Sage Advice from Quitnet Members (Re-Posts)

From teach404 on 4/18/2014 10:23:19 AM
This is soooooo how I see smoking now.
Running late - gotta scoot.
KTQ
Cara
D2956
*****************************
I was just reviewing my library and found this story I originally posted back in Dec 2009.

The Jailbreak

you're in a cold, dark, dirty prison cell. you've been here for a very long time. your jailer comes by to check on you every hour or so, except during the really late night/early morning hours when he knows you'll be sleeping.

one day, a friend manages to smuggle in a hacksaw and leaves it with you. the only time you can use it is during those overnight hours when your jailer is not checking up on you regularly. because it's so dark, the hacksaw occasionally slips, and you scrape a knuckle or tear a bit of skin off of your hand. you don't cry out; you don't want your jailer to hear you. besides, you know the pain is only temporary, and it's a small price to pay for your freedom.

you grit your teeth and get on with it.

finally, you make your escape; you've cut through the shackles that bound you and you're free! you don't even feel the cuts and scrapes that you got while trying to free yourself; they're nothing. inconsequential. you're overjoyed with your new-found sense of freedom.

but, after being free for a time, you start to look back almost fondly on your time in prison. you think, "that wasn't so bad; at least i knew what to expect. and my jailer wasn't such a bad fellow, was he? maybe i'll just stop by for a quick visit..."

so you go back. the door is open, and the jailer seems happy to see you; he says he's missed you, and wonders why you left him - he was only trying to be your friend... you tell him that you only came back for a quick visit, just this one time, and he tells you that's fine, he'll leave the door open; you can leave again any time you want. so you go in and visit for a few minutes, and, true to his word, he leaves the door open. you leave again.

but this time you don't get quite as far away before you start feeling nostalgic again, and you go back for "just one more" visit. the jailer smiles and lets you in, leaving the door open like he did before. you visit with him for a few minutes and leave again, but this time, you're barely out the door before you turn around and go back, thinking, "i'll just stay for a little while; the door's still open; i can still leave anytime i want..."

but the longer you stay, the less you feel like leaving, until, finally, you find yourself asking the jailer to close the door for you... you watch him turn his key in the lock, and you follow him back down to your old cell; it seems colder, darker, and dirtier than ever before. you feel depressed. defeated. how could you have done this to yourself? you wonder if life is worth living, if you have to live it in this prison cell. all seems hopeless...

suddenly, you remember the hacksaw that your friend smuggled in to you; is it still here? yes! it's still here!!

does the thought of scraping your knuckles again stop you from using it?



Just one is all it would take....
dave

credits: writer... kevin foster

From LocalGuy_III on 7/9/2009 12:17:25 PM
Why So Many Fail:

Since success rates for quitting aren't very good, I think it's useful to examine some of the reasons why so many people simply can't quit. One of the biggest reasons, in my opinion, is that MANY people never get to experience the "easy days". By that, I mean the days that happen at the one year or two year mark, where smoking isn't much more than a distant memory, and certainly is no longer a daily struggle. The "easy days" are an awesome thing, once you get there. Most people who get to a year or two stay quit for good.

The problem is, there seem to be billions of people who quit short-term (a couple weeks to a couple months), only to return to smoking again. For many of them, it's a serial quitting treadmill of short term quit - relapse, short term quit - relapse. And the sad thing for those people is that they've only seen the "hard days". They've only experienced those awful early weeks and months that certainly aren't any fun. For almost all of those people, if they'd have just held out long enough ..... "easy days" were on the horizon, and the end to the struggle was in sight.

Anyway, I guess my point is ...... lots of people fail simply because they don't realize that "easy days" really do await them. Quits go up in smoke every day, with the person feeling like they can't live like that forever. It's our job as long-term quitters to remind them how much easier it eventually becomes, and that they won't have to live that way forever, as long as they never light up again. In the realm of breaking addictions, complete abstinence is the key, and with complete abstinence, "easy days" will eventually come.

Jeff
July 2000

A few tips about the dramatic exit
From juggler on 1/16/2002 8:25:42 AM

Sadly, the Q seems to have disposed of nearly all of the seminal departure posts that were safely stored in the "And so farewell" club. Some of them were truly fantastic, not least the poster who likened himself to Jesus Christ and all those who disagreed with him as Nazis.

