Fuck fuck Fucky McFucktard! I can't fucking quit these fucking cigarettes!

The BBQ Pit
61

This is what I’m finding too. The first time I quit it was quite literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I stupidly forgot that after four months, and in the three years since then I’ve not made it past three days.

I used the patch, and still do. It’s not a magic bullet, but it helps. The recent tax increase here has pushed my smoking past $60 a week, and the patch is less than half that, so I can still save money if I can just get to the point where I’m not spending money on both of them!

62

I also do not smoke, but I just wanted to wish you all good luck! It’s a difficult task, but people tell me it’s not impossible!

63

I quit for a couple of months. Don’t think the Welbutrin had a thing to do with it. I just can’t seem to do it. Cold turkey - I can go a couple of days without it and it;s not a physical craving. it’s the MENTAL thing. I walk the dog, I take a smoke. (CA - can’t smoke here almost anywhere…) I don’t know why. I KNOW I need to quit. It’s a deal I made with my relationship. It’s dependent upon the trust factor in my relationship, yet I find myself hiding them, sneaking out…

I WANT TO QUIT. I WANT TO QUIT. WHY CAN’T I QUIT??? Especisally since my Paternal Aunt’s mom died of Emphesyma (sp?). And My dad’s wife had a brother in law who died of lung cancer…I NEED TO QUIT.

I like it so much. I just got diagnosed with a form of skin cancer - non-recurring, but still - you’d think that would be enough to fucking scare the hell out of me and get my ample butt into gear. WHY CAN I NOT KEEP TO MY PROMISE?

HEEEEEELP.

Patches, did 'em. Gum - hated it, and with dental issues, can’t do gum. Shit , is there ANY OTHER WAY???

Sorry. I am having a bad day already.

Inky

64

There’s the Commit Lozenge, the Nicotrol Inhaler, hypnosis, acupuncture…have you tried any of these?
This is a real bastard of a habit to break.

Day 7 for me- it’s getting easier, but I’m still using the patch. I go to the lower dosage patch tomorrow.

65

I quit cold turkey. I set up a quit date first. I picked a day that I had to go into the hospital overnight, for a sleep study. (Turns out I had very bad apnea, which has been treated.) Anyway, I gave my half-pack to some guy in the smoking area, and entered the hospital at 7:00 pm. I got hardly any sleep, with all the wires and shit all over me, plus the nurse messing with stuff all night.

So I went to work the next morning, groggy as hell. Still not smoking, and not missing it too much except for the first one in the morning. I ended up going home at lunch, to get some sleep. I slept that afternoon, woke up and ate, and then slept all night. The next morning was pretty tough, I will admit. Got through it somehow. I ate like a pig, chips and m&ms. Lots of crunchy stuff.

My boyfriend (now husband) was my biggest help. He had quit 5 years before, a 3-pack-a-dayer. He knew it was hard.

I think I succeeded because I wanted to, truly deeply in my heart, and ignored the bad feelings. Eventually the reaching for them out of habit goes away. I have backslid a few times, and smoked one or two when I was VERY drunk. About 4 or 5 in 1-1/2 years. But they taste like shit, and I have no desire to start up again. At this point, my cravings are just little wispy things that I forget almost immediately.

YOU CAN DO IT!

One year, six months, one week, two days, 20 hours, 12 minutes and 25 seconds. 13996 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,959.59. Life saved: 6 weeks, 6 days, 14 hours, 20 minutes.

66

I’ll take a stab at it. The book (if you buy into it) gets you to approach quitting smoking from a different angle. Instead of dreading the withdrawal process and preparing yourself for a few weeks of nightmarish withdrawals, it gets you in a frame of mind where the moment you stub out the last cigarette you are already a non-smoker, not a smoker going through another quit attempt. It gets you to approach it with positivity and excitement, giving tips on what to expect and how to deal with it. The withdrawal pangs I experienced after reading this book were akin to mild hunger pangs when you’ve been busy and accidently skipped lunch, while earlier quitting attempts (cold turkey and patches) resulted in withdrawal pangs strong enough to send me back to smoking. I also don’t crave a cigarette, which I’ve found a lot of ex-smokers still do from time to time. I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t going to go through life denying myself cigarettes if I was craving them. I decided to give myself the 21 days to get over the physical addiction and if I still craved a cigarette, I was going to stop trying to quit and just live as a smoker. I didn’t have one craving, even the withdrawal pangs weren’t cravings, since I didn’t want to smoke.

