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15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 375

Me too, Karen :)

I'm actually doing okay..... day 11. Did some big rewards today. I'll be checking in on another forum cause stress levels are good. Thanks for checking on me everyone.

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 3/8/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 11
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 264
Amount Saved: $79.20
Life Gained:
Days: 1 Hrs: 5 Mins: 33 Seconds: 22

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 406

Deb,

Wow, glad to hear you made it through in one piece! I hope today was a relaxing day for you

Keep us posted!

Karen, Health Educator

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 35

Hi Deb,

Sorry that your day was so stressed, but at least you managed to get through without a ciggy

good work.

Marivi is right the time we used to spend having a ciggy should now become 'Me Time', my son and I worked it out yesterday and I use to spend 3 HOURS!!!! a day smoking now I have decided that I have 2 hours for Me Time and my sons get and extra hour of Mum Time.

Enjoy yourself today but remember to take care of yourself everyday.

Debby

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 3/16/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 3
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 60
Amount Saved: �14.67
Life Gained:
Days: 0 Hrs: 7 Mins: 9 Seconds: 20

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 916

Hi Deb

I'm sorry you had a stressful day. You should give yourself the minutes you use to spend smoking! Use those minutes to take care of yourself! You could squeze those minutes to smoke, so now you can squeze those minutes to relax and pamper yourself: to take a really long shower, to listn to some music or to read something rally interesting.

I'm glad you are hiking tomorrow!

Take care of yourself!

Marivi

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 1/23/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 55
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 825
Amount Saved: $82.50
Life Gained:
Days: 6 Hrs: 6 Mins: 0 Seconds: 18

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 80

And working 4am to 7 pm is taking care of yourself how, Deb?

I get that you have commitments, so do I, so do we all. And God knows, I'm not unsympathetic I sympathize, totally, but sympathy is not going to help you with your quit. It looks like we're in similar businesses with similar client bases. It's WAY cool how we can trust each other with what we need.

But I gotta tell you, I'm hearing about commitments and obligations and guilts, but those are things -- objects. Objects aren't going to inspire and sustain a quit; only a person can do that for herself, at the center of her own quit.

Taking care of youself tomorrow is the same thing as quitting tomorrow. Commitments deferred are commitments denied. Not tomorrow. Today. Now. It's either all about you or it's about the objects that you allow to define yourself.

It seems you're so worried about the people aroind you that you're neglecting yourself in the process, even as you talk about caring for yourself. That care just isn't apparent to us who are reading from the outside.

It has to be all about you first, Deb. Everyone else will benefit only when you are operating from a position of strength. You clearly have too many people reliant on your own strength for you to be on the fence about what you can and cannot do. I get from your post that it's all about your quit, which is way cool, but at some point, it needs to all about you, and you alone.

I really hope I haven't offened you. I have enormous respect for you and your quit, and want to support as best I can.

peteg

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 2/10/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 37
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 1,850
Amount Saved: $416.25
Life Gained:
Days: 6 Hrs: 17 Mins: 57 Seconds: 54

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 375

I choose this forum for my daily check-in because I was supersized, whopper stressed today.

I put on an event today for over 200 seniors (an informational fair) which included lining up the vendors, figuring out the food, organizing the room, shopping for all kinds stuff, and blah-bitty blah blah. Don't need to go into silly details. Was up and out of the house at 4am to make sure that was all set up and ready to run smoothly BECAUSE, at 11am it was time to run across town and conduct 8 hours back to back group therapy sessions.....

Where I just had a return of a near successful suicidal client who is in horrible shape, another that can't afford his insulin, another that had her children taken away from her and is facing prison charges.... (I work with court appointed clients by the way who are having violence issues-- which is a little bit of a stress all by itself). All told, I worked from 4am, until 7:00pm this evening. Picked up my son from a guilt-inducingly long day at daycare, took him out to dinner, drove home, carried him up the stairs to bed, and am now sitting here with you guys decompressing.

Have to say that the cigarette cravings were at code red today. I wanted one really really really bad....... but also realized that my patch had fallen off (somewhere!) during the day. That really didn't help.

Stressed is putting it mildly..... but I actually feel okay now that I'm home (and with the rest of the week looking fairly calm). Tomorrow I'm hiking. I don't care if there are bodies lying in front of me. I will need to step over them and go take care of myself tomorrow.

One very important lesson I've learned from failing at my last quit attempt is this.... TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. No one else is going to do it for me. Keep stress levels in check, tell people no once-in-awhile, play with my son a lot, don't smoke, don't smoke, don't smoke. And write to you fine people.

much gratitude to you all

deb

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 3/8/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 10
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 240
Amount Saved: $72.00
Life Gained:
Days: 1 Hrs: 3 Mins: 8 Seconds: 41

15 years ago 0 +0 / -0 80

Um, did you say "go" yet? Did I hear a whistle somewhere?

This is SO at the heart of my quit!

Stress always meant the need for a cigarette, even when I was way into other quits and knew better.

Speaking only for myself, I finally get that smoking RAISES my blood pressure (I can totally feel it skyrocket when I smoke after a few days of not smoking), and ignites that feeling of dread in my stomach. It makes me chew my fingernails down to the knuckles. It makes me imagine the worst possible outcome of any scenario and blinds me to the potential.

I am SO grateful for all this new talk about it taking seven quits -- there was a time when people weren't quite so tolerant -- but after my 7 or 8 or whatever, I finally get that smoking does not make it better; it makes everything worse. Add the self-loathing that comes with failing a quit, and the downward spiral can seem bottomless indeed.

Slowly, slowly, one baby step at a time, I am STARTING to get that stress is NOT relieved by smoking; it is totally exacerbated by smoking. Breathing, seeing beyond the immediate crisis, insisting on perspective (Greek: peri-scopos, seeing through, seeing beyond) claims an authority, an autonomy, I never had as a smoker. Cigarettes are my knee-jerk re-action to being controlled by situations and people. Not smoking is my conscious choice not to be controlled, but to control and overcome.

You SO hit the nail on the head for me, Breanne! Thanks for helping me articulate my own battle.

peteg

My Milage:

My Quit Date: 2/10/2009
Smoke-Free Days: 36
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 1,800
Amount Saved: $405.00
Life Gained:
Days: 6 Hrs: 17 Mins: 39 Seconds: 57

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