There are a few things to bear in mind when penning these valedictions. Outrage and injured innocence should be constant themes.

Try and follow this basic structure.
First a bold and dramatic lead which announces your intentions to deprive the group of your sparkling input. If possible, it should be made clear that the act has been forced upon you by external evil forces. Avoid understatement at all costs when it comes to explaining the impact this has had on your battered psyche.

"I'm outta here!! I'm already on the edge of a nervous breakdown and can no longer take the cruelty of the people on this so called "support" group!! It was clear from the start I didn't fit in!!"

Apologize in a fashion that makes it clear that you are entirely blameless but are merely a simple martyr who is much misunderstood. Have a stab at some blunt sarcasm aimed at one of the blue meanies who drove you out of town.

"I'm sorry that some of the idiots here can't understand that all I want to do is help others and get help from them in turn. And I'm sorry to the majority of the nice decent people who have the whole thing spoiled by the actions of the mean and nasty guys here who don't understand what we are going through. And you Billiejobutthead are are sooooo perfect….yeah!!!!!

Make it clear that the nasty vocal minority do not represent the Q as a whole and that you care deeply that everyone else will succeed in their quit although some strange predestined force means that you will not be able to share their success.

"Well I hope that you guys all come through despite all the mean negativity we get from some guys round here. I will be setting a new quit date next week/month.year`and will just tough it out without the Q.

If you are a really shameless AW, you might implore others at this point not to try and talk you out of it.

"My mind is made up. I have no choice but to take on the nicodemon in my own way"

Sign off suggesting you are leaving more in sadness than anger while making little effort to hide your white-hot rage.

"Well congratulations you meanies!!! You've got what you wanted - I'm off. And I wish all the rest of you a wonderful life!!!"

Close out with some hugs and cyber tears and don't be seen on the Q for about 48 hours when you announce your return in defiant style citing a sackful of Qmail begging you to stay, a right to free speech and a new found determination not to let the "few rotten apples" ruin your quit, particularly Billiejobutthead who will not ruin things for you again…until the next time.

One style point - overuse exclamation points.
And do it in quitstop or you get mean old critters like f00l telling you to bugger off.

~After the Slip~repost
From misty101 on 1/29/2006 5:08:36 PM


From Bamagirl72 on 1/20/2006 9:52:16 PM
This may help, someone posted it earlier! GOOD LUCK!!!

Picture yourself a second or two after you stub out that quit-breaking cigarette. The one that you just had to have because the craving was so strong you couldn't hold out any longer, when that voice inside you was saying.. "Go on, life sucks, you may as well smoke a cig.. y'know for your nerves.." or the other one.. "you've got this beat now.. you are in control.. you can have one just now and again.. go on have one for old time's sake.." So you bum a cigarette, and smoke it and in 2 and 1/2 minutes, you stub it out.

Now what. Your mouth feels like crap. Your lungs are tightening up. You managed to stifle the coughs .. but barely. You began to squint again because the smoke hurt your eyes. and your fingers and clothes smell again. You either want to throw up, grab some mouthwash, take a shower, or have another.. maybe buy a pack.

But then you realize what you've just done. After all those times when you said you were going to quit, and then when you finally did, and your family and friends were so happy for you - but not exactly over the moon, because after all they've been hopeful before only to see you relapse - all that enthusiasm is now smashed to pieces on the floor. And all the pressure that drove you to grab that cigarette in the first place - it's all still there. Nothing has changed, except now you've added one more problem: you just blew it. 

And then you realize what you've really done. You had invested days, maybe weeks and months, in this quit. You had made a great decision, one of the few things you really and truly felt proud of in your life, and you just blew it. You just blew the quit that you swore to yourself was the last one. You were so positive, so motivated, and encouraged, you were really on top of it, ahead of the game for once, you had taken control of your life and it felt like a whole new beginning.. and you just blew it.