It can sound cult-like from an outside perspective, I guess. I’m a firm believer that different methods work for different people, so I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, it’s just a very good and cheap method. I have recommended this book to 6 people IRL. Four have quit with ease, one has refused to read past the first page (doesn’t really want to give up, just likes talking about it) and it didn’t work for the other one. You have to buy into it for it to work and it is a little corny. However, if someone is ready to quit and prepared to just accept what is written and give it a go, it’s one of the cheapest methods I know of.

Good luck to all thinking about quitting. It’s great to not have that monkey on your back, dictating your time, money and lifestyle :slight_smile:

67

I had never heard of Allen Carr until I started this thread, but the book is cheap and the recommendations are glowing so I can’t lose more than the cost of four packs. Thanks.

68

Sampiro you are stronger than this drug. Just bitch slap them down and tell that pack to talk to the hand.

/Knows nothing about addiction.
//Knows too much about emphysema
///Terrible disease.
////Terrible, terrible disease.
////Is too cheap to dry clean, let alone buy a pack of smokes.
///Just lending a big encouragement to Sampiro

69

I must be particularly dense tonight.

I cannot find the Allan Carr or Gillian Riley’s aboveforementioned books on Amazon.

Is it the snowstorm that is clogging my synapses or whut?

70

Try this. Essured’s “nutshell” description is very good. Might try my own later when I have more time.

71

When I quit over 7 years ago, I was smoking 3 packs a day of 100s. The way I quit was using Zyban and the patch.

I took the Zyban for about a week or two before actually quitting. I used the patches for a couple of days only, just to get me through the hardest part.

I would advise you to use your anger. These cigarette companies have you by the short hairs! Doesn’t this piss you off? Yes. It does. So, use the anger to fuel your defiance of your need for this product.

I found that every few minutes on the first few days, my hand snaked out to grasp a cigarette case that was no longer there. Each time I realized what was happening, I got more and more angry at the level of hold they had over me. NOTHING was going to stop me from quitting!

The other thing I did was buy a koosh. A koosh is a little pom-pom looking thing made out of some sort of rubber/plastic. When I had the “need to do something with my hands” craving, I played with the koosh. I carried it around instead of my cigarette case. When I got super angry (which happened frequently enough in those first days that The Bog almost told me to smoke again and get it over with!) it was soft enough to throw without breaking anything.

Don’t give up! It’s worth the fight.

72

I haven’t smoked since June 26th 2003. YAY ME! What did it for me was thinking I had had a heart attack. Turns out it was a combo of stress plus over weight plus smoking all rolled together. I had a heart catherization and was told my heart was in good shape, no blockages, no nothing. Or, as I put it, “See, not only do I have a heart, I have a good one!”

Anyways, that scared hell outta me. If that wasn’t a heart attack, I don’t want to have one. I was having chest pains, couldn’t breathe, broke out in a cold sweat and went really really pale all of a succen. I never want to feel like that again. I used WellButrin which helped a lot, along with the scare. I called it my wake up call. I’ve lost some weight and need to be more dilligent in doing so but the not smoking has definitely made a difference.

Of course, having a new found squeeze who doesn’t smoke and who likes long, slow deep kisses is another big incentive not to smoke. He’s worth being all minty fresh for. :smiley:

Hell, since I’m rambling on, I’ll throw this out too. I have not become one of those rabid anti-smoking ex smokers, but it bothers me big time to be around cigarette smoke in an enclosed area. I can’t handle bars for too long, which is ok cause I’m not a party animal, but also, I have some great friends who smoke in their house. I love em dearly but have gotten to the point where I can’t stand going in their house. I can’t wait to get back home, strip, throw what I was wearing in the washing machine and shower. ICK! Course, when I smoked I didn’t smoke in my house and I was a two pack a day smoker, more when drinking. Anybody other ex smokers who feel this way about smoke in an enclosed area now? People visiting me are welcome to smoke on my back porch which is covered and screened in and that doesn’t bother me. It’s just inside places it gets to me.

73

Thanks for the linkie!

