I’m very proud to say that yesterday was my official quit date. I’ve said over & over again for a little over 6 years now that I wanted to quit smoking. In June of this year it would’ve made 16 years that I’ve been smoking. Finally on 1/3/2021 I actually committed to my goal and I’m sticking to it. What pushed me to actually quit for real this time was being out of cigarettes and the money I did have was needed for bills. Normally that’s not like me at all, if I was out of cigarettes I’d either spend the money I needed for bills and just be short until I can pay the rest or scram through the house or my car like a crackhead looking for change to either buy cigarettes or get a black & mild. Yesterday was different. I had said once again my New Years resolution was to quit smoking. I was tired of letting cigarettes control my life & take over me. I finally decided to take back control of my life. I will no longer be a victim to nicotine. Not to mention all the money that was being spent on buying cigarettes. I’d say my husband & I spent roughly about $300 each month buying cigarettes. I never thought I’d be able to quit smoking, my addiction was so strong I didn’t know if I’d be able to live without cigarettes. Literally anytime I’d get stressed out, feel my anxiety starting to get bad, get upset or mad, when I’d go into a rage, even when I was bored my go to was a cigarette. Just the thought of putting a cigarette in between my lips & lighting it up taking that first initial puff seemed to relieve anything and everything that was on my mind or whatever I was going through that cigarette was all that was on my mind. Even if nothing was on my mind smoking that cigarette made time pass by & just made me feel relaxed. Without a cigarette in my mind I thought I just wouldn’t be able to cope, I kept thinking in my mind if I don’t have a cigarette, how am I supposed to get through the day when my emotions started going crazy on me? If the number one thing in my mind was that cigarettes calmed me down and kept my nerves under control. I guess that’s why it took me so long to finally get the courage to quit. My best advice to anybody trying to quit, make sure you’re ready. I know it says on pretty much any blog/webpage/book/etc to prep yourself to quit. Set a date as your quit date, they say preferably 2 weeks from the day you’re wanting to quit & work your way towards being smoke free. I personally didn’t do that, but if you are trying to quit and need the time to prep yourself, do it. When you get cravings to smoke, try to hold off for as long as you can. Remind yourself over & over again why you want to quit, write all of your reasons down, post it somewhere you can always see it, write notes of inspiration to yourself, plant it firmly in your mind that you’re going to live smoke free, & always get as much support & encouragement from people as you can. It’s possible to do it alone, but with a great support group, people who have been through the same struggles as you have & know just how hard it is, can motivate you to be committed and it will help you stay more encouraged and committed to quitting then trying to do it alone. A good support system is key. Also, another thing to keep in mind while you’re trying to quit and once you’ve made the decision weather it be your first day or you recently just quit, stay away from your friends and family who do smoke, try to avoid anywhere that reminds you of smoking, throw away anything you have that reminds you of smoking. Since yesterday was my quit day, I deep cleaned my house to get the smell of cigarettes out of my house and threw away everything in my house that was associated with smoking. Now I don’t have to steadily be reminded about smoking because there’s nothing in my house to remind me of it, and my house smells fresh, I’ve washed pretty much everything in my house to make sure I got the smell out & mopped my floors multiple different times. My beautiful sweet daughters mean everything in this world to me, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them! As a parent, I decided for the health & future of my children cigarettes wouldn’t be my priority anymore! I want better for my children. My husband & I are also trying for another baby. The past 2 months we’ve conceived but it has turned into a chemical pregnancy where we lost the baby & I don’t know for certain but in my heart I believe it was because of smoking. Especially since I was smoking between 1-2 full packs by myself in one day. I witnessed multiple times family members struggling with serious health issues due to smoking and some even passed away. My mother was just recently diagnosed with COPD and a few other health issues all related to smoking. I don’t want that for myself & especially not for my children! They deserve better! I wish nothing but the best for my babies now, as they grow up & once they get my age & older. I hope they never pick up on the habit of smoking, hopefully now that I’m a non-smoker and they won’t be exposed to cigarettes at home from their mommy & daddy ( My husband is quitting with me as well so that right there makes it easier on me since I’m not alone quitting one of the hardest habits to kick) , they’ll never want to pick up a cigarette & take that 1st hit. That’s all it takes, just one cigarette & you can be hooked, half of the time for the rest of your life. I’m thankful I haven’t got any serious health issues from smoking as long as I did. My chest does hurt every now & then and if I go for a walk I do get shortness of breathe & I can’t run for the life of me, if I even tried my chest would get super tight feeling like I’m about to pass out and it’d take a good while just for me to catch my breath. I may be very early on in this new journey of my life, but I’ve got full determination, motivation, a strong mindset, encouragement, and faith in myself as well as a strong support system by my side every step of the way. I know I can keep my goal, I have no doubt in my heart. I’m ready to get back healthy, it will take time for my body to heal, slowly but surly I will start to feel better and get back to old activities I used to do before I smoked. No matter what obstacles life throws at you, you’re strong enough to overcome them. Keep pushing forward no matter how hard things get. The outcome is worth every second of the ups and downs you will go through. Just think of it as being a bump in the road and this too shall pass. You’re mind is a very powerful thing, you just have to stay positive no matter what. Nicotine is very addictive making it seem as if you need it, but I personally can tell you from my own experience that you don’t! I’m using the patch along with the nicotine gum/lozenge (maybe 2-3 times a day) to help me but if you can do it cold turkey I give props to you! For me though, the patch is working wonders for me! Smoking a cigarette hasn’t even crossed my mind. I’m actually surprised & super proud of myself today as it’s been a very long stressful day. & as I’ve mentioned, stress is my #1 trigger to smoke a cigarette. I’ve had 2 small cravings today, but I didn’t let cigarettes get the best of me this time. While sitting in the emergency room with my family and my in laws, I fought through those cravings! I said to myself both times, I’m quitting for my children’s health as well as mine and I will not let nicotine win. Not this time! Other than those 2 small cravings with everything that’s going on and all the stress I’m dealing with, I stayed strong & remembered my goal. That right there took a lot. If I can do it, I promise you that you can too! You just have to put your mind to it. I know this post is a bit long, so if you’ve read through my whole post thank you! I just wanted to share my own personal story with everybody to let y’all know you’re not alone in this journey and with god all things are possible. Stay strong & don’t give up!  

