Hi all wonderful quitters, approaching my one year anniversary smoke-free and in large thanks to this site and other means. I left this site in part because of this kind of discussion, I took it personnally because I was in a place in the quit where I was overly sensitive. Now I can talk about it openly, here is my opinion ; I think we should open up about our feelings without being judged and if judged too bad.......I feel it's best to be open and honest and tell newbies that it was hard at the beginning and that it gets better so on and so forth, this way if the newbie is having a hard time he or she won't feel that they're the only ones having a hard time and this will bring normalcy to their quit. Withdrawal is not easy, after all this is a powerful drug and as it leaves your body, you feel it and it pinches. This is the place to share and to feel understood, who else can we share the quit with, certainly not nonsmokers .... people get tired of hearing us say I quit I quit, they seem to be thinking (get over it) we do get over it but it's a process. I'm speaking from my experience, I went through anger, sadness, sense of loss, I stayed away from my smoking friends for a long time, I missed them, I felt alone except when I posted here, you can see from the number of posts, that I needed this site a lot. Now all is A ok I will be a year smoke-free I never cheated once during this time, it just never occurred to me ,I was too busy ''working on it'' all of my thoughts were going towards achieving my goal to be a nonsmoker. I am now in a different place in my life I have made new friends here I have kept my old smoking friends, and life goes on and is so much better without the smoking, I will not say without the addiction, because I think once addicted always in danger because the chanel in your brain that needs to be fed never closes.... it's up to you not to bring it to life again. I really want to thank everyone on this site who has answered my posts with patience and understanding, there are loving people here and they know who they are. The moderators are understanding and have a great amount of knowledge towards this addiction and are here to help, thank you all moderators. This is the best place to participate if you want to quit and stay quit. I hope that people will continue to be understanding and loving and encouraging no matter what,, this is the ultimate goal of this site.
Love, peace
one day at a time
Marie
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B]6/13/2006
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 360
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 6,120
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $2,340.00
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 47 [B]Hrs:[/B] 20 [B]Mins:[/B] 12 [B]Seconds:[/B] 20