74

I said before that I used the patch, but I skip some things. I did more than just wear a patch. For one thing I read a book called The Nicotine Trick which is sort of along the lines of Alan Carr, it helps you see a different angle. The funny thing is is it’s an anti-patch / anti NRT book, but whatever. It helps you absorb the idea that your cigarette is the only thing making you want another cigarette, so that the farther away the last cigarette gets, the less your addiction. It has an excercise where you spend some time before you quit doing negative mental associations with each cigarette.

I also used 7 Steps to a Smoke-Free Life which is a straightforward boring old how to book. The good thing about that is that I really felt mentally prepared. I did the exercises even though they were lame and stupid.

I used to get panic attacks, and I did a lot of workbooky cognitave behavioural therapy type things to make them stop, so I am kind of used to that process and I like it. It’s when you basically teach yourself a new behaviour the old fashioned way, by making yourself do things that suck until they become your new normal comfortable way. So part of that was that I quit smoking in the car before I quit. I go the car all smoke free before I tried to quit at all. I made all kinds of lists of why I wanted to quit and read it and added to it all the time. I did the negative associations thing whenever I took my first drag off a cigarette, thinking of something really unpleasant and thinking that the drag was just prolonging my addiction.

I also took that attitude that I was going back to my normal way of being when I was a kid, a person who just doesn’t smoke.

Then, when I quit, and was wearing my patch, every time I would get the impulse for a cigarette–it was worst at work–I would take a deep breath and say to myself, “don’t worry, that’s ok, you can stay here now.” That made me feel less anxious about the terrible feeling that I was never going to go do my favourite activity ever again for the rest of my life.

So it is not as simple as “I used the patch.” It was a big project for me.

I have felt a lot dumber since I quit. I often have problems at work now. I am a graphic designer and I split my time between working at home and going in. I used to love working at home because I could smoke, and I could just sit there for hours with my little beverage and my little smoke. Now I hate it. I’m bored and I constantly jump up and go find ways to fiddle around and I can’t ever seem to come up with ideas when I need them any more so half my life is a panic of staring at a blank page in my brain where an idea is supposed to appear but does not. I never really blamed that on smoking before or on quitting. Maybe I will now.

75

Even better if you lived in Australia where you would lose the cost of just 2 packs since cigs are clocking in at around $9-$10 a pack these days… which is bloody outrageous.

Hard to describe the book in a “nutshell” but its about turning your mind around to not wanting to smoke so that when you stop you’re not denying yourself something that you want to do. I think he describes it as “de-brainwashing” you of the idea that you want to smoke. He takes all the reasons you have for smoking and dismantles them and you are forced to acknowledge what you already know - that you have no reason to keep doing it. Very early in the book, Carr makes the claim that, after you have finished the book, you will quit without needing willpower. Of course, your reaction to that as a smoker is “bullshit” and, to me, that was like a dare to read the rest of the book and prove the claim untrue. Nobody had less willpower than me when it came to quitting, thats for sure. Yet it was true - I quit without willpower because I didn’t want to smoke anymore.

This is a gross over-simplification of the book. Just buy the thing is my suggestion to y’all. I tend to get evangelical when talking about how this book changed my life (and I’m doing it again) but its because I want all smokers to know that you can quit without pain/suffering. I would never have believed that it was possible but I now know that it is. Most reformed smokers I know continue to crave cigarettes even (in some cases) years after quitting, whereas I thank god every day - every day - that I have escaped from the hell that is smoking.

76

Day 20 for me and it’s getting so much easier. But there has been some sacrifice in order to get this far. Although, the sacrifices haven’t all been bad.
**
The Process:**
Back in January I decided to try Zyban and got a prescription for the generic version. First week, 150 mg/day; second week, 300 mg/day; Day 15 (Feb 3) was to be the Quit Date. I had wanted to wean myself off the cigs during the two-week med ramp up, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready to quit on Feb 3 either, but two packs and about a week later, I did it. After Feb 3, I got myself down to around 3-4 cigs per day (from 15-20/day) until the night Feb 11 when I went to the bar with friends. I took what was left of my pack and smoked them all. Suffered through the next two days wanting a cigarette, but not wanting it as badly as I had thought. The Wellbutrin pretty much made me more even keel emotionally than previous attempts to quit without it during which I became Your Worst Nightmare Holy Supreme Bitch.

By Feb 14, I was sick with the Nastiest Flu Ever during which time I didn’t even think about smoking (unusual since before I’d smoke throughout the worst head colds). By the time I was healthy, I had been days without coffee, so I decided I may as well cut my caffeine back as well in order to eliminate the association I had between coffee and cigarettes.

