Oh, my "anniversary" passed and I didn't even realize!

[NanceXToo]

January 18th was my six year anniversary of quitting smoking :)

 

Time Smoke Free:

2201 days, 12 hours, 21 minutes, and 23 seconds

 

Cigarettes NOT Smoked:

77,053 :svengo:

 

Lifetime Saved:

19 months, 18 days, 14 hours

 

Money Saved:

$11,560.50 (If only I had literally saved it all this time and had access to it now! :D)

 

 

So, happy (belated) "quit-smoking" anniversary, to me! :party:

 

Gone are the days of smelly clothes, wasting money, freezing my butt off outside just to have a cigarette, not being able to make it through a movie or a restaurant dinner without obsessing over wanting a cigarette, feeling my lungs struggle to take in a good, deep breath at night, worrying about whether I was going to get lung cancer and leave my kids without a mother, feeling guilty for being a bad influence on my kids and so on and so forth...

 

Yeah, quitting smoking was probably the best thing I've ever done for myself.

 

If you are also a former smoker who managed to quit, kudos to you, too!

 

If you are a smoker who is thinking about quitting but hasn't yet been able to--- you CAN! If I could, you can! (I smoked nearly two packs a day for years). It's not easy in the beginning- but it DOES get easier. And it's SO worth it. Check out quitnet.com and good luck to you!

 

If you never smoked to begin with- good job, you're a lot smarter than I was. LOL.

 

ETA: My husband quit about four months after I did, btw. He'll have 6 years in May. :)

Edited January 29, 2011 by NanceXToo

[Gratia271]

Kudos to you!!! You have done an amazing job!

[sheryl]

Oh, congrats, Nance! That is too great! My dh smokes and has for many, many years.........it's very sad to me.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

:party::party:

[Kathleen in VA]

Congratulations, Nance! I know it must have been very difficult. My mom was a heavy smoker and tried many times to quit. She never succeeded. She died of lung cancer at age 63 in 1995.

[NanceXToo]

Congratulations, Nance! I know it must have been very difficult. My mom was a heavy smoker and tried many times to quit. She never succeeded. She died of lung cancer at age 63 in 1995.

 

:( :grouphug:

[Dana]

Great job!

[Hedgehog]

Congratulations! I find adding up the amount of money saved is always a shock - in a good way!

[NanceXToo]

Congratulations! I find adding up the amount of money saved is always a shock - in a good way!

 

True- but not as much of a shock as looking at the actual figure of how many cigarettes I WOULD have smoked between then and now if I hadn't quit when I did.

 

You think of a pack of cigarettes as being 20 cigarettes or so but who really thinks about how they add up?

 

The very thought of seventy-seven THOUSAND cigarettes' worth of tar, nicotine and so on building up on one's longs is rather staggering, and that's just for the six year period I didn't smoke! I don't even want to think about how many it was over all those years I DID smoke!

[Forget-Me-Not]

Congratulations!

[HRAAB]

Congratulations!!! It is such a very, very hard thing to do. You should celebrate this anniversary, every year, and watch the benefits add up. I quit over 25 years ago because my dh (then boyfriend hated it). Sometimes, I still wouldn't mind having one, but it's just a fleeting thought.

 

I hope you don't mind if I share this with my sil. His parents are both heavy smokers, all their children smoke, it's just a vicious circle. He wants to quit, but is having such a difficult time. My dd wants him to quit. Then he goes home and mom, dad, sister and brother are all smoking. Any encouragement I can give him, I do.

[TN Mama]

Good for you!!

 

I don't remember the date I quit, but it was 11 years ago.

[Mommy22alyns]

Way to go, Nance!!

[sheryl]

Congratulations, Nance! I know it must have been very difficult. My mom was a heavy smoker and tried many times to quit. She never succeeded. She died of lung cancer at age 63 in 1995.

 

 

Nance and Kathleen, I'm going to print off this thread after more people reply to show my dh he CAN quit. Although I think it boils down to desire, right? Nance, you had it and K, perhaps your dear mom was not motivated? See, my dh "knows" he should stop, but is not motivated. Are there enough stories out there to hope that these real life situations existed and that in and of itself is enough to kick **** and kick the habit....where motivation lacks. Does that make sense?

[Kathleen in VA]

Nance and Kathleen, I'm going to print off this thread after more people reply to show my dh he CAN quit. Although I think it boils down to desire, right? Nance, you had it and K, perhaps your dear mom was not motivated? See, my dh "knows" he should stop, but is not motivated. Are there enough stories out there to hope that these real life situations existed and that in and of itself is enough to kick **** and kick the habit....where motivation lacks. Does that make sense?

 

The day my mom's obituary was published there was a "Dear Abby" letter in the paper as well pleading for smokers to please quit because the writer had just gone through watching her mother die of lung cancer. Quite uncanny.

 

Sheryl, tell your dh that dying by suffocation, drowning in your own lung fluid, is a very slow, painful process. It is very difficult to watch - I can't imagine what it would be like to experience. Hopefully, he can gain the determination to quit, but also remember that it is a very difficult addiction to overcome.

[NanceXToo]

Thank you, everyone, for the words of congratulations! :)

 

I hope you don't mind if I share this with my sil. His parents are both heavy smokers, all their children smoke, it's just a vicious circle. He wants to quit, but is having such a difficult time. My dd wants him to quit. Then he goes home and mom, dad, sister and brother are all smoking. Any encouragement I can give him, I do.

 

I don't mind at all. I'd tell him: It's not easy. It's definitely not. But it's only "not easy" for a little while. Eventually, it isn't hard anymore. You get a lifetime of benefits for going through a relatively short "rough period" and then it's just done. The urges do go away. And I really do feel like if I could do it, anybody can do it. Get support (that quitnet site I linked to is great) and stay busy. Just keep your mind off it til the cravings pass. And they do pass. Of course, they come back frequently and quickly early on- but that gets less and less as time goes by.

 

Good for you!!

 

I don't remember the date I quit, but it was 11 years ago.

 

Congrats!! That really is great! :)

 

Nance and Kathleen, I'm going to print off this thread after more people reply to show my dh he CAN quit. Although I think it boils down to desire, right? Nance, you had it and K, perhaps your dear mom was not motivated? See, my dh "knows" he should stop, but is not motivated. Are there enough stories out there to hope that these real life situations existed and that in and of itself is enough to kick **** and kick the habit....where motivation lacks. Does that make sense?

 

Yes- I was motivated because I was starting to smoke too much and I would lay down at night and it would be hard to take a deep breath in, like my lungs would just feel heavy or something, and I would be afraid I was going to get lung cancer and die and leave my kids without a mom, and it was scary. And I kept knowing I should quit but not being able to get up enough motivation to do it until finally one day I just did. And don't get me wrong, it sucked at first lol. I think I slept a lot the first day or two. I was nasty to everybody heh. And then I just tried really hard to stay busy and distracted. And it got easier and easier- and while it wasn't easy going through that period, like I said, that period was just a drop in the bucket in my life- I have a lifetime of benefits now basically in exchange for going through a few weeks of misery. It's worth it. (And the money has been much better spent!) :)