You look at that stub in the ashtray. The grey ash and the brown edge to the burnt paper, and the tar stain on the end of filter. You remember the thousands of cigarettes you have stubbed out and think about the tar that came into your lungs as smoke. And you think if smoking that one cigarette was worth it. Nothing's better. You feel a little dizzy now as the nicotine hits your body, even a little nauseous - certainly don't feel the pleasure that you remember the adverts and billboards were promoting during your early years as a smoker. In fact it's hard to remember any time when you felt that pleasure.. just another tobacco company lie.. They helped you to become an addict the first time, but when you smoked that cigarette after you quit.. well that was a whole new decision. You made that one all by yourself - there's no pointing fingers now, you know that cigarettes kill, so when you lit that one cigarette, the choice to smoke was all yours - no-one else to blame. And you just blew it. 

It wasn't worth it.. time after time the slippers' and relapsers' lament how they feel like crap, how ashamed they are, how they have lost confidence and hope, how they hate themselves, how much it hurts, how depressed and they cry and hide and cry some more. And now you are one of them.. the quit losers. Lost in the wilderness, not quite a smoker.. yet and not sure you are a quitter, searching for some dignity, some self-respect out of this. All because of that one cigarette. Because you blew it. 
WITH JUST ONE 
One Puff
One Cigarette
One Pack
One Carton
One Oxygen tank
One Lung
One Chemotherapy
One Funeral
One less.

Just One
from the profile of The_GAEL
www.quitnet.com/community/profile/qn_userPage.jtml?id=197735

~~unquote
jan. <:} Day 278

RE: Why do I keep making excuses to smoke?
From Belle650 on 5/9/2004 8:35:46 AM

Part of being ready to quit includes having the willingness to look at quitting in a new light. Quitting smoking is NOT a punishment! It is NOT a vindictive thing we do to ourselves to atone for the smoking. It IS a difficult journey, not for the weak of heart.

We fail in our attempts to quit because we ALLOW ourselves the "comfort zone" of lighting up at the first twinge of discomfort. Smoking does not change any of the situations in our lives but it DOES put a barrier between us and the rest of the world. We STINK and people keep their distance. Smoking is a wonderful aid in isolation.

You do NOT have to want to quit more than you want to smoke. Most of us wanted to smoke. You DO have to be willing to take the control of your life and your emotions away from that small amount of paper-wrapped tobacco and become responsible for your own destiny.

Who is in control here? Who's life is it, anyway???

Wendy

205 days, 19 hours, 17 minutes and 3 seconds smoke free. 8232 cigarettes not smoked. 2 months, 2 days, 21 hours of my life saved! My quit date: 10/16/2003 1:10:00 PM

Repost ~ What's Ahead by Gummer
From Joanieg on 12/20/2014 12:47:55 AM

REPOST:
What's ahead
From gummer on 5/24/2012 2:31:44 PM
Gosh, it was nine years yesterday. Nine years since I quit. It doesn't seem that long ago, but then I have a child a few months younger than my quit and he's huge, so I can sort of "see" how long it has been. It's a chunk of my life now.

I like to post around anniversaries just to... I don't know... report back to you from your future? ... let you know what is ahead... because when I first quit my fears of quitting and the struggle to come were far greater than the reality of what I have found. My fears got in the way and they should not have. I would have quit a lot earlier had I known what the future held.

Here is what I want you to know nine years after quitting:

(1) - No matter how you feel now, you will not be quitting forever. You get over the hard stuff. You return to your old self. You forget about smoking. You forget about quitting. You wonder what you ever found in it. Contrary to what I thought, you do not sit there pining for a smoke for all eternity. Quite the contrary, when you think of smoking all you feel is relief that you are no longer trapped doing it. Would I go back? Not on your life!

(2) You can never smoke again. But that's not a problem, because on this side of your quit it is a blessing rather than a curse. I really mean it.

(3) - By quitting TODAY, what you are doing is massively important. What you are doing TODAY will dictate where you find yourself in nine years. I was in my late thirties when I quit... now I am in my late-ish forties. I cannot even imagine how I would find myself today with nine extra years of smoking under my belt and in my lungs. That is an enotmous amount of unnecessary abuse and addiction. At just a pack a day that is another 65,000+ cigarettes I would have smoked!!! Sixty-five-thousand. And for what? Knowing what I know now that is not just tragic, it is criminal. I never needed to smoke. It was only smoking that made me smoke. And it took quitting to learn that.

