! Geezzzz what did I ever do to deserve this grief, can’t I just carry on, like I always had, like WE always had? Well the rest is history now and all chronicled somewhere on the past pages of Blairsville …. And here I am, a year later, and I can proudly say “ I have not had a cigarette, not even a puff in one full year” I QUIT SMOKING!!!
The rest of this ramble is not about not smoking anymore. It is about human nature, and about becoming the best you can be, whether it is becoming a better mother, partner, daughter, friend …. Becoming more health conscious, more educated, better, stronger, smarter …. At first, the first few weeks and even months, I felt like the weakest, smallest, most insignificant thing on the planet …. Especially in my lowest of low times. The there were all of you. Blairsville. Wow …. A cyber home away from home, when my teenage daughter gave me more grief than I knew how to handle, you we all there, when I was at work and not coping with the office crap, you were here, when Dan lost his quit, you were all here, you were here on day one and you are here today. What does that tell you about human nature? It tells me that we truly do want to help each other, that people who are really strangers can come together with a common goal, grief and pain and help each other, to succeed. We revel in each other’s success and we cry for each other’s hurt. Human nature? Yes I do have faith in it. I have faith in all of you but best of all I have enormous faith in me, I can do anything, I feel empowered.
I do have some people I would like to mention, it is hard to do because I am afraid to miss someone so I will say right off the top … I LOVE YOU ALL ~ but there are always a few that touch one, especially. First of all, I have to say that Dan (my partner Dan) has been my biggest cheering section. I know that he lost his quit and that he is still smoking, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has still encouraged me and cheered me on. He is very proud of me. He hid his smoking from me, not to lie to me, to protect me and my quit, I was hurt, very hurt, it was a tough time for us, but now I see that he did it out of love, even though sometimes, it feels the opposite. I still am hoping that he will quit again and perhaps I can help him more when the time comes, in the mean time, I am accepting the fact that he smokes, it is his choice and his life, we don’t always agree with each other, but that is normal, we are different people after all. He shows me and my quit respect each day, always being careful around me. I do appreciate it. Thanks hon for that.
My Blairsville family, wow there are so many. I have made some truly good friends here. Tammy, Ricardo, Judy, Polly, Jim, Lola, Gord, George, Tina, Kurt (I miss you)… the list truly goes on and on. We have lost some, and we have gained new ones, friends come back eventually to try again and are loved all the more for it. How do you even begin to thank everyone? Well I gave this some thought, and it is difficult to put into words, so when I find myself in a situation like that, I simply try to accept the love, and gracefully say “Thank You” because as small as those words really are, we all know how important they are, we have all heard them a million times, and each time they mean so much. So I am gracefully saying “Thanks” to all of you.
Wow....one year has gone by....
July 22 2003 at 9:52 PM
and I have so many to thank. I could never remember all the names!!
I haven't been here in BV much in the past 6 months or more....but I've made so many fantastic lifetime friendships here...
My quit started here at a BBQ led by Chez....God that was fun! It may have seemed silly to some but it kept me from smoking that day and that's what it's all about, right??
My most awesome buddy in the world ((((((Bill)))))) and his equally awesome wife (((((Steph)))))....thank you for the beautiful roses today. You two mean so much to me! My friend (((Gord))) who led me to Nicotine Anonymous and that was what I needed to quit....I can't ever thank you enough! All the wonderful friends I've made here....Cheryl, our mom of triplets, Wendy, Polly W., Dan, Judy T., Mags, James, Lyle, Paul....the list goes on and on and on.....shouldn't name names because you always forget someone that is so special. If I did, I'm sorry.
Blairsville is such a great community for those who need support to quit and we all do folks. Some of us need it in different ways, but it usually meshes quite well here.
I'm just so thankful to be at a year quit....it's been a tough year where I had to face another demon...but with God's grace I'm batting them both down and that is such a blessing!!
To those who don't know me (bunches of you!) I would say, keep coming back.....you will get the support you need.
Not needing to light up is a wonderful gift...and it's yours for the taking...
And as a follow-up
Mirror, mirror on the wall.....who do I see now???
I see Marsha, my cousin!! I see Dawna, my viper sister, I see Sue, my sweet consort...I see Maryanne, a soulmate!
There are so many wonderful people you will get to know here....
NEVER name names!! LOL
You all know who you are that have supported me....I give up on naming everyone because the list would be so long.