I finally threw out my ashtray and gave away all my lighters about a week after I quit when I couldn’t stand smelling stale cigarette butts while sitting at my desk any longer. The smell still gives me the heebees and I think I have a phantom smell of it now when I sit at my desk. Which brings me to…

The Downside(s):
I can’t sit at my desk for very long right now. Which is why I’ve been non-existent on The Dope for awhile. Between the phantom smell and the old habit of sitting at my desk reading the Dope/smoking, playing games/smoking, thinking & typing/smoking, it is just extremely uncomfortable. Even driving w/out smoking isn’t as bad. And I don’t even need breaks at work anymore. I do hope somehow I can get my comfort level back because I can no longer enjoy sitting at my computer. I haven’t even checked my email since I quit. I don’t even know how I’m managing this post, but I can tell you it’s not much fun. :frowning:

No breaks at work. I used to take smoke breaks every couple hours and it was so nice to get away for a few minutes from the Grind (and annoying co-workers). Smoke breaks were very much Escape Breaks. I miss those. I tried to take a non-smoking Escape Break and it just wasn’t the same. It was boring, plus it made me want to smoke so I stopped taking them. At least now I don’t even think about them as often; only when I’m having a particularly stressful moment. Last night, someone left a pack of Camels on the desk and I thought about having one just for shits and grins, but I didn’t. That amazes me. Though if they were Sampoernas, I don’t think I would have been able to hold out so easily.

I’ve decided that Wellbutrin is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I truly believe it mellowed out the demon inside. I never suffered the panic attacks trying to quit smoking used to trigger. But the first week at 150 mg/day, I felt supremely weird. It’s hard to describe, but I almost stopped taking it. It was as if I had finally stopped fitting into my body and my soul was about to take leave. I know that sounds weird, and it’s not quite right, but it was frightening. I wasn’t necessarily sad or anything, just sort of out there. For a week! Once I bumped up the dosage in the second week, it leveled off and I felt okay. Not happy, but just even. Maybe a bit ambivalent.

Then I stopped taking it last week mostly out of absent-mindedness (my prescription was left on my shunned desk) and I dipped down into a serious depression. :smack: I don’t know if you’re supposed to be weaned off of this stuff, but it has taken it’s toll on me. All the usual stresses are getting to me and I’m quite unhappy at the moment. But I’m still a non-smoker. For the most part.

My energy level along with my motivation is in the dumps with my happiness. I’ve been quite useless lately what with no smoke breaks available as a reward for accomplishing anything. Helloooo, Motivation? Where are you? Here I am, just sitting here waiting patiently for you to come back.

I’ve gained weight. I don’t know how much (I don’t want to know), but I’m guessing around 10 pounds so far. The oral fixation is a bigger beast than the nicotine addiction. I thought I could beat the weight gain, but I’m not. So I’m not smoking and I evidently gotta do something with my mouth. I can’t chew gum. Lollipops don’t appeal to me. I need crunchy, salty food. And all this chomping is really killing my TMJ. :frowning: But I figure it will eventually even out though and the weight will eventually come off. I’m not as attached to food as I was to smoking.

The Upside(s):
I smoked a cigarette last week with a friend and it did nothing for me. I don’t view any smoking as a backslide either. I just inherently know that the one cigarette is not going to turn me into a smoker again. I don’t treat it as a banned activity, so it doesn’t get an extreme amount of attention and coveting by me. But I’m past the desperate cravings and I’m at the point where it’s just as easy to shrug off a craving as it is to succumb to it. Last weekend, I went out to a smoky bar and, while I wanted to smoke, I didn’t find it all that difficult not to.

Cutting back on coffee has started to break it’s association with cigarettes and has inspired me to drink more water. Between the lack of smoking and the significant rise in water consumption, my skin is already showing signs of rehydration. It’s softer and more supple. My face is clearing up.

I’ve saved upwards of $60 since I’ve quit, although unfortunately the savings has been reabsorbed into daily spending. However, when I get up to about $100, I’m going to unabsorb it and open up a Non-Smoking Vacation in Hawaii account. Either that or I’ll get the boob job I’ve been wanting for years. But I’m going to take that little fortune I’ve been sending to Indonesia all these years and do something nice for myself. Hell, by the time I’ve amassed enough to really do something great, I’ll have definitely earned it.