(4) - You may think you love smoking. You may think you miss smoking. But you are just addicted. That's all. And that is not bad news, it is good news. Quitting is not going to deprive you of something you love... it is going to make you shed a huge burden you are carrying around. Realizing that you are just addicted is what will allow you to free yourself of this curse. Realizing that you are addicted is what will allow you to get yourself un-addicted.

(5) When you become un-addicted... can you smoke again? Nope, because when you become un-addicted the last thing you will ever want is another cigarette! If you find yourself wanting one, then you are still addicted, so you carry on quitting. But honestly, you'll most likely find you never want to smoke again.

(6) Last one, but this one is REALLY important: Your quit will not just happen, it will take place when YOU make it happen, not a moment sooner. There is no magic bullet, no accident, no divine intervention, no luck. It makes no difference if you use NRT or go CT. What matters is that YOU make it happen because until that day, you will continue to be a smoker. Understand that before you let nine more years go by. Only you can stop yourself from smoking. Only you can make yourself smoke.

These are some random thoughts, which I hope will ease your way during the early days. Sometimes you have to plug ahead on blind faith, so I hope that having heard your future is bright might make you hang on long enough to get through a bleak moment, long enough to unmask what is really going on, long enough for that lightbulb to suddenly go off and let you see it so clearly that you start to prefer not smoking to smoking.

Congrats on your quits! Time will fly by once you're over the hump.

Gummer

"Rules of Recovery" (from AddictionsAndRecovery.org)
From lucy1 on 12/30/2014 9:54:08 PM
Although this website focuses on alcohol and drug addiction, I think it applies to nicotine addiction as well. It's based on the 12-step program, so when the author says "using" substitute "smoking" and when he advises "go to meetings" you can substitute "post on the Q". You can also find descriptions of "post-acute withdrawal" - the experience of cravings that come and go months after having quit. (Don't despair! For most people they get fewer and further between and less and less intense over time.) - Lucy

Reference:

The First Rule of Recovery

You don't recover from an addiction by stopping using. You recover by creating a new life where it is easier to not use. If you don't create a new life, then all the factors that brought you to your addiction will eventually catch up with you again.
You don't have to change everything in your life. But there are a few things and behaviors that have been getting you into trouble, and they will continue to get you into trouble until you let them go. The more you try to hold onto your old life in recovery, the less well you will do.

Here are the three most common things that people need to change in order to achieve recovery.

Avoid High-Risk Situations
Some common high-risk situations are described by the acronym, HALT:
• Hungry
• Angry
• Lonely
• Tired

How do you feel at the end of the day? You're probably hungry because you haven't eaten well. You're probably angry because you've had a tough day at work or a tough commute home. You may feel lonely because you're isolated. You don't have to be physically alone to feel lonely. And you're tired. That's why your strongest cravings usually occur at the end of the day. Here's another way of looking at high-risk situations:

• People. (People who you use with or who are related to your use. People who you have conflicts with, and who make you want to use. People who you celebrate with by using. People who encourage you to use either directly or indirectly.)
• Places. (Places where you use or where you get your drugs or alcohol.)
• Things. (Things that remind you of your using.)

How can you avoid high-risk situations? Of course, you can't always avoid these situations. But if you're aware of them, they won't catch you off guard, and you can prevent little craving from turning into major urges.

Take better care of yourself. Eat a healthier lunch so you're not as hungry at the end of the day. Join a 12 step group so that you don't feel isolated. Learn how to relax so that you can let go of your anger and resentments. Develop better sleep habits so that you're less tired.

Avoid your drinking friends, your favorite bar, and having alcohol in the house. Avoid people who you used cocaine with, driving by your dealer's neighborhood, and cocaine paraphernalia.

Recovery isn't about one big change. It's about lots of little changes. Avoiding those high-risk situations helps you create a new life where it's easier to not use.
Make a list of your high-risk situations. Addiction is sneaky. Sometimes you won't see your high-risk situations until you're right in the middle of one. That's why it's important that you learn to look for them. Make a list of your high-risk situations and keep it with you. Go over the list with someone in recovery so that can spot any situations that you might have missed. Make the list and keep it with you. Some day that list may save your life.