Once we decide to bite the bullet and take back our lives from the clutches of the dreaded nicotine poison we'll be living a life of Freedom BUT in order to remain Smokefree we must choose to stick with N.O.P.E - Not One Puff Ever and vigilance N.M.W - No Matter What! Our lives are worth so much more than the damned Cancer Sticks....

Own the quit train again.  I am not going to beat myself up. I am going to do this one minute at a time.  I don't no why I smoked again.  Maybe the break up with my fellow.  Maybe my 14 year old grandson giving me grief.  Maybe I feel like no body really loves me.  It is mothers day my only child is passed.  Maybe I just said to he'll with it why not.  Maybe the stay at home stuff.  But I no there should be no excuse to smoke at all.  Nope.  

Maya Angelou

Once upon a time, about 3 decades ago in my previous life, I had a big house in the country. I had everything I thought I wanted - 3 cats in the yard, a really neat house, an apple orchard, a thriving small business of my own.

Every Christmas season, I had a big open house at my home. I had the coolest collection of Christmas music. The most over the top garland up the open stairway, an 18' Christmas tree in the great room. And I baked for weeks in advance.

This particular Christmas was in the middle of a year I now think of as "the year of learning."

Nothing was going right. My house, underneath all its remodeling, was just an old farm house. The Great Room and half the house was heated by a huge wood burning fireplace. My husband, who had left me for "no reason" (whose named turned out to be something like Jane) also left me unprepared for the coming winter. I had to get a cord of firewood dropped in the drive, and then loaded by myself around to the back of the house, up onto a small porch. Every morning I got up to an ice-cold house, alone, in the country, on a dirt road that sometimes didn't get plowed for days if the snow was heavy in the rest of the county.

When the holidays arrived, I wanted my Christmas open house. Did I have to give up everything?

 And everything was going wrong. The day before the event, my road had been snowed in for almost a week. I couldn't get to the store. The stairs to the garage attic had broken and I couldn't get it fixed, to get to my many boxes of Christmas decorations, or to the holiday cookie cutters I always used - reindeer, Christmas trees, holly.

