Hi everyone, mad englishman here with a few minutes.....
I'm really still a "newbie" at this and when you compare my quit meter to some of the old stalwarts like Bubba, Golferman, Lady and Duffis (and if I've not mentioned you its nothing personal!), you will see what I mean.
However, I think that I have learned a little something as an SSC addict (classic post N2K!). So as I sit here on my browsers butt boils, I wanted to share something about craves and withdrawal and fear and all the things that seem to make it so hard to stop.
There are three ways to stop smoking.
1. Die. It's very effective. You stop breathing, possibly as a result of an illness caused by smoking. It's guaranteed 100% effective, therefore you don't get the money back guarantee. The money involved by the way is about �100,000 over the life of a 2 pack a day 30 year smoker in the UK.
2. Revelation. The "normal" method of stopping. This is the position when the desire to stop smoking outweighs the desire to light up. It sometimes follows a series of failed quits or "slips". Somehow, with enough knowledge of the addiction, an understanding of what will happen when we stop, the junky thoughts etc, we manage to get through the awful hell week, heck week and blah weeks. Eventually we become ex-smokers. Then we guard against "smugness" and loss of memory. We forget how bad it was to stop and the desparate craves.
We understand that we are addicts and that we can never take another puff. As a side ramble, we occasionally get posts about cigars. "are they as bad?", "Maybe I'll smoke cigars to get me through stopping smoking". I find it sad that people have that little knowledge about smoking and still expect to succeed.
There will always be the exceptions, the people that I admire who simply wake up one morning and stop. They never look back and cannot understand the fuss, I'm married to one who stopped 13 years ago with her first pregnancy and genuinely does not understand that its the hardest thing that most of us will ever do.
Then we have the NRT or not NRT issue..........whatever works for you is OK by me.
One indisputable fact for me is the power of the support community here. I feel that I would have failed without the humour, knowledge and virtual handholding that