Learn to Relax

There are only a few reasons why people use drugs and alcohol. They use to escape, relax, and reward themselves. In other words, people use drugs and alcohol to relieve tension.

The first rule of recovery is that you must change your life. What do you need to change? If you understood the previous paragraph, then you need to change the way you relieve tension. Everyone needs to escape, relax, and reward themselves. Those are essential coping skills for a happy life. But addicts don't know how to do those things without using.

If you manage to stop using for a while, but don't learn how to relax, your tension will build until you'll have to relapse just to escape again. Tension and the inability to relax are the most common causes of relapse.

I know relaxation will help. I have treated thousands of patients. Many of them have told me that relaxation has changed their life. There is only one reason why people don't relax – because they think they're too busy to relax. It goes something like this, "I know it makes sense, but I've got so many other things I have to do."

Ask yourself how much time you spend on your addiction. If you add up all the time it takes to get your drug, use it, deal with its consequences, and plan your next relapse, you'll realize that relaxing for twenty to forty minutes a day is a bargain.

Relaxation is not an optional part of recovery. It's essential to recovery. There are many ways to relax. They range from simple techniques like going for a walk, to more structured techniques like meditation. Meditation is an important part of that mix because the simple techniques don't always work. If you're under a lot of stress, you may need something more reliable like meditation. Use any of these techniques, or any combination. But do something everyday to relax, escape, reward yourself, and turn off the chatter in your mind.
Numerous studies have proven that relaxation reduces the use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.

Be Honest

An addiction requires lying. You have to lie about getting your drug, using it, hiding its consequences, and planning your next relapse. An addiction is full of lying. By the time you've developed an addiction, lying comes easily to you. After a while you get so good at lying that you end up lying to yourself. That's why addicts don't know who they are or what they believe in.

The other problem with lying is that you can't like yourself when you lie. You can't look yourself in the mirror. Lying traps you in your addiction. The more you lie, the less you like yourself, which makes you want to escape, which leads to more using and more lying.

Nothing changes, if nothing changes. Ask yourself this: will more lying, more isolating, and more of the same make you feel better? The expression in AA is – nothing changes if nothing changes. If you don't change your life, then why would this time be any different? You need to create a new life where it's easier to not use.

Recovery requires complete honesty. You must be one-hundred percent completely honest with the people who are your supports: your family, your doctor, your therapist, the people in your 12 step group, and your sponsor. If you can't be completely honest with them, you won't do well in recovery.
When you're completely honest you don't give your addiction room to hide. When you lie you leave the door open to relapse.

One mistake people make in the early stages of recovery is they think that honesty means being honest about other people. They think they should share what's "wrong" with other people. But recovery isn't about fixing other people. It's about fixing yourself. Stick with your own recovery. Focusing on what you don't like about others is easy because it deflects attention from yourself.
Honesty won't come naturally in the beginning. You've spent so much time learning how to lie that telling the truth, no matter how good it is for you, won't feel natural. You'll have to practice telling the truth a few hundred times before it comes a little easier. In the beginning, you'll have to stop yourself as you're telling a story, and say, "now that I think about it, it was more like this..."
Show common sense. Not everybody is your best friend. And not everybody will be glad to know that you have an addiction or that you're doing something about it. There may be some people who you don't want to tell about your recovery. But don't be reluctant to tell the people close to you about your recovery. You should never feel ashamed that you're doing something about your addiction.

The Chance to Change Your Life

Your addiction has given you the opportunity to change your life. Changing your life is what makes recovery both difficult and rewarding. Recovery is difficult because you have to change your life, and all change is difficult, even good change. Recovery is rewarding because you get the chance to change your life. Most people sleepwalk through life. They don't think about who they are or what they want to be, and then one day they wake up and wonder why they aren't happy.

If you use this opportunity for change, you'll look back and think of your addiction as one of the best things that ever happened to you. People in recovery often describe themselves as grateful addicts. Why would someone be grateful to have an addiction? Because their addiction helped them find an inner peace and tranquility that most people crave. Recovery can help you change your life.