After flinging myself and everything I could think of about madly, I thought about just calling it off. But some friends had joked that they'd be there on snow-shoes if they had to. So I put away my recipes for stuffed figs, and hung up the idea of Christmas Open Houses Past.

I had the ingredients for sugar cookies, and I had three dinosaur Play Dough forms still in a drawer from when my nephew had visited over the summer. A new tradition was born - the Christmas dinosaur.

To greet my friends, who followed the snow-plow to my door, I played Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt. We all carried in firewood from snowy back porch. And then we munched down Christmas cookies that looked a bit like this:

A stegosaurus with Christmas tree lights down his back,

a brontosaurus in a sweater that had a big "L" in a circle, with a line through it (no-L),

and a ceratops with a giant wreath around her neck.

Happy holidays. Cheers to new traditions.

When we first quit nothing feels OK.  Especially us.  We feel like fish out of water.  Everything is uncomfortable.  We feel like we've lost our best friend.  We seem unable to cope with anything and are irritated by everything.  Or we're lost in a fog and all we want to do it sleep it away, but our sleep pattern has been altered too.  We tend to cry a lot.  We don't know what to do to get through.  We're told it will get better, but it seems to take sooooo long.  Our entire being seems foreign to us.  And it's UNCOMFORTABLE!

Yup - that's what the early stages of the quit journey feel like.  It's uncomfortable.  We're out of our comfort zone for sure.  Because the behavior that we've practiced for so long - many of us for year and YEARS - is being altered.  It's different to go through our days without our binky, without our "go to" to relieve stress; our reward for an accomplishment, exclamation point on a success; that moment where we can relax for a few minutes and that five minutes to pause to think through sorrow or anger and escape it; the sharing of times with like-minded smokers, that after-meal final fulfillment or the one after sex.. the times alone on our back decks where we got relief with a cigarette in hand...  

When we quit smoking - everything changes.  All our normal routines and behaviors are altered.  (But we have chosen this path to freedom, don't forget.)  So of course we're going to feel uncomfortable.  But only for a while.  

When dragon flies mate, they do so over water and the egg  is deposited in the water itself.  The life cycle of a dragonfly larva begins as a nymph.  It lives in water as it grows and develops.  It is essentially a water-breathing creature and it's REALLY scaring looking.  I've seen one and it's really icky!: 

It can take up to four years to complete this cycle of it's development.   It doesn't take us that long!  Promise!

Eventually it comes out of the water and hangs out on the bank and breaks through it's shell.  A very different looking creature.  It sits there in the sun as the water oozes from it's new body, from it's tail, drop by drop, wings stuck together.

After about 20 minutes the airfoils suddenly open.  There is a pause.  Then a fluttering like manic helicopter blades as the wings dry.  Another moment of stillness and in a breath it lifts into the sky.  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.  I've watched this process.  It was truly awesome.  Breathtaking that moment of liftoff.  To think that this creature had been water breathing 30 minutes prior, crawling around the bottom of the pond, and now it was airborne.  A glorious moment indeed.  Stunning.

I've watched many people quit here and it's an equally glorious moment to see someone achieve that One Year Milestone.  To watch that transformation from frightened nymph to empowered flier.  Many say "I never would have believed I could get here...."  

You know what?  You CAN!  It's gonna be OK.  You're going to go from a muddy smokey tar-breather on the bottom of the pond to an air breather.  Just hang in 'til you find your new comfort zone.  And soar!  

You just have to hold on long enough.  

It's Gonna Be OKAY - The Piano Guys - YouTube 

Freedom from the clutches of the dreaded nicotine poison comes from believing in ourselves, being willing, determined and totally committed to succeed and persevering and plowing forward no matter what is happening in life and stacking up those precious smoke free days, quitting smoking is definitely difficult to say the least but it's absolutely Doable and and definitely worth it so hang on tight and don't let go until you come out the other side smiling because there's definitely life after cigarettes and it's yours for the taking but you must stick with your quit.

I can't think of much to say this morning without sounding like a broken record so I'll wish everyone the best day possible and tonight can and will be another Day WON or maybe it's your first Day WON with many more to come, there really is Life after cigarettes so reach out and grab it and don't let go until you come out the other side smiling!