Good for you mate,keep it up.
In a few hours I will be 48 hours into yet another stop smoking attempt. I refuse to say I “quit” or am trying to “quit” because that sounds so final and like a punishment, which only makes me want a smoke even more. I hope I can explain this so it makes sense, but this is whats working for me at the moment:
I have found over the past couple of days that if I just tell myself I’m abstaining rather than quitting I feel much better. Instead of saying to myself that I can’t have another cigarette I keep reminding myself that I can in fact have one if I choose. The store is right down the street and full of cigarettes. I am just choosing not to go buy any. This seems to be working great. The minute I realize I can have one if I choose to I somehow feel instantly comforted and it’s several more hours before I think about it again.
Now I’m no rookie to quitting. I have smoked from the age of 12 to my current 40 years of age and have quit several times, once for almost 7 months, so I am well aware this may be just another failure in the making. I have tried everything from gum and patches to Chantix and cold turkey. But if I am ever going to be successful it won’t be without trying so…time will tell.
Good luck to all the other struggling with this and congrats to all the successes.
Stillwell, I’m not going to toot my own horn and say “you can do it, just like me!” That’s not what this thread was about. It was to toot my own horn and say “I didi it!” I know full well how hard it can be. Each person’s time will or will not come. Don’t think of it as a failure in the making, just do the best you can. Of course it won’t happen without trying. And it won’t happen without wanting it to. Believe me, I loved smoking, I love the memory of smoking–wouldn’t it be great that smoking was not bad for you?
The key for me, and I hope for others trying to knock it the fuck off is: don’t make such a huge deal of it. If you can quit, good for you. If you can’t, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors either, but don’t beat your self up.
I was doing a lot of cleaning lately and found a pack of Marlboro menthols in an old gym bag. I didn’t smoke menthols, but…
Haven’t smoked any of them. Haven’t thrown the pack out either. Yep.