Whoever else I've forgotten to thank...like Tommyboy....and of course Blair......I offer my sincere apologies...
Chris
Signor's "Ramble"
A long walk always begins by some small footsteps !
Thank you Blairsville for being there !
Theresa's "Ramble"
One day I woke up and came to reality with my Multiple Sclerosis and that day I came to admit that smoking only hurt my health more. I felt like a hypocrite, fighting MS and smoking. So I chose to can take control of that part of my life.
I can say that I made the right decision, I'm breathing better and feel stronger.
Thank you BV for being there when I first quit. I am hoping to help others on the path to Fogeydom
Theresa (Patience)
There was no turning back now. The Saturday night before, I smoked my last cigarette (with a beer of course) and told myself that when I woke up in the morning.. I'd be an ex-smoker. Then I panicked and grabbed the butt can out of the garage and smoked everything long enough to light without burning my nose. Those butts were old, stale, dirty and some of them were not even originally mine. Afterwards, I got rid of everything smoking related and went to bed. I woke up Sunday morning and cried. I cried off and on for three weeks. Weekends were especially hard. I was totally consumed with smoking and my quit.. and self-pity. I asked everyone I knew (that ever smoked) if they were really past that one-track mind thing. I found it hard to believe that they weren't still thinking about smoking and their quit every minute of every day. They promised me it would get better.. and they all gave me different time-lines for that. I started going to all the links I had collected and began printing binders full of smoking information. I kept reading... I found Blairsville and became a daily lurker. I read all of the posts here and everything at Bob's Place. I read everything I could get my hands on and found out that at age 53, I could be an ex-smoker of 15 years (and back on a level playing field (health-wise) with non-smoking 53 year old women) or I could be a 53 year old smoker of 40 years, possibly on oxygen, chemo or dead. 53 is young and 15 years could make or break me.
That information strengthened my resolve.. but quitting smoking is hard. It is hard for nice people and mean people, tall and short people, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and unhealthy, educated and uneducated people. It was hard for me too. I found the firsts the hardest (or at least the scariest).. the first anything without a cigarette was a challenge but really never turned out to be as bad as I thought it was going to be. I had to fight feelings of self pity a lot. The cigarette I missed the most was the after dinner one.. out in my chair by the pool. At first, I decided I wouldn't sit out there anymore.. no matter how nice it was outside. And then I started thinking about it.. I used to sit out there for roughly an hour with my coffee and two cigarettes. Of the 60 minutes, I was really only smoking for about 14 of them. What about the other 46 minutes? I still enjoyed the 46 minutes that I wasn't smoking. So I started going out there again to drink my coffee.. and to breathe.
I guess as far as cravings go, the thing that helped me most was deep breathing. You can buy some time between cravings and sort of trick yourself too, by deep breathing at regular smoke break times in the regular places. I'd like to say I did the water thing.. but I didn't. I didn't do the exercise thing either.. wish I had. But I did breathe.. and breathe.. and breathe... 'til I was dizzy.
As this year passed, quitting got easier, overall. Some days were harder than others.. some seemed too easy, some seemed too hard for where I was at. I almost lost it a few times too. A couple of months in, and I don't remember what I was so upset about, but I tore apart the house looking for a cigarette. I searched every old purse and jacket in the house. I even tore apart a kitchen cupboard where I used to keep an 'emergency' cigarette. Thank God a prior emergency had taken care of that and there were none to be found. I honestly can't even imagine feeling that kind of desperation for a cigarette ever again. I only remember those feelings now, when I read a post from someone early in their quit who feels like they can't go on and they're on the verge of giving up. I need to be reminded of how difficult it was in the beginning, now that it's becoming so easy to forget. Funny, because in the beginning, I needed to read the posts of the fogeys.. I needed to hear that there was life after smoking. It shows how important everyone here in Blairsville is, no matter what stage of their quit they're at. I must admit I am much more comfortable in the background, lurking and reading, and I have only surfaced a handful of times. And I do realize that if we were all lurking like me, there'd be nothing here to read... and there would be no support, so I truly appreciate those of you who share your feelings in here. Posts I've read here have been encouraging, comforting, informative and sometimes heartbreaking.. but always helpful. Thank you all. Quitting smoking is HUGE and it is so important to have somewhere to go where that is the focus and the subject never gets old.
Jen E.