Freedom is everything
Kaitilina: Thank you for the nice words. In answer to your question about what worked for me in the beginning, I can tell you that I stumbled across the Allen Carr book (a mini-version which I still keep close by and check out my highlighted passages regularly ). He calls it quitting the "easy way" -- it's not easy at all. BUT what has made this quit different from the many other attempts over the years is one key difference in my THINKING before I quit.
Every time I've tried to quit before, at every craving, I focused on how much I'd "sacrificed", I'd "given up" my cigarettes, which, let's face it, I'd always used as a reward. By quitting, I felt terribly deprived. With this attitude, it didn't take much to make me backslide -- I was stressed, I was mad, I was happy, I was "whatever".
I FINALLY understood that in order to be successful, I had to switch my thinking. Instead of focusing on feelings of deprivation and being miserable, I focused on the FREEDOM and CONTROL that I was gaining.
It was only as a smoker all those years that I was truly depriving myself. Now as a nonsmoker, I'm no longer deprived of my health and wealth.
Also, I learned to tell myself to breathe deeply and slowly three times when I had a craving. Lo and behold, when I'd finished this exercise, I felt much better.
I would also sometimes time my cravings. That would illustrate to me how short they really were. It was only one minute, not the hour or two it seemed like. That helped, because indeed, "this too shall pass".
Lots of water, lots of breathing and lots of patting myself on the back -- get others to pat you there, too. You've earned it!
I chose not to use NRT -- I was determined to beat the addiction to nicotine, so putting more nicotine into my body just didn't make sense. I would try NRT, though, if my resolve weakened.
But for now, I really don't see that happening. It feels so good to be a nonsmoker after 35 years!
And I smell so much better now, too! All my nonsmoking friends and family members tell me so!