I’ve started a trend at work. Because I was previously viewed as someone who would never successfully quit, several other smokers have decided that if I can do it, they surely can too. Apparently, even after three weeks I give off the aura of a nonchalant non-smoker. Even though they all hear me talking about having a smoke, they’re seeing me not smoking. So I’m inspiration. Cool. :slight_smile:

Surely there’s more to say, but I’m getting a little antsy right now, so it’s time to step away from the desk. Perhaps another time I can talk about The Book, but suffice it to say, I can’t give it much credit in any successes or failures. It left me unimpressed. Meh. – Sorry, buns3000. Perhaps I’m just too cynical for Mr. Carr. – Not to say, though, that it lacks value for many other people. I don’t regret spending the $15 to give it a shot. Judging by the reviews, I’ll likely pass it on to someone who’ll rave about it.

Good luck, Sampiro, and all you other future non-smokers.

77

I feel your pain Sampiro. In fact, having kicked the habit four days ago, I’m feeling every heart rending, gut clenching, bite-your-knuckles-til-they-fucking-spurt-blood glorious aspect of it.

Man, I want a fucking cigarette.

The two things stopping me from reneging on my vow and lighting up right this instant are chewing gum (not nicotine gum, ordinary chewing gum) and the knowledge that, since I’m gonna have to quit for good sometime, I might as well make it this time rather than do a kamikaze nose dive off the wagon and go through all this shit again later on.

All the best of luck, Sampiro!

78

I smoked a pack and a half of Marlboros a day for 10 years.

Here’s how I quit:
A bit of history, first. I tried quitting a few times, and it would work for a while, but then I’d slip and end up smoking again. Usually a “slip” happened after my first cup of coffee in the morning; after getting into my car; whenever I went to the bar; after work; etc., all the times or places where I’d always smoked previously.

Plus, everyone I knew smoked. All my friends, my co-workers, my roomates, my boyfriend, etc. Back then, smoking was permitted at my workplace (a restaurant), too, so there was no getting away from it. It was everywhere, so “slips” happened frequently and I always went back to smoking.

In 1990 I was preparing to move to another state and I thought: This might be a great time to quit smoking. I would be leaving my little smoker’s world and could start over fresh with new friends, new job, new roomates, etc. So I did.

I had my last cigarette in the terminal of LAX. But it took three months of diligence to really break the habit.

For the first three months I did not allow myself any coffee or alcohol because I knew if I did, I’d start smoking again. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, cuz I didn’t know anyone in my new state yet, and I was busy getting settled in.

The first two weeks were the WORST. I was cranky, snappy, and I coughed up the most disgusting green/grey phlegm you’ve ever seen in your life. But after that, I was ok, as long as I didn’t drink coffee or alcohol. I also made sure I had plenty of oral-fixation snacks: Tootsie Pops, red licorice, gum, whatever, just so I had something to put in my mouth.

Then, after three months, I went out drinking with friends. I did smoke, but when I woke up I did not want another cigarette. In fact, it made me feel so bad that I didn’t smoke again - until I went out drinking again.

This continued for about three years until finally, I didn’t even want one when I was drinking. I have not had a cigarette since 1994 or so. Wow! That’s more than 10 years!! Yay me!! :smiley:

79

No suggestions, just some moral support for those giving up the evil weed.

80

I’ve quit three times in my life. Once for two years, once for seven years, and this last time, twelve years so far. The bad decisions the first two times I had quit were just too stupid to explain. I was eight years old when I started. I smoked two or three packs a day, most of the time that I was a smoker, which was twenty-nine years total, out of fifty-eight.

So, some advice for quitting.

Take leave from work, and arrange to be somewhere you don’t know anyone starting the day after you quit. The day you quit, clean the house, and get rid of all the cigarettes, all the matches, and all the ashtrays. Do this without telling anyone.

Let me move back to that. Don’t’ tell anyone you are quitting. Not your spouse, your children, parents, boss, best friend or anyone at all. Not your therapist, or your doctor. You can pray about it if you want, but not out loud.

Your leave starts on Day Zero. Smoke 'em if you got em. Spend all day removing the equipment for smoking from your house, your car, your office, your golf bag, bowling bag, baseball mitt, and every other thing you own. Really scour your environment. No souvenir ashtrays, no zippo with a bullet hole that saved your life in 'Nam. It may have saved your life then, but it’s killing you now. Before you go to bed, the house, and the trashcans outside the house, and every other place is empty of cigarettes.

