Kev Go the the JUNKIE THOUGHT section of your l o n g post "just slip quietly way from the SSC. No-one will notice..." Safe to say. We will. So think on - don't do it. Gen :) [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]3/28/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 163 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,608 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �815.00 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 21 [B]Hrs:[/B] 14 [B]Mins:[/B] 54 [B]Seconds:[/B] 26

Excellent post, Kev, goes with your excellent quit! [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]5/13/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 117 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,340 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1,287.00 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 11 [B]Hrs:[/B] 17 [B]Mins:[/B] 42 [B]Seconds:[/B] 6

Hi Gen, I've just realised that I am only 4 days away from completing month 2! As promised here are some more positive statements that I have come up with : 1) This is my quit and always has been. If it was not my quit then I certainly would not have tried quitting 40 times already this year before this one. A lot of these were without my quit buddy. My quit is not dependent on my quit buddy quitting first. 2) I am not betraying anyone by not smoking. I am learning to live my life without the crutch of a highly addictive drug and many other chemicals. 3) Keeping quit is a sign of strength not weakness. 4) I don't have to smoke to be positive/happy. 5) Asking for opinion or help is not a sign of weakness of character. It shows an undertanding of the strength of addiction. 6) Time is a great healer. In a matter of days and months not years and decades, I will start thinking less about smoking. Below is the most complete junkie thought I have. In fact it is a collection of junkie thoughts in my opinion. In order to get the below on demand, all I had to do was think about my local pub and get a pen and paper ready. I wanted to draw as many positives as possible which are listed above. This is an insight to my junkie in its most complete form. Kind of like you have to know your enemy in order to defeat it. Consider my junkie as musak in a long elevator ride that only stops when you a) get off at a level and go for a smoke or b) reach the top floor, however, you don't know how many floors this building has. Someone has a remote volume control for the musak and some levels it is as quiet as a whisper and some it is as loud as a disco. Now you've decided to stay in this lift because you heard of the legend of the man who got to the top and legend has it he said there is no musak, which quite frankly is music to your ears (pun). You can't forget as they named the elevator after them. 'Penitent and Stickin to It Corporation' it says on the shiny brass plaque above the elevator doors. You've been very close to pressing the button and getting out for a smoke but the junkie musak breaks for while and some strange voices come over. You don't mind who they are. Sometimes the voice announces that they are 'Aloha' or 'Sue' or 'John' or 'Unhooked'. You don't mind. They're way better than the musak. Soon you realise that they are people in elevators on floors above you. Some of them are way above you and you wonder if they have seen the makers of these elevators. All are nice voices and you feel calm and relaxed. Some tell you that they're worried that they've exceeded the maximum weight that their elevator can hold and you get to calm them down. The one thing that is constant is when talking to these voices there is no musak and for that you are so happy. Every once in a while, you'll hear announcements from the makers of these lifts. The tinny voice booms out 'Hello this is stickin to it. Thank you for not departing this lift. We are waiting to receive you at the top floor. Refreshment and most importantly luxury toilets are located on this floor. Unfortunately, we are experiencing technical difficulties with the musak system and the regular announcements that there is a lingerie fashion show with some stunning models on this floor is not true. The floor you are thinking of departing for a smoke on is actually the funeral directors section of our store. You are currently at floor 56 and the next toilet is at floor 60. However you must not smoke on this floor, it is only to ensure no accidents occur in our beautiful elevators. Mr Penitent has not been feeling great after clearing up the last one and has kindly asked that you hold it in for at least a few more floors. Thank you for riding Penitent and Stickin to It Elevator Corps, see you at the top.' Now that you have visualised the lifts. Here is my own personal musak (junkie thoughts) that I am being played on a loop. I shall make some conclusions afterwards. If you're still awake but squeamish, skip to the conclusions section :) WARNING JUNKIE THOUGHT 'This quit is not your own, it is your quit buddy's. Now that your quit buddy is smoking again, you can. Go on. You know they secretly message each other to go outside and smoke together without you. You to them are now a judas, a betrayer of the smoking group. Go on, just smoke. See how happy your quit buddy is. You've never seen her this happy before. She is free from the constant fight to not smoke. She can smoke whenever she wants. Just slip silently away from the SSC, no-one will notice. They're all tough characters and you are weak. The only other one that struggled started smoking 700 days into her quit. Why waste 650 days? Why not start smoking again and when your quit buddy quits again you can both do it again on equal terms' END OF JUNKIE THOUGHT Conclusions : A) A Junkie thought can be based on very little or no fact at all, it is not logic based it is addiction based. B) The junkie part of me is extremely devious and will take any little negativity or self-doubt and turn into the base for a junkie thought and attempt to twist it into a believed reality. C) If you say something to yourself enough times, you will eventually believe it, whether positive or negative. But you can overwrite negative thoughts with positive ones eventually. D) The junkie latches on to my caring aspect, especially when it comes to my quit buddy's success as a non smoker and turns into something else altogether. Hence I will be repeating statements 1 to 6 on a regular basis. If anybody spots any irregularities with the positive statements then let me know. I'll wait a couple of days before practicing it. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]7/12/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 57 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,425 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �239.40 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 7 [B]Hrs:[/B] 3 [B]Mins:[/B] 54 [B]Seconds:[/B] 27

