I�m just back home from an amazing experience in the US. I visited friends there and also took in a meeting with Joe(Golferman) and Lydia(UFO), as well as meeting up with more quitters from longer ago. Joe wrote about our meeting in another post on this forum. People commented on how this sort of thing humanises a quit!....It makes us realise that we are real people and not just figures on a site.
At the second reunion I met 10 other quitters, with whom I have corresponded on the internet for some time. I was both very excited and a bit apprehensive as to how it would be....after all, we did not really know each other, some had been quit for 4-5 years some for less and a couple had returned to smoking. How would we all get on for a whole weekend in a hotel?!
The first thing I found was that I had absolutely no surprises! Everyone was just as I had envisaged, and we all got on so well, just as we had in cyber space. There was no acrimony about the 2 who had returned to smoking....no comments were made, or, I suspect, even thought about. Some of the quitters were even sharing rooms with the still smokers! We partied long and hard, as we should have. The arrangements had been a year in the planning, and we reckoned we deserved to celebrate our reunion.
There were folk from Canada, US, England and me from Scotland (living in France.) We all discussed the cost of the trip and was it worth it! The unanimous decision was it was sooooo worth it! For me it was a 2 year reward (a bit early) and I will never regret the decision to go. One of the best parts of the weekend was witnessing the tolerance exhibited. People gave and took as required and there were no arguments or disputes....just friends swapping stories and having fun supporting each other. There was no one-upmanship or criticism offered anywhere.
Was it worth it! Hell yes!!! It was worth the money to go there, but much more worth the agony and anguish of the first months of my quit to make me part of something like that. I am an ex-smoker, and will always be so....During the weekend, I experienced the pain and coughing of lots of air-conditioning and smoky bars, as I have early starter Emphysema. My hotel room was allegedly a non-smoking room, but reeked of stale smoke. I als
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Quit Meter
$12,220.00
Amount Saved
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Quit Meter
Days: 846
Hours: 0
Minutes: 21
Seconds: 27
Life Gained
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Quit Meter
6110
Smoke Free Days
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Quit Meter
122,200
Cigarettes Not Smoked
