Author |
Message |
Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Thursday, March 06, 2008 - 10:28 pm
Sheesh, this is the best crop of non-smokers we have ever had at the Clubhouse. In fact, this group is SO good, I think I will just take me a little vacation for about 40 days. I don't think we will have too many backsliders while I am gone. Boberg, you have it absolutely nailed! I have been in here preaching for about seven years, maybe eight, not sure: There is no such thing as one cigarette. There just is not. We are addicts, plain and simple, every single jack one of us. The beast is on us if we let him. But every one of us has the power to kill the beast. Now, go, you little beastie killers. I leave you in Pamy's relentlessly cheerful and capable hands and Boberg's pragmatic ones. KILL that beast because you can do it, even if the ole dawg ain't here. Oh, I am going on a 38 day trip to Africa, 33 days on a cruise ship. Ta ta and carry on.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 7:28 am
Juju, I hope you have the bestest time ever!! I just love how you travel all over!! Safe travels to you and Mr Bigdog! I will do my best to keep this thread alive as you have done for 7 yrs. I have some wonderful helpers here so it wont be that hard Oldtex and Meme...dont make me come over there and spank ya!!! I am getting worried about ya!
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Goddessatlaw
Member
07-19-2002
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 11:58 am
Waves frantically at Juju Say hi to my Sis in Kenya. 40 days is a long time to be on vacation. a month is a long time to be on a cruise ship. Wish it were me LOL.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 12:18 pm
Thanks, GAL. We are actually only doing half of this Grand Voyage. The trip all the way around Africa is 73 days. We get off in Cape Town, so we won't be going on to Kenya. The folks going on to Kenya are plenty worried about political things going on there, as I am sure you are as well.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 7:27 pm
Jujujuu...I wished ya a good trip too! and I didnt get a thank you <sits and pouts>
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Boberg
Member
10-04-2002
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 8:48 pm
Juju have a wonderful trip, I am totally jealous. What a great adventure! We will miss you and do our best to keep up with the example you have set. This place will be littered with dying nicotine beasties when you return. (Pamy I noticed right off that you were totally ignored...heheh)
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 10:27 pm
<wipes tear and sniffles> Thanks for noticing,Bo, it means a lot. <sniff sniff>
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Friday, March 07, 2008 - 11:55 pm
I blame it all on GAL for hogging off all the attention with her sister in Kenya. Keep up the good work, Pamy, and thanks for the good wishes. Boberg, I shall expect nothing less than a thread full of dead beasties. <looks meaningfully at Geri, Oldtex, Meme, Nick, Slothkitten, Twinkie, Boberg, and Pamy and GAL>
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Shadoe
Member
11-04-2004
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 7:40 pm
hey who updates the chart up top? I smoked for 40years or more, I was smoking about a pack a day when I quit, and I have to say that I don't have any urges at all to have one. I seldom even think about it. The smell seldom bothers me when walking by a smoker, but sometimes it does!
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 7:52 pm
Shadoe, when did you quit and what method did ya use?? Congrats and welcome to the No Puff club!
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Shadoe
Member
11-04-2004
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 8:00 pm
Pamy, I am already in the chart up top, but a couple fields are blank. I quit on April fools day in 2006 with Zyban
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Seattlemom
Member
05-10-2005
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 8:50 pm
Hello Everyone! It's almost been just 7 mo for me! I am 59 and smoked since I was 13. I was up to about 2 packs a day and I have emphysema and I just had to quit, I am on Oxygen at night etc etc. My Mom and Sister Died from Lung cancer! But Still I didnt quit till I REALLY wanted to. My Hubby has agreed to only smoke out side! He drives Tractor trailer so he is gone all week, But just smoking out side on weekends has cut his down some! I went on the Chantex.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 9:07 pm
Ahhh Shadoe, I should be more obsuervant!! Comming up on 2 yrs for ya!! YAH!! Seattlemom,,, YAH!!! for you!!!! thank God you have quit!!! isnt Chantix the best??? 7 whole freakin months!!! good for you!! Looks like a few of us quit in 07.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 10:03 pm
Congratulations on saving your own life, Seattlemom. Isn't it just flabbergasting that we can all SEE these things happening, but we are SO addicted that we ignore all the sirens and whistles until the train is roaring down our butts? Everybody in here has played nicotine roulette, and we are all hoping to get lucky. Lurkers, especially if you are young, but maybe more especially if you are not, get off from the middle of the railroad tracks NOW!