Kev 56 days!!! Can you believe it! Pure dead brilliant. As they say where I come from. Gen [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]3/28/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 162 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,592 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �810.00 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 21 [B]Hrs:[/B] 12 [B]Mins:[/B] 3 [B]Seconds:[/B] 48

That's so funny, Kev! And you are so awesome! We're all proud of you! [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]5/13/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 116 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,320 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1,276.00 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 11 [B]Hrs:[/B] 15 [B]Mins:[/B] 27 [B]Seconds:[/B] 19

There you are Aloha! I think my dad heard the funniest line when booking the holiday. Dad "Yes it is our Ruby wedding anniversary" Desk Girl "Thats nice, how long is that then?" Dad "40 years" Desk Girl "What? To the same woman?" :) You remember the ruby slippers! Cool! :) Just been reading Luna's post that you bumped. I think I got half of it as the other half seems to be missing. Thanks for the bump. Anything inspirational does the trick on me nowadays. Unhooked is just great. Isn't she! Hope her new boyfriend knows how lucky he is :) I'm going to work extremely hard on overcoming my quit buddy blues and by Wednesday next week I should be a totally transformed character. Thats my plan anyway. Expect loads of posts from me in the coming days. My junkie is soo going to get a pasting! [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]7/12/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 56 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,400 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �235.20 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 7 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 37 [B]Seconds:[/B] 55

Oooh Kev did i hear ruby? Do i need to pull out the ruby slippers again? If you need a little inspiration, I just bumped up a post by Luna..."3000+ cigs not smoked" We are all so totally positive in our nonsmokingness these days. Glad unhooked is so detail-oriented ;) I pledge to you, kev...I will not smoke this week :) [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]3/22/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 168 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 6,720 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1,142.40 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 23 [B]Hrs:[/B] 10 [B]Mins:[/B] 13 [B]Seconds:[/B] 21

I nearly forgot :) I promise to my friends at SSC that I WILL NOT SMOKE this week. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]7/12/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 56 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,400 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �235.20 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 7 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 28 [B]Seconds:[/B] 45

Start of another week. Another new thread. This weeks name is 'Parisienne Ruby' (or PR for short). Unusual name for a week hey? Well its my parents Ruby wedding anniversary this week and they're going to Paris. The funny thing is that they couldn't get that many hotels and were wondering why. Well it seems that this week is the rugby world cup! being held in ... Paris. :) Well I have promised not to burn the house down when they are gone. No more worries about whether I put that last cigarette out. I've done that quite a few times. Woken up in the middle of the night and checked the house out. Added to my benefits list, thats one less worry. Unhooked, you have a keen eye for when the junkie in me talks. Key words like 'possibly', 'maybe' and 'should' appear. I shall continue battling it. A non junkie way of putting it would be .. Thank you for encouraging me to continue to be smokefree without my real life quit buddy. That is exactly what I am doing and have been doing for three weeks now, whether I knew it or not. If I read that enough then eventually it will replace the earlier junkie statement in my head. Right, idea time. This week I am going to work on replacing negativity and doubt statements with positivity on the highest level. This is in fact changing the habit of a lifetime. I'll post them here for error checking. Wow! Thats a good start to the week! I have a weird feeling I am about to begin on a lifechanging experience! Good idea?/Bad idea? [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B]7/12/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 56 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,400 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �235.20 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 7 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 26 [B]Seconds:[/B] 14