I started to smoke cigarettes when I was 11 years old, the first ones I stole from my dad. Most of my earliest cigarettes were smoked behind our barn, in the woods on the train tracks, at school, anywhere I could sneak them really. Surprisingly, it was rather easy for me to get them. This one store in the village I went to school in sold them to me during my middle school years. The dependency set in very quickly probably due to the young age at which I started, and the many additives that cigarettes contain used to manipulate and increase their addictiveness.
Smoking for me was a great escape, a small shelter from the problems that I had during my developing years. Before leaving middle school the physical addiction was strong enough for me to make great risks in sneaking out of the building while my classmates ate lunch to have a cigarette. I got busted and wasn’t allowed to go to Washington DC for the class trip. My mom got me nicotine replacement but I wasn’t really serious about quitting. I told myself that I needed the cigarettes to get through high school. If I could just make it through high school my life would be easier and I would be able to stop.
High school came and went but the cigarettes stayed in my life. By the time I graduated, I had been at the pack a day mark for a couple of years. I regret having smoked; I really wish that I never ever picked up one of those damned things. I hate cigarettes, I really do. I hate what kind of destruction they have done in my life, in the lives of so many other people and to our environment. Since I can’t change the past I have to accept and to live from this moment on. Cigarettes are not an option in my life anymore and I haven’t touched one in four years. Even though it’s true, I don’t believe it because it doesn’t seem real. I think to myself I must have smoked between now and then and that I must have forgotten but it is really true, I have not smoked in four years.
It was a combination of strategies that really made me successful in quitting, that and that I had realized that cigarettes were the cause of my unhappiness. I chanted a lot, I prayed to never ever smoke a cigarette again in my life. I didn’t just pray, I took action. I used nicotine lozenges to calm physical withdrawal, exercise to release endorphins that made me feel good, lots of water, lots of sleep and I avoided alcohol in the early stages.
I had tried lots of things over my lifetime to quit; patches, gum, Wellbutrin, self hypnosis, acupuncture and “cold turkeyâ€. Wellbutrin gave me such bad insomnia that I was an absolute wreck of a person going through a very intense physical withdrawal. I was literally jumping at anything that moved or made a sound. Acupuncture was just as bad as it didn’t do anything at all to a make it easier and then I had to suffer through another torturous round of the awful “cold turkey†withdrawals. When I went through withdrawal of nicotine I would go into an immediate depression that was nearly debilitating. I would sleep all day or just sit in bed crying, it was really bad. Withdrawals really often do make people sick because of the extreme stress it puts on the body. I really don’t think I could have gotten through it without the nicotine replacement.
I also read Alan Carr's "The Easy Way to Quit". Well this book had some good points it failed miserably in saying that nicotine replacements are counterproductive but in fact is shown in multiple studies to double successful quitting rates.
It has been difficult but well worth it. I am so proud that I quit and enjoy the numerous benefits of being a non smoker. Sometimes I miss it; I miss my escape, my being bad, I miss sneaking out! Despite this, despite the fact that I still yearn for the punch of nicotine and other drugs hitting my lungs, the immediate relief I feel as I inhale and exhale the smoke; I am so afraid that I will relapse. So many people can stop for as long as I have and go back to it in an instant. I know that if I have “just†one that I won’t be able to control it, I will immediately be a smoker again. I can’t afford to let that happen again.
So, If you want to encourage someone to quit
(e:tinypliny), you need to have true compassion. You really have to understand and acknowledge the person’s suffering and to acknowledge that the challenge that lies ahead is a difficult one. Discussing the evils of smoking might cause fear but fear isn’t enough. They need help, they need information, strategies to cope and they need to be supported and encouraged. Sadly, this type of support is rarely truly achieved in smoking cessation.
For free help with quitting smoking you can call the National Quitline 1-800-Quit-NOW. It will take you to the State's Quitline for the number you are calling from.
yes, i am
Are you implying that you are not ambitious enough?
I could maybe do that if I were ambitious enough.
I am sure you could take less expensive animal "play-pens" and hack them for Coco... Or building one from random parts sounds more affordable... Maybe a couple "concert/outdoor" chairs turned upside down and hashed together in some so that it has a fair resemblance to this structure and has the same functionality.