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View Full Version : 19 days now w/out those nasty things you light on fire and stick in your mouth.



Rich Engelhardt
08-19-2013, 8:53 AM
:)

It's nice to be able to breathe for a change.

glenn bradley
08-19-2013, 8:59 AM
Congrats. You will reap the benefits now and in the future. Soon you will find you lose the requirement to salt and pepper the heck outta your foods and your sense of smell will return. Keep up the good work.

Jerry Thompson
08-19-2013, 9:51 AM
I have no idea how I quit. It is a powerful addiction. I just didn't smoke and every smoker around me did their best to get me back to it. That was Jan. 2 1972. It took 2 weeks to get over the consent craving. I get to be less each day. Then one still has the compulsion for awhile. After a few days I could not stand the smell of them but still wanted one. That never made sense then nor now. You can do it. There is freedom down the road.

Greg Peterson
08-19-2013, 10:49 AM
You're over the hump and have a good head of steam now. Keep on going.

For me, the intensity of the urge diminished slower than the frequency with which it occurred. Fortunately, the urge never really intensified, just stayed the same. Meanwhile, the things that would trigger the urge lost their effectiveness and the urge became a infrequent visitor rather than a constant companion. In other words, I had fewer urges with each passing day. Yeah, it gets easier each day.

Ken Fitzgerald
08-19-2013, 10:58 AM
Congratulations! It's a tough habit to quit!

There will be times when the desire will raise up again but you will be able to ignore it. I quit several years ago and still on occasion will pass by a smoker the smoke smells good but I have no desire anymore.

Eric DeSilva
08-19-2013, 11:04 AM
Excellent. I'm now at almost 5 years. You go from thinking about it every minute to thinking about it every hour to thinking about it every day to thinking about it every month or so. So it does get easier.

Michael Weber
08-19-2013, 11:15 AM
I admire your will power. I never smoked (well for a few days in high school till my parents caught me [thank God]) so can't imagine what it takes. I know it is very addictive. If you can do it for 19 days then you can do it permanently, congratulations.

Gordon Eyre
08-19-2013, 11:23 AM
Congratulations Rich, keep it up and you will never be sorry.

Jeff Monson
08-19-2013, 12:10 PM
Good for you Rich! If you made it this far, you are over the hump. Pretty soon the smell of them will make you think "I cant believe I used to smoke".

Jim Koepke
08-19-2013, 12:50 PM
Rich,

Good for you.

Hopefully my last cigarette was on July 16th. It made me sick after 3 puffs. My battle with tobacco has been going on for years. For my health I know stopping smoking is imperative.

One day at a time and I just have to remember, I don't smoke, the cigarette smokes and I am just the sucker.

jtk

Chris Padilla
08-19-2013, 2:25 PM
I dunno...I stopped putting firecrackers in my mouth when I was a kid, Rich! ;)

Joe Mioux
08-19-2013, 2:43 PM
Congrats on getting this far. Ironically, I have quit a forum (not smc) for the same time period. Unfortunately, I still have cravings to go back to it.

Raymond Fries
08-19-2013, 4:44 PM
Awesome...

...Congratulations on winning the battle!!

You are over the hump. Enjoy the fresh air.

I used to be a smoker over 25 years ago. Looking back, I do not see how I could have smoked. The smell of smoke really makes me cough now.

David Weaver
08-19-2013, 5:06 PM
:)

It's nice to be able to breathe for a change.

Rich, have you incentivized yourself by putting your "cigrit" money in a jar and counting it?

I smoked when I was in college. A lot of people did, it was still OK to do it in the dorms back then. At some point, the "cigrit" taxes went up while I was in college and that was enough for me to put a stop to it. But I know some folks who smoked back then were hooked a lot harder than I ever was despite not smoking more than I did, and they would sell the shoes off their feet to get a pack of "cigrits" if they had to.

Prashun Patel
08-19-2013, 5:18 PM
congratulations and keep it up. Now, let's all go breathe in some sawdust! ;)

Mike Henderson
08-19-2013, 5:25 PM
I smoked as a young man and when I was in the army. In Vietnam, a carton (that's a carton, not a pack) of cigarettes was about $2 at the PX. But several years after I got back to being a civilian, I quit. And I'm glad I did. As others have described, the craving goes on for a while. I had to go through all the experiences that I associated with cigarettes without smoking before I could say I was really quit. A tough one was going to a bar and having a beer and not smoking.

