Turkey's Triumphs: Page 22

My last puff was October 22, 2005, 3.25pm. I stumbled upon your website and truly believe I could not have done it without the information I gained from it. My motivation was seeing my father go through the horrors of lung cancer and deciding that I did not want the same thing to happen to me. Sadly he passed away 18 months ago. I was able to get through the most difficult and heart wrenching times without even considering lighting up a cigarette, something I never thought I could achieve. I will NEVER take another puff. Thank you.

Frances

Five years! Actually, five years, one month, 13 days! Just a thanks for the help. Referred a friend to your site today. think she's ready to try to quit.

Ron Bishop

I lurked on WhyQuit.com for many years, terrifying myself while smoking like a fiend. I had tried several times to quit, but always failed. I have a "stressful" life with three special-needs children, a tough job and I always used those factors to rationlize my continued smoking. Then, slowly - all too slowly - but surely, I became educated about the nature of addiction. The smoking also really started to bother me.

I am asthmatic, too. I was wheezing badly all the time. I couldn't breath and relied heavily on inhalers. I would go to smoke with an inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other, puffing away on the inhaler so I could smoke "comfortably" - insane, right?! I would cough like a ghoul in a way that terrified my wife. I would lie in bed and she said I sounded like I was dying. I would cough up thick phlegm all the time and would - are you ready? - inspect it for blood or specs of rust-colored, dried blood for fear of cancer. I had chest pains and abdominal pains and always thought I was perhaps ready to drop dead. Yet I still smoked like a fiend.

An inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other - the insanity of addiction to smoked nicotine in perhaps its most ironic, sickening and illustrative form. But that was indeed me.

My kids finally started to bother me about my smoking; especially my older two. Having never broken a promise to them, I made the promise to them and myself that I would quit. And on November 19, 2010 at 8pm, I smoked my last cigarette. That wasn't the planned moment, either. I was in my bathroom, standing under the exhaust fan, smoking and puffing on my inhaler, when I said, with a cough, numb tongue and a wheeze, "enough!" I exited the bathroom and gave my oldest son my pack of cigarettes. I told him to break them into pieces and throw them away right in front of me. At one point, I had to remind him to break them into tiny pieces so I wouldn't rummage though the trash later and try to smoke larger pieces; he looked astonished that I would do this, however I wanted him to know the true nature of this addiction.

That was it. Now I can breath quietly. I don't cough. I saved enough money to take my family of five to Disney World for eight days, which I did.

Now I do not take for granted my ability to breathe deeply with no coughing or spasms; no wheezing; no pain. I can sneeze without feeling like my lungs are going to fall out of my chest. My car smells nice. I wake up in the morning feeling like a human being and I bounce out of bed with energy. I don't have to worry about how many smokes I have. I don't have to face air travel with withdrawal. I get to watch all the anti-smoking PSAs with a sense of victory and not shame. I can walk without leg pain. I smell the seasons in the air and realize I hadn't in so, so long. The constant, random chest pains are gone and if I cough, it's one, simple, quiet cough with no sputum.

Life is so much better without nicotine. I did it. And sometimes I can't believe it. I lived to smoke and smoked to live. I was a smoker's smoker. If I can do it, anyone can.

Russell Lloyd

On April 30th I will celebrate 5 years as a non-smoker. Because of WHYQUIT I will never take another puff. I can't believe I did it. I was on your website for months before I picked my quit date. Once I quit, I was on your site almost hourly. It helped me every step of the way.

Thank you and God Bless!

Christine

Just a short note to thank you for the wonderful website and the PDF document Never Take Another Puff. I still have it on my desktop.

I quit smoking 2 years and 10 days ago. I smoked for over 30 years! Even I can't believe it that I managed to quit.

The scariest part was when I realized that I didn't remember how my life was before smoking! I started smoking at age 16 and quit at 50. So I had to learn to live my life without a cigarette in my hand. One hour and one day at the time. I tried Chantix, nicotine gums and the nicoderm patch several times and finally it was with the help of WhyQuit.com and the NTAP.PDF that I quit. Cold Turkey is the only way!

Thanks!

Karine

I woke up this morning led to write about my quitting adventure 7 years ago, this past December 31. Don't know why...but I'm not one to question this sort of thing :)

I do know two things...for sure. In my case...

1. Cold turkey was the best way.

2. I couldn't have done it if I hadn't really wanted to.

I started my thought process of quitting by visiting whyquit.com. I actually began reading everything on it and some of the things included are disturbing. Blogs of former smokers, now passed away, journaling all their regrets at having started smoking and wishing they could do it all over again. Pictures, and most importantly - education on how to be a successful quitter. Tools, a quit smoking forum, that you are not even allowed to join until you are three days smoke free, whose mantra is "Never Take Another Puff" and a host of positive feedback await anyone ready to take that step.

You must be warned that this website's forum is very serious about their goals and life as non-smokers and they will not let you join without following the rules of doing so completely and thoroughly. It's your life. But their rules. It's much like any accountability program. Being that way, is why I believe they are the best resource available for people wanting to quit. I never joined the forum because I know my mouth gets me in trouble too much in forum activity when someone makes me mad - and I did not want anything standing in my way...not even my own ego.

But you don't have join to read the forums and get the gifts offered. You just can't participate. :) One of the reasons they don't allow anyone less than 3 days smoke free - is because they don't want the not serious about quitting, or the big-dog syndrome and know it all attitudes joining the forum and better appreciate watching the growth and wisdom that accompanies true grit. They figure if you have stayed smoke free 3 days you are serious enough, but not far along enough to rub egos the wrong way. I can't blame them...and it makes sense.

As I rifled through this website..I can only explain that one day it just hit me that I still had a choice. I was 44 and had been smoking since I was 16. But I still had a choice. I began to feel grateful I still had that choice, and I prayed for God to give me the strength to put them down. I felt grateful that I was not one of those former smokers journaling, prior to ultimately dying, about their regrets...and I wanted my non-smoking life all of sudden more than anything else. I set my date for Dec 31st 2004. And on the night I was to quit...I was planning a Labyrinth walk to meditate about my journey.

To start my journey off...I gathered up everything in my home associated with smoking and threw it in the dumpster before leaving for my walk. I still had a half pack of cigarettes that I wasn't going to unclutch until midnight. But, I didnt set myself up for failure by allowing myself to come back home to the visuals.

I walked, prayed and felt hopeful and a little strength by the end of it. I came back to my car at 11:00...and couldn't make sense of smoking until midnight after such a peaceful beginning to quitting. I threw the half pack away. And in spite of the trials and hurdles, I have not looked back.

The first few days I spent cleaning my home, ridding it of smoke odor, clothes, carpet - you name it - it got washed. I prayed and asked God to get me through everyday. With each hour passing with no cigarette...I became stronger feeling wonderful that there was hope I could quit. And of course...I maintained my presence on WhyQuit reading and remembering why I wanted to quit so bad.

I welled up with gratitute as days passed and it looked like I was going to succeed. My brother, who has since passed 6 months after I quit, was proud of me and I have to say that much determination came to me because of his passing. In a sort of way...I remained smoke free in honor of him and his pride in me. Regardless of the reasons...I sit here today 7 years later, so very proud of the fact that I am not going to die a smoker.

Some of the things that helped me were:

• I had a stop smoking calculator (on the website) I used which kept up with how many cigarettes I was not smoking and how much money I was saving. (Which boggled my mind) ...
• A stop smoking list of things your body will experience on a time line as a reactor to quitting. (also printable from the website - it is a reassuring and motivating tool)
• Cleaning my home
• Telling everyone I knew I was quitting.
• And I made my own personal mantra that I told myself everytime a craving came up..."I am giving myself a gift by ignoring this craving...I am not robbing myself of anything" - it is true...every minute I did not smoke was going to be a gift to me. I began to see...that it was the way I conditioned my brain to think that mattered to my success.
• I began to refer to myself as a "non-smoker". Period. Not a former smoker, or recovering tobacco addict...a NON-smoker. It mattered to how I saw myself.
• I saw the blessings in quitting and acknowledged them. I no longer had to leave a table of friends to smoke, I no longer felt the embarrassment of being practically the only smoker in my crowd of friends, and I was not slave to figuring out how to fund my habit when I was broke. At that time...my brand of cigs were 3.50 a pack. And I was smoking a pack and a half a day most days. Or letting them burn down in the ashtray. YUK. And my home became cleaner, clearer and smelled much better. I loved it!
• I got a lung exray (one of the scariest moments of my life) - which turned out to be clear...and made me feel like I had a new lease and a chance to turn it around which motivated me further.

The mind is a powerul tool. Controlling mine and the way it thinks, has been my life's biggest challenge. But my baseline for knowing the power of it rests with this journey. And one thing is at the helm of my success...so far...I REALLY wanted it. It's like anything else one is trying to break free of...one day at a time...but it's more than that for me. A smoker is no longer who I am. I give God the credit for the help, I give myself the credit for accepting it and whyquit.com for providing the education that helped make my journey successful. :)

Annette Warner 2012

I have now been nicotine free for over a year. To be more precise, as I write this, one year, one month, eight days, one hour, twenty minutes.

To tell you the truth, I stopped counting somewhere around eight months. Until that fateful date of January 22nd loomed. My family -- at my insistence, since two of them still smoke -- had a little party for me. I earned it.

To anyone who isn't far along the path, let me join the chorus: Not only can you do this, you can do it more easily, with time, than you thought. I say this while living with two smokers. And they stink, like I used to stink, when they come into the house from a freezing garage, after another fix.

How many people say, "Well, if could quit, anybody can"? Sound annoying? Well, I'm part of that chorus now too. That's because I was a pack and a half a day smoker despite having smoking-induced athsma. Yeah, I had to use a rescue inhaler twice a day so I could breathe and still put away 30 cigarettes a day. Then I'd cough for ten minutes every night -- sometimes hard enough to work up a sweat -- just to quiet the wheezing enough to get to sleep. It got to the point that I dreaded bedtime, because I knew what a workout I was in for!

I'm on what some describe as Easy Street now. I still have the occasional thought about a cigarette -- and it comes and goes as a thought about a cigarette. Non-threatening, except perhaps for the fact that I am well aware of how easy it would be to go buy a pack and start again, even now. Cravings? I crave the return of football season; I crave a sunny day; I don't crave a cigarette. But I remember craving a cigarette. I remember scraping together change and going out in the middle of a freezing winter night to get a fix. How utterly ridiculous it was; it only made sense to the mind of an active junkie.

But here's what I remember more: Wishing, hoping against hope, that someday I'd be free of cigarettes. I am now. I've found peace as a non-smoker. It's not like the peace one gets by caving in to a craving. It's better. It's real. It's free.

Oh, and now it's one year, one month, eight days, one hour, and 47 minutes.

Liftbig

December 31, 2011 at 9:30 PM was my 1 year anniversary of quitting my 32 year pack-a-day dependency. I am so happy I finally was able to break the destructive cycle of puff..cough..puff..cough. I was on my way to an early grave. Thanks to Whyquit I was able to get the encouragement I needed to keep me from having "just one." I am free again.

Daphne - Michigan, USA

I quit smoking 10-10-09 5:10 A.M. after well over a decade of pack a day smoking.

The info on your site made it possible, especially the one puff files and the cancer stories. Before visiting your site I always made the mistake of just having the 1 cig for old times sake on my previous attempts and you know how that turns out.

Some weird reason I decided to shoot you a email after 2 plus years. Thank you and rest assured I will never let my guard down and become a statistic in the 1 puff files category.

Peace.

David

My name is Cecelia. After smoking for over 10 years, I quit in February 2004 with the help of your website. I will celebrate 8 years smoke-free next month. I honestly couldn't have done it without your website. I was still young enough to think smoking was "cool"-- although reading through the articles on your website helped me to see otherwise and to commit to quitting. At the end of the every day, in those first weeks, I would get on your site because it was my "support".

Thanks. It's possible you saved my life...!

Eternally grateful,

Cecelia