Nice to see you all. Holidays go so quick. I'll have a mountain of emails to go through on Monday.:) Right, some musings from me :
'Quit Buddies, Tough cookies and the infinite wonder'
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Some in my office wondered whether I would last six hours, two days, or somewhere in between. Normally they would have right. However this time was different.
Not only had the smoking ban just come in but also I had agreed to quit with my friend and work mate Lynda. This is probably the best thing that I could have done for my quit.
If I was quitting on my own, I would have made maybe 5 days this time. Now I had a mission. Quite simply, to not let my quit buddy down.
For the first few days, we both found it really hard. Then I found it a lot harder, whilst my quit buddy found it a lot easier.
Within two weeks, you could not recognise that we had quit at the same time. Eventually I got to the lowest point I could possibly go and with the help of my SSC friends I was slowly being brought back from the edge whilst learning about junkie thoughts and exactly how big of a junkie I had.
I read the stories of Lady and Butterfly Swimmer and started to realise that although my junkie was huge, it was possible to stay smoke free. This gave me hope.
Staying close to the SSC and reading and writing seemed to be a winning formula as by 1 month and 1 week in I was somehow still smoke free!
Now we come to the crux of the story. At this point my buddy went to a festival and then started smoking for a full three weeks. For me, if we had swapped situations, it would have been the end of my quit for a very very long time. There's a reason behind this. During the first two weeks, I had reached the lowest I ever thought I could go and quite simply could never go through hell and heck week again. At least not without forgetting how bad I was during them. Hence the long time part.
So now I just want to give a big respect to those of you that get back on the quit after quitting for a long time and then smoking for a bit. Mentally, you're all tough cookies and I am really proud of you for being able to get back on the no smoking wagon.
So Lolo, boldinaz, janna etc, this story is for you. Well done on getting back on it!
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B]7/12/2007
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 72
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,800
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] �302.40
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 9 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 40 [B]Seconds:[/B] 13