I, a total internet stranger, am proud of you.
No sarcasm intended at all, you have done a fantastic thing and it’s a great achievement.
Cheers!
Gleena
4 years on Jan. 9th.
Congrats RadicalPi! You should be proud.
high-fives RadicalPi
^^^^^ What they said.
-D/a
It has been, as I noted above, a year since I quit smoking, and for the most part, I have to say that it’s now something that I don’t think about all that much. There have been entire weeks when I don’t think about cigarettes or smoking. That, I have to admit, is something that surprises me a lot. I remember where I was a year ago, right at the beginning of withdrawal, and it’s so very, very different now.
But I do have to say that when I do think about smoking, such as when I smell smoke or read something somewhere, it’s usually mixed with a twinge of fear. Fear that I’m going to go back to smoking. It’s not a strong fear, in itself, but I do think that I would consider it a failure if I went back to smoking, and that possibility scares me. I know that I’m making it into a bigger deal than what it is, but I’m not really sure of the best way to deal with this.
This is something that has bothered me for about six months, as I’ve said before in this thread. I think it’s due to not thinking about smoking all that often. Since I’m no longer on constant vigilance, I’m afraid that that will open the path for going back to smoking. The way to avoid it would be constant vigilance, but I really can’t do that because it is simply too tiresome. As I’ve said before, I think it’s a question of trust in myself, which I have a tendency to lack. I wish that this would change, but I’m really at a loss about how to do that.
Maybe, though, it’s just a question of time. I smoked socially for about three years before smoking constantly for about eleven. Reversing that, it stands to reason, will take some time as well, even more than just a year.
But that self-doubt is a large part of why I didn’t post in this thread between July and November. I don’t particularly care to acknowledge this self-doubt of mine, and so I tend toward avoidance. I always remembered this thread when a new monthly milestone came, but I let myself not post in it so that I didn’t have to say that things hadn’t changed all that much from one month to the next. A year, though, is too big of a milestone to miss, and I knew I’d regret not posting here, even if actually doing so is a bit unpleasant.
Despite these misgivings, it has been a productive year for me healthwise. Besides quitting smoking, I have lost about sixty-five pounds. That came about for two reasons. First, in a photograph taken at my goddaughter’s christening in February, I thought that I looked like crap. Now that’s partially due to weight gain caused by quitting smoking, but still I thought that I looked horrible. Second, a good friend of mine, only about a year or so older, was diagnosed with diabetes, and for whatever reason diabetes gives me the heebie-jeebies. I do not want that. So, overall, I have a lot more energy, which is good, since I am an academic looking for a permanent position, and I am glad that I can be productive for longer than I was able to before. I won’t say that I’m feeling good, although there are moments when I do, since I’m pretty stressed out most of the time.
Financially, I often wonder where the money I’ve saved has gone. But I do actually know that. I’ve been using the money to pay down my debts. Credit cards in particular. A while back, my main credit card raised my interest rate to 24.75%, which is oppressive on a balance (that I know I shouldn’t have had) of about $8,000. Since then, I’ve been on a rampage to pay it off as quickly as possible. It took eight months, but it’s done. Given that about half of that money was smoking money, it didn’t hurt as much as it could have. So, I don’t have too much extra money lying around, but I do have a bit more peace of mind.
It’s mostly the little things that I appreciate about not smoking, even though I’m not always “active” in my appreciation of them. First is the smell. I never really liked the smell of cigarette smoke, especially stale cigarette smoke, and now I don’t have to smell it anymore. Now, granted, I had become mostly immune to it over the years, but I could always smell it when I came back to my bedroom after I took a shower. I am glad that’s gone. I also like not having to take a break every forty-five minutes or so in whatever I’m doing to go have a cigarette. Although it did take me a while to figure out what to do when I actually do need a break from working. My breaks do tend to be longer now though. Also, I’m happy that I don’t have to deal with the stupid crap of smoking like I can’t smoke here because So-and-So doesn’t like it; and I have to smoke extra before I get on the airplane because there’s going to be a gap of eight hours before where I can’t smoke; and I can’t smoke at the bar so I have to stand in the rain (although this isn’t such a big deal in Santa Barbara thanks to the tourists); and other things like that.
I will say that probably the thing I’m happiest about is that I didn’t really like myself all that much as a smoker. Whether it was my own conscience or hidden desires or simply social disapprobation, I did not like being who I was. I ignored that a lot, proclaiming that I was a rebel against prevailing ideas of well-being (and I won’t say that I took no enjoyment from that), but, still, somewhere inside me, I knew it was doing me little good. I think that’s relevant to the ultimate reason why I decided to quit even if it’s something that I didn’t think about consciously until just now. I can’t say that I’m comfortable with myself as a nonsmoker, as I explained above, but it’s a different type of discomfort with myself. I’m a bit more comfortable in my own skin, but much less about the future and of my abilities, if that makes any sense.