You can make it, just do it day-by-day.

Mike

Jason Roehl
08-20-2013, 8:14 AM
Good for you and the people around you, Rich! Keep it up.

I, too, was a recreational college smoker (~pack/week at most), but thankfully I never got hooked. Most of the time, I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke (I do like a cigar occasionally still), but every once in a while I'll catch a whiff that gives me a mild craving, which I subsequently ignore and shake my head that I ever did the cancer stick thing in the first place.

Dennis Peacock
08-20-2013, 8:24 AM
Keep it up Rich..!!! You CAN do it.!!!! I've been tobacco free for about 6 years now. Stay strong.....

Justin Ludwig
08-20-2013, 8:35 AM
Congrats. You will reap the benefits now and in the future. Soon you will find you lose the requirement to salt and pepper the heck outta your foods and your sense of smell will return. Keep up the good work.


+1 on this note. Depending on how long you smoked, pretty soon you'll start tasting foods and developing cravings for tastes you forgot you had. I had to fight through 3 weeks of feeling like I couldn't get a deep breath when I quit. Drove me nuts but I persevered. You can do it, keep it up!

Frederick Skelly
08-20-2013, 11:04 PM
Good news Rich - congratulations!
Fred

David G Baker
08-21-2013, 12:12 AM
40 years for me. One of the best things I ever did for myself and those around me was to quit. It was killing me slowly. Keep it up, it gets easier.

Rich Engelhardt
08-21-2013, 7:50 AM
@ 2:30 this afternoon it'll be exactly three weeks. :)

Breaking a 50 year habit (I'm 61 and I started the nasty habit when I was 11) is both rougher than I ever thought & easier than it was the other two times I tried to quit.
I quit once for 9 months back in 1971 and in 1998 for 4 months.
I recall, both times all I did was crave, crave, crave - then finally - cave as I caved into the cravings..

This time is different though. I can actually feel an improvement in how I feel, where the other two times I never did feel any better.

Joe Kieve
08-21-2013, 8:49 AM
Rich...congrats! Just a word of caution, don't take up chewing tobacco as a substitute. I smoked for 20+ years and quit but started chewing after quitting. It's harder to get off of it than cigarrettes. Saw a billboard years ago that said "the tobacco industry is not your friend". So true.

Chris Parks
08-26-2013, 7:54 AM
I quit twenty years ago. I was walking down the road and tossed the pack of cigarettes in the bin and never bought any more. I don't think I have ever felt that I was free of them as I am sure if I had one now I would take it up again. I can't afford to do that as a pack of cigarettes in Australia costs at least twenty dollars due to government taxes.

Bill Cunningham
08-31-2013, 8:10 PM
I quit 'cold turkey' June 2nd 1982... Got a vasectomy June 6th 1982.. That gave me a target for my pain and anxiety ...ha.
the hardest times are: (no pun on the vasectomy)
2 hours
2 days,
2 weeks
2 months
2 years
yer done...
Took me a full two years before I was no longer hacking up brown stuff..
It 'may' be a bit easier today with fewer people offering you a smoke compared to 30-40 years ago, but it's still a upward slog

Jim Koepke
08-31-2013, 10:06 PM
It 'may' be a bit easier today with fewer people offering you a smoke compared to 30-40 years ago, but it's still a upward slog

My quitting is only easier because I would have to drive about 15 miles to purchase tobacco. One of my neighbors smokes, but I try to go get the mail before he is home from work and sitting outside drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

jtk

paul cottingham
09-01-2013, 12:16 AM
Good stuff! Hang in there.

Bill Cunningham
09-05-2013, 9:33 PM
My quitting is only easier because I would have to drive about 15 miles to purchase tobacco. One of my neighbors smokes, but I try to go get the mail before he is home from work and sitting outside drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

jtk

In the 70's, I used to work for diving company owned by a guy who would get up at 3 in the morning, and drive from Toronto to Buffalo to buy the cigars he just run out of.. No one in Canada sold them. They smelled like a combination of burning rabbit fur and shredded tires, but he had to have them!!