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Geri
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 3:26 am
Wow Seattlemom, I am totally inspired by your quitting. I'm about your age and have smoked almost as long and just as much. If you did it, then I know there is hope for me!! My 6th day was my best so far. We have company so that has kept me busy and my mind off of it. Finally got the book and have read about a half of it. I have learned a lot of things but sometimes feel as if I am reading an infomercial where they keep teasing you about what you will learn but never come out and say it cuz they want you to buy the product. Did anyone else feel that way? If nothing else, he has cut down my usage of the gum which means getting all nicotine out of my system, not just smoke out of my lungs. My beast is getting smaller!!!
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Shadoe
Member
11-04-2004
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 4:29 am
Juju, I wonder about the comment that we are SO addicted. For me, I have to say that it was more like I THOUGHT I was SO addicted, but I was not. Even after smoking for 40 years, it was not hard at all for me to quit. I honestly had no issues with quitting, once I decided to quit, then started on the Zyban. I believe that it was mostly in my head. Could it be that I was brainwashed over the decades to take it for granted that it was super addictive and painfully hard to quit? I believe that I was. I think that many people are held back from attempting to quit because of the same fear that has been brainwashed into them. They really think that it's going to be so hard and disruptive to their lives that they put off trying. They may even want to quit, but still put off trying. And I made sure I had every opportunity to fail too. I never ever left home without having cigarettes and a lighter on me at all times. Weirdly, I found it comforting to know that "I had some if I wanted to smoke, but I would wait a bit." I still carried cigarettes with me, even when I had stopped the Zyban for a year! And to this day, I still carry a lighter with me. I never avoided smokers, went on breaks with them at work like usual, and still have no issues to walk on by the smoker bunches in the streets. The smoke does not bother me and it does not make me want to have a cigarette either. I want to say that while many may have difficulties with the quitting, I bet there are tons more who are just like me - having trouble with the automatic reaching habit. These days, there are products that you can use, like the Zyban or Chantix, that will help you over that initial hump. Nobody has to go the cold turkey method as there are gentler methods available. If you are one of those who has been wanting to quit, but has been putting it off because of fears that it will just be too stressful, painful, or disruptive to life, why not give it a try? You may be quite suprised that you have very few of the difficulties you imagined. You will then be kicking yourself for not quitting earlier, and you will be thinking of all that lost money you spent on smoking and what you could have been doing with it! I know I sure did! Once the frustration of reaching for something I know longer did had passed, I thought "that's it??" Geez, I should have done this years ago! Take that first step. Go to your dr and get a prescription for Chantix or Zyban or something. Take it home and get prepared to quit. Your heart, lungs, and entire body will thank you for it.
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 6:23 am
Just spotted this, thought it was interesting: How To Save A Billion Lives
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Lumbele
Moderator
07-12-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 7:02 am
Yay, Seattle, congratulations on 7 months!!! Doesn't it feel great?!?! Geri, today's your first week!!! Soon it will be your first month and sooner than you think it will be 3-6-a year. Hang in there! We all have the potential to quit, and to stay quit. A lot of it truly is attitude. No more feeding that Whammy, let 'im starve! And yes, I had that infomercial feeling, too. The only thing I got out of "the book" was the knowledge that even one drag would keep Whammy alive. Not that I didn't know that before, it just somehow gave the addiction a "face". So maybe "the book" did some good after all, but it took another couple of years before I actually stopped. And that one took because suddenly I had some kind of determination that didn't exist before.