So that’s where I am now, at a year and change since my last cigarette. It’s a struggle, but it’s a different kind of struggle. On the whole, though, I will say that I am pretty proud of myself, and maybe even a bit surprised, at what I’ve done.
Here is the current counter:
I stopped smoking on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:45:00 GMT.
It has been 54 weeks, 1 days, 20 hours, 18 minutes and 31 seconds since I quit.
I have saved $ 3760.48 by choosing not to smoke 12534 cigarettes.
More importantly, I saved 13 weeks, 4 days 18 hours 4 minutes of my life!
[quote=“RadicalPi, post:14, topic:606130”]
Well, I must say I’m off to a rocky start
We quitters are no different than alcoholics, one smoke can lead us back to the pack so we have to keep that in mind. If you slip you have to start again but don’t give up
I think that’s just the vestiges of the addiction talking. After I quit, for years afterward I would dream that I had taken up smoking again, just one here and one there, and soon would be a regular smoker again (in the dream). In fact, I dreamed it again last week, yet I haven’t smoked in 35 years. But in real life, I have no desire to smoke whatsoever, and have never been tempted. That fear may never completely go away for you, but as long as you stay decided that you’re not going to smoke, you don’t have to worry that you’ll begin again. Don’t let that uneasiness disturb you. Just remain resolute that you will not allow yourself to ever slip in one smoke or one puff, because you know that will cause you to begin again. So just stay firm! You’re doing fine! 
I’ve resurrected this thread since it has now been more than three years since I’ve quit smoking, and I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of where I am right now.
Overall, the past three years have been pretty crazy. I finished my dissertation and graduated, and since then, I have been jumping around from job to job.
But, in all that time, I have not smoked a single cigarette. And it hasn’t really been all that hard, truth be told. I’ve thought about smoking maybe four times over the past year, pretty much always in response to a random craving I’d get. I’d be hiking in the woods, for example, enjoying nature, and I’d get a craving for a cigarette. And I’d think it strange. I wanted a cigarette, but since I wasn’t going to have one, I’d spend some time pondering the craving and wondering where it came from, much like I would if I found an unusually colored rock. So, while the cravings haven’t stopped completely, their immediacy and frequency have definitely decreased.
Most of the time, though, as I said, I don’t think about smoking at all. And right now, I guess, that feels like something of a letdown. I know that I’m healthier and have more money, but I still essentially feel the same as I ever have. I’m still me. I still get annoyed by people who talk in libraries; I still like to stay up late at night. I’m the same person I was before except for this thing.
That said, reading over my earlier posts made me feel like I was reading the words of someone else. It was difficult to remember the situations and emotions that I was describing. They are things that I no longer go though. I barely remember them. I mean, I remember that they happened and I remember what I did in response to them, but I only remember that going through them was painful. I don’t remember the pain itself.
Except for the confidence bit. Perhaps because I’m going through a bit of a rough patch right now, or perhaps it’s just part of who I am, but that part still rings true. I recall that lack of confidence about being able to control myself very clearly, and I still feel it when I consciously decide to ponder think about where I am with regard to smoking. That’s part of why it took me more than a month to post this, even though I counted down the seconds to the three-year milestone on my quit-smoking counter. For whatever reason, I am very aware of things outside my control, and I am very aware of the weaknesses of human willpower, and that awareness makes me very uncomfortable.
Financially, I’ve saved a lot of money, but at this point, it doesn’t really feel like anything special. I don’t say to myself “You can buy this now because it’ll only cost you costs three-days worth of smoking,” like I used to. That money has long been reappropriated in my budgeting. That said, I do have a general awareness that my current situation is precarious enough that having to support my old habit now would be ruinous.
Still, on the whole, I’d have to say that I am proud of myself, and I do like seeing the numbers on my counter get bigger and bigger. And since it can be months between the times that I really look at it now, those numbers seem to be getting bigger faster. To look at my past from what very much seems to be the top of the mountain is something that I’d never thought I’d be able to do. There is no real struggle from day to day. It’s now something that I do to the point that it is not really something that I do. And now that I’m taking the time to think about it like that, I’m amazed.
I stopped smoking on 12/18/2011, 2:45:00 AM
It has been 161 weeks, 6 days, 17 hours, 59 minutes and 25 seconds since I quit.
I have saved $11223.9, by not smoking 37413 cigarettes.
More importantly, I have saved 40 weeks, 5 days, 19 hours and 3 minutes of my life!
How is your weight? Did you balloon up, or have you managed to control it?
I gained about 20 pounds within the first three months of smoking, but then I lost 65 over the next year. I’m still within 5 pounds of that now.
Remarkable. Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your experiences.
