;)
Hey 1939bear...welcome to the SSC
Aunt Deb here..56 yr-old Grandma, 30+ yr smoker, Quit once for 10 years..."cold-turkey"...started back like a fool for a stupid reason during a tough time through pre-menopause,,,oh welll...if I had known then...what I know now...LOL (story of our lives ..right? :mad:
(I would be a 25 yr NON-SMOKER)
I'm not wollering in pity here...just trying to help others see where I went wrong...so they can prevent it from happening. ;)
For example: I know now...that nicotine masks depression, and I know that we compensate or self medicate our depression with...two very legal substances...(nicotine & alcohol)
bear...when I quit smoking for that 10 years...my alcohol consumption increased...what I should have done was go to the Doctor for help...but didn't recognize my unhappiness as depression...
I used the new med Chantix this time...to quit...it works beautifully, believe me....I know how hard cold-turkey is and I have used NRT's with no success...but others have used them successfully.
what works for one, may not be anothers cup of tea. I don't like pills either...but when you have smoked for as long as some of us have and are desparate to give up the addiction...
I quit the Chantix at the beginning of the week...and with no ill effects I might add. It makes you forget about smoking basically because it affects the brain sort of like nicotine...in the pleasure receptor of the brain.
We use smoking and alcohol to hide our inner feelings (how often have you thought in some tough situation...I need a smoke to calm down?) We suppress our thoughts that we need to verbally express.
When we learn what this addiction is :eg: Nicodemon and his relatives, then we find the key to disengaging ourselves and truly breaking free...
we learn to communicate with others...really communicate!!
We no longer need the crutch.
You have to remember bear, most of us were only children when we started smoking...we didn't have a chance to learn how to communicate growing into our adult lives. Some of us used other things as well, like alcohol (that was the biggy in my teen years)
Please read bear, past and present posts...go way back and catch up on educating yourself into the insight that others have shared in their jo