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Boberg
Member
10-04-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 8:59 am
Yah for all the traffic in here, some posters I haven't seen in this thread since I quit. Shadoe I believe Seamonkey updates the chart when she has time....bet she has been busy in the BB threads lately...you know how boisterous those posters can be...lol You have to watch them closely or they will get carried away. Congratulations thou...you are close to 2 YEARS! Woo Hoo! I would say that your quit is quite unique...carrying around the temptation and all and you yourself saying it wasn't hard...that is very different. The 'quit' for each of us is very personal and each in their own way and time. Seattlemom wonderful job on the 7 months. It is truly amazing the strong hold this addiction can have on us...it is truly similiar to herion addiction. You watched your loved ones be destroyed by the beast yet is did not stop you from feeding the beast. EACH ONE OF US have done the same thing....seen the horrible effects of smoking and kept right on puffing. Russian Roulette is a perfect name for what we were doing. GERI YOU ARE DOING FANTASTIC! The book for me, well by the time I got to page 60 or so, I realised I was a drug addict. Yes, I had heard this before but it had never really sank in before. The examples he uses in the book....like the NEED to get outside so I could smoke after a meal and that NON SMOKERS DO NOT HAVE THAT NEED. Realizing that all the cigarette really did for me was to feed the beast, the relaxing I felt was simply the ending of the desire to smoke. To understand that the cigarette CAUSED all the things I thought I smoked for. To finally understand how ENSLAVED that cigarette had me. It dictated where I went (could I find a way to smoke there), who I went with (would they mind that I smoked) ect. Then to realise that by quitting smoking that the only thing I was truly giving up was FEEDING THE BEAST...that was it. Geri, your beast is hating it that you are reading that book and getting a fuller understanding of how the beast operates...LOL PROUD TO BE A HAPPY NON SMOKER AND A NO PUFF POWER GIRL!

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Boberg
Member
10-04-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 9:11 am
Herckle....the article is interesting in that non smokers still think the way to prevent smoking is to raise taxes and to keep telling smokers about the dangers of smoking. And that is still all that WHO has to offer. How about free stop smoking clinics and support groups. How about reduced rates or at least insurance coverage for stop smoking aids like the patch, gum, Chantix. There is so much they could really do if they truly cared about helping smokers to quit but instead they keep doing the same things that do not work. Makes me wonder what they are really after.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 1:02 pm
Geri, I kinda felt that way but the more I read the more it all made sense. 6 days!! wow!! you are doing great!, you will do this!!! Juju, you say the wisest things!! I just love ya!! Shadoe, that is interesting and I find it true for myself. I was afraid to quit cuz I heard it was so hard but I found the quit fairly easy which I figured was due to Chantix...I do believe Chantix is the courage I needed, once I had the courage to attempt the quit the rest came easy for me Lum, I was same as you and I believe that book has kept me quit due to the never take a drag thing I learned
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 1:07 pm
Shadoe, pls go post your update in Sea's folder and she will fix chart. Bo, ITA, we all know telling us its bad for us didnt make us quit and raising prices doesnt either...if so why do the kids on my staff smoke? Many are all in early 20s and it surprises me how many of them smoke!! I almost think I did them a disservice talking about how easy my quit was! I did still tell them it took me over 30 yrs to quit though Bo, I have said before that Big Tobacco has to be in the pockets of politicians that is why they dont make the stop smoking things free and why insurance wont cover them
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Geri
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 1:08 pm
Another good way to stop smoking is having a reward system. I figured I smoked about $42/week. I found a really fun jeweler who makes earrings that cost $45/pair. Since I haven't smoked for a week, I get to buy a pair of earrings. By the time I see her next week at an art festival, I will be able to buy 2 pairs of earrings. These earrings will have a special meaning to me, I bought them with my cigarette money and not only do I feel better but I will look better with my new earrings. Yes, I could have bought them anyway but I earned these through determination, self-control and the wonderful people on this board that have been so encouraging.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 2:52 pm
ITA Geri!! I had much more spending money on our vacation because of the money I have saved. I got myself a crown necklace that I adore with my savings!
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Nickovtyme
Member
07-29-2004
| Sunday, March 09, 2008 - 4:08 pm
I havn't had a smoke since I posted about my last one. that makes it about a week. hasn't been to bad either. been eating a lot...but that should get better.
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