Thanks for posting the update. It really is amazing how normal being a non smoker is once you stop,because it seems like it never will be normal when you start the quitting process. 3 years is big. Good job.
Congratulations 
and thanks for the update.
Good job!
This May will mark 23 years smoke-free for me after an almost 17-year habit.
I had my last infusion of tobacco just before midnight on 09/13/2002. I used the patch to help with cravings, but I learned very early NOT to put the patch on just before bed (nicotine dreams!).
One thing that I credit with a successful quit was joining a message board dedicated to former smokers helping current smokers quit. That, and I had a friend tell me that after she quit, whenever she was tempted to start again, she would remind herself how hard it was to quit – why would she want to put herself through that again?
After the first several weeks (YMMV), I started to feel like I could beat it. Whenever I heard myself saying, “I need a cigarette!”, I was able to rephrase that as, “I really want a cigarette, but I don’t need one!”
Two years later, when I felt that I had really beaten the addiction, my wife and I visited New Orleans, where everyone smoked everywhere. I managed to make it through that without lighting up!
What worked for me may not work for you. The key is, to never quit quitting, and, if something is not working for you, try something else. There are many, many different techniques; sometimes you have to mix and match before you hit on the right strategy (or combinations of strategies!).
Keep trying! If you have a setback, do NOT consider that a failure, just a setback. It can only be called “failure” when you give up trying.
I’m 9 months smoke free. Gave up the cigarettes back in April. I got a cigar to have on new years eve but only had a few drags and put it out. Otherwise haven’t had anything.
I fully support the “never quit quitting” motif, I’ve gone 12 months twice before and relapsed, this time I’m confident I’ll be able to last.
It has now been ten years (and ten days) since I quit smoking, and I thought it would be a good idea to give a rundown of how things are with me now.
I’m fine.
The struggle is minimal. Smoking is pretty much a thing of my past and not something I associate myself with in any particular way. It’s pretty much a completely different world for me now, except for two things.
-
I still have empathy for current smokers, in that I generally do not support increased cigarette taxes and the like, favoring more encouraging methods to help people quit smoking.
-
That whole confidence thing I experienced comes up every now and again. There was a question that NAF asked me a while back, “What do you think you’re missing?” that I read a few moments ago as I was going over this thread, and I was able to answer it in my mind immediately even though it took me a while to work through it the first time: I will be very disappointed in myself if I fail.
Now, as before, I don’t think about smoking all that often, but I did earlier this month as my ten-year anniversary approached, and I got that same sort of frisson and doubt that I used to, and that made me uncomfortable. I don’t know why thinking about smoking and quitting still makes me apprehensive, but it seems to be the opposite of “out of sight, out of mind,” which is my situation most of the time. In any case, I’m happy to have come across that question, since it really helped me understand what I was feeling a few weeks back.
Still though, what surprises me most now, ten years out, is that the difficulties of the beginning are not something I remember all that well, and it took some time to recall some of the experiences I mentioned in this thread. Those struggles are by and large gone. It seems like a different lifetime almost, and except for those two things above, nothing about the process of quitting, mental or physical, has bothered me for about six years. I don’t have random cravings anymore, I don’t have dreams about smoking anymore, I don’t worry about trying to survive long-distance flights without smoking anymore, I don’t worry about what I’ll do during work breaks anymore, I don’t worry about smoking when I’m drinking anymore, nothing like that. It’s very different, very, very, very different.
With that said, let me thank all of you who offered their help and support over the past ten years, especially back in 2011 and 2012. I appreciate it very much. And I offer these musings, in part, in support of others who are thinking about quitting to describe what they might experience in the short and long term.
What, you’re too good to hang out with us here except on stopping smoking anniversaries? 
Seriously, good on you for sticking it out. I was a heavy smoker when I was young, like 3 or 4 packs a day, especially if I was drinking. I didn’t think it would work, but I bought the patch and from day one I never had a desire for a cigarette. Lucky me. I used the full strength patch for only a week, then skipped the middle strengths and used the low strength for a week just to be sure. Haven’t had a desire to smoke ever since.
What took me some time was occupying my hands. They didn’t have fidget devices back then, that would have helped. I used the pop tops from two or three beer/soda cans and kind of shuffled them between my thumb and first two fingers. Had to keep that up for several weeks.
I’m so happy that you have smoking entirely behind you!
10 years is a big deal too! Thanks for posting an update!
I admittedly don’t hang out here as much as I used to. There’s no particular reason, though, it just kind of happened.
That said, I thought it important to come back to this thread, since it is something that I’ve thought about now and again over the past ten years, and it is my official record of quitting smoking. It was good to read over my own thoughts and to recall just how hard it was and to really see how hard it isn’t right now.
In any case, the board sure has changed in my absence. That took a bit of figuring out before I could make my post. I’m glad it’s still here, though, as well as many of the people who posted ten years ago.