Get up early, and go somewhere you can stay for four days. The best place is somewhere you can start a new hobby, or challenging activity, and especially one that is at least somewhat incompatible with smoking. Bomb disposal school would be ideal, but perhaps impractical. Again, when you get there, you do not mention that you are quitting smoking to anyone. Don’t discuss it at all. Maybe the people here will decide you are just a very nervous asshole, with no patience at all. Tough. You are one, and you are now reaping what you have sown. This is not an exercise in making new friends; it’s detox.

Submerge yourself in activity. Do not attempt to diet, or reduce any other particular habit while you do this. You are going to be saying no to yourself a hundred and fifty times a day. That’s enough stress. Loose weight next year. The third day sucks really bad. You know this now. So plan the activities now, before you get there. Don’t make it a support issue. It sucks, you are gonna be a bitch on rollerskates, and it won’t be nice to be with you, at all. Face it. Live with it, and don’t expect anyone else to put up with it.

Half way through day three, you will be willing to die. It won’t seem like all that bad an idea. But you know intellectually that one whiff of cigarette smoke will set you back to day one, and you will have the entire shitstorm to go through again. Keep that in mind. One single drag means the whole thing starts again. Day four will suck a lot worse. But by the end of it, you will realize that it really wasn’t any worse than day three, you are just really tired of the way it all feels. Sleep a lot, if you can. Bathe a lot, if you can’t. Actually bathe a lot anyway, the whole time, and wash your clothes a lot, too.

Day five, you go back home. You still don’t mention quitting. In fact, you never mention it at all, until someone asks you if you quit. Then you answer is “I’ve been cutting back.” You don’t admit to quitting for at least a year. You decline offered cigarettes with a “Naah, not now, I’m cutting back.”

Some warnings. The habits of smoking will persist. Pocket patting, hanging around the places where people smoke, finding old cigarettes. They do go away eventually, but it takes a long time for all of the behaviors to extinguish. Every one needs to be considered in advance, and an exit strategy planned. This is serious business.

Why the secrecy? Because whether or not you want to believe it, lots of people will sabotage you if they know you are quitting. Your best friend, your wife, and folks who don’t smoke. I don’t know why, but they will. And it makes you look such a fool to plan out loud and try to fail in secrecy. The opposite looks much better.

Then there are the previously examined and planned changes in your lifestyle. There are seven or eight activities, and situations during which you always smoke. Every smoker has them. You need to stop doing those things, or dramatically change the way, time, or place you do them. New sets of behaviors that replace the ones that make you light up, out of habit. (As opposed to out of addiction). This might mean giving up poker with the guys, or the weekly D&D game. It’s a tough choice, but until you get by the first year, you cannot face the environment of a smoke filled room. A whiff of tobacco smoke will put you back at day one. After a couple of years, that won’t be true anymore, but for now, make the changes.

I know that doesn’t have a lot of good news in it. But it does have all the bad news. It is doable, and it is far more effective than patches, gum, and other substitute routes for the same addictive poison. You can do this, if you do one thing first. Really decide to do it. Don’t decide to try it. There is no try, there is only do, or don’t. Practicing quitting without making the decision is practicing failing. You don’t need to do that. Group quitting is bad, too, because any one failure in the group undermines the entire group. (Unless the first guy to light up drops dead on the spot, which would probably help everyone stay on task.)

If you got the money, doing this at Disney World, or Yellowstone, or Key Largo has a lot to be said for it. No sense suffering any more than you have to. But even on the cheap, make sure you are in a low stress environment. The kids go to grandma’s, and you pay granny the bribe she demands. It will be worth it. Summer camp, for the kids, if Granny ain’t buyin’. Tell your hubby it’s a week long yoga class. (Actually, a yoga retreat is incompatible with smoking, and would be an excellent choice of destination.) If he wants to come along, explain that a lot of the girls are shy about their weight, so no men are allowed.

When you do it on your own, it lasts. Starting again was never a matter of slipping. I actually decided to smoke again, both times. (Yeah, really stupid, I know.)

I won’t wish you luck. Luck is for the unprepared.

Tris

“It was a woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.” ~ W.C. Fields ~