[babalu1997]

PassedOut, on May 5 2009, 09:21 AM, said:

One example given was, "I have never smoked a cigarette, true or false." If you answered "true" you were deemed a liar.

Four nuns were standing in line at the gates of heaven.

Saint Peter asks the first if she has ever sinned. “Well, once I looked at a man’s penis,” she said.

“Put some of this holy water on your eyes, and you may enter heaven,” Peter told her.

Peter then asked the second nun if she had ever sinned. “Well, once I held a man’s penis,” she replied.

“Put your hand in this holy water, and you may enter heaven,” he said.

Just then the fourth nun pushed ahead of the third nun.

Peter asked her, “Why did you push ahead in line?” She said, “Because I want to gargle before she sits in it!”

[sireenb]

dicklont, on May 4 2009, 02:07 AM, said:

sireenb, on May 4 2009, 01:40 AM, said:

Thanks for the advice guys. You have convinced me to quit ASAP.

Way to go sireenb.
Keep us posted, I would love to hear that you´re succesfull!

I guess you have all forgotten this thread, but it was very important to me. Your collective encouragement was highly motivating...

I finally did it. Over the past few months I lost 13 kilos (28 lb) to prepare for quitting smoking. I can now gain or lose around 5 lb and still look OK. At the same time, I was cutting down cigarettes and had a quit plan in progress and a quit date lined up.

I quit smoking completely last night at midnight, over 13 hours ago. I do not know if I can keep it up or not, but I do plan to try my best.

Thank you all for convincing me to do it...

Sireen

[Aberlour10]

sireenb, on Aug 19 2009, 05:40 AM, said:

I guess you have all forgotten this thread, but it was very important to me. Your collective encouragement was highly motivating...

I finally did it. Over the past few months I lost 13 kilos (28 lb) to prepare for quitting smoking. I can now gain or lose around 5 lb and still look OK. At the same time, I was cutting down cigarettes and had a quit plan in progress and a quit date lined up.

I quit smoking completely last night at midnight, over 13 hours ago. I do not know if I can keep it up or not, but I do plan to try my best.

Thank you all for convincing me to do it...

Sireen

Nice to hear it

I am now more than 2 years over the deadline but still endangered of relapse.
In such moments, I try to think about all these efforts I have made to quit...it helps!

Robert

[Al_U_Card]

After 6 months of non-smoking, all of the "increased" risks of lung cancer, heart disease etc. return to normal levels.

Your life, freed from the addiction to tobacco, will never be the same.

[onoway]

Way to go! Good for you!

[Aberlour10]

so...Three Years After....the last cigarette...unfortunately bridge remains one of the very few activities I feel still a strong need to smoke from time to time...***** its not funny at all!

[jocdelevat]

I think I said this before and I say sorry for repetiton. In my father family 7 kids all that smoke died at age like 80 something by natural death and the others who didn't smoke die at cancer at age 60 something. I quit smoking thanks to Mike Bloomberg who raise the price to 10$ a pack and the bad economy which left my wife without job so I couldn't spend like 300$ per month(10$ a pack here in New York). I was smoking like 1pack and a half. I quit in 2009 however I will smoke again if times are better. I really do not put much on what those studies and results about smoking. Since I give up smoke I have bad headache every night and gain a lot of weight and now have more healty problems then when i was smoking.

[Apollo81]

I've never smoked anything. Never have understood the appