If you don’t go down this road, you’ll never know where it will lead

 One day, it will be too late
 I’d much rather be an ex-smoker who has an occasional urge to smoke instead of a smoker who always wants to quit.
 1 cigarette can and has led to a pack a day. You can’t have just one – that’s how it starts. And it won’t be worth it. It’s over so quick and does nothing for you. Just guilt. You’re really loosing nothing.
 Tobacco use is directly responsible for more than 25 causes of death.

After quitting for:
20 minutes your blood pressure and pulse rate to return to normal. The temperature of your hands and feet have also returned to normal.
8 hours (5AM 3/17) your blood oxygen levels to increase to normal limits and carbon monoxide levels to drop to normal.
24 hours (8:30AM 3/17) your risk of sudden heart attack to substantially decrease.
48 hours (8:30AM 3/18) nerve endings to start regrowing and your sense of smell and taste to begin returning to normal.
72 hours (8:30AM Thursday, 3/20) your entire body to become 100% nicotine free and the symptoms of chemical withdrawal to have peaked in intensity. Your bronchial tubes will begin relaxing and thus make breathing easier, and your lung capacity will also begin to increase
10 days to 2 weeks (8:30AM 3/27) your body to have fully adjusted to the absence of nicotine, and the absence of the 3,500 particles and more than 500 gases present in each puff, and chemical (physiological) withdrawal to have ended.
3 weeks to 3 months (4/7) your circulation to have improves substantially, for walking to become easier, and your overall lung function to have shown an amazing increase of roughly thirty percent.
1 to 9 months (4/17) any sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath to decrease. Cilia have regrown in your lungs thereby increasing their ability to handle mucus, keep your lungs clean, and reduce infections. Your body’s overall energy will have increased.
1 year (3/17/2003) your excess risk of coronary heart disease to drop to less than half that of a smoker.
5 years (35 years old) your risk of death from lung cancer to have decreased by almost half if you were an average smoker (one pack a day). Your risk of stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker at 5-15 years after quitting. Your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and esophagus is now half that of a smoker’s.
10 years (40 years old) your risk of death from lung cancer to now be similar to that of non-smokers. Precancerous cells have been replaced. Your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas have also decreased.
15 years (45 years old) your risk of coronary heart disease to now be that of a person who has never smoked. Your overall risk of death has returned to nearly that of a person who has never smoked

George Harrison of the Beatles died of throat cancer at 57 in 2001
Bob Marley, singer, died of lung cancer at age 36
Lon Chaney, actor, died of lung cancer and throat cancer at 47.
Jacqueline Kenney Onassis, who hid her smoking, died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at age 64.
Patrick Kennedy (son of JFK and Jackie) was born prematurely and died after 2 days. His death was attributed to his mother’s smoking during pregnancy.
Kiel Martin of Hill Street Blues died of lung cancer at 46.
The co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (Bill Wilson and Bob Smith) both died of lung cancer at 75 and 71 respectively.
Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun, died of lung cancer at age 34.
Morton Downey, Jr., died of lung cancer at 67.
Graham Chapman, Monty Python comic, died of throat cancer at 48.
Eric Carr (Paul Caravello), the drummer for Kiss, died of lung cancer at 41.
William Talman, lawyer on Perry Mason, died of lung cancer at 51.

I lost 35 lbs while I did it, too, which is all the fault of the Wellbutrin. Highly reccomended.

The thing that keeps me going is knowing that I don’t want to bring this old pattern with me any further into my life. My lord, I started doing this when I was 15 years old and now I’m 33. I really can’t think of many other habits or beliefs that I got into as a teenager that I still ascribe to – time to be the adult I know I’m capable of being.

The thing that keeps me going is knowing that I don’t want to bring this old pattern with me any further into my life. My lord, I started doing this when I was 15 years old and now I’m 33. I really can’t think of many other habits or beliefs that I got into as a teenager that I still ascribe to – time to be the adult I know I’m capable of being.

The thing that keeps me going is knowing that I don’t want to bring this old pattern with me any further into my life. My lord, I started doing this when I was 15 years old and now I’m 33. I really can’t think of many other habits or beliefs that I got into as a teenager that I still ascribe to – time to be the adult I know I’m capable of being

If you start smoking again, then you will have to repeat those terrible first days once more.

I’ve been a non-smoker for 6 months, after about 15 years of two packs a day (well, at least at the end and I feel so good I feel stupid for having smoked.

The best feeling is when you dream about convincing yourself into smoking, wake up pissed with yourself and then realize it was just a dream and that you are still a non-smoker.

Just hang on… the first 3 days are hell… the first week is a nightmare… and the first month is rough… but then you are downhill and soon days will go by without you thinking about smoking!

Nicotine is no joke; a real drug with real physical effects on the body. Seven days, though they feel like a lifetime, are a relatively short period of time in terms of nicotine cravings. For me, they lasted ninety days.

Regular sleep and eating patterns, though difficult at first, will really help. Particularly the eating. Keeping blood sugar constant will generally make you feel better. Consider using this as an excuse to eat exotic food. Smoking kills your sense of taste, so enjoy it as it comes back. Go get some Jamaican / Pakistani / Thai and keep track of the immediate positive effects of not smoking. Resist the temptation to over eat. Gaining too much weight will have a negative psychological effect.

Drink water. Lots of it. More than you normally would.

Consider replacing smoking with something, particularly something that smoking would generally make more difficult. Exercise is the typical answer. Even light exercise will have an overall positive effect on the body. Add up what you’d normally be spending on cigarettes, and go get a massage every other week.

Gaining Thai food and massages is easier to do than lose cigarettes. Mental attitude is important.

Best of luck. It really is worth it.

The big thing was getting the brain to flip from thinking ‘cigarettes make me feel good’ to ‘cigarettes stink’. Those ‘this is the inside of a smokers lungs’ ads they have on the telly here in Oz help, but the main thing was going for a run, and sprinting till I spewed up. I could taste every filthy butt I’d ever smoked.

At two weeks I remember a vivid dream that I had absent mindedly smoked one cigarette, and I remember the horror I felt that I would have to go through all that physical and psychological withdrawal again. My relief when I woke to the realization that it wasn’t true was compelling. That is what has kept me all these years from that one cigarette, even as my wife smoked up to two packs a day. Why put yourself through that more than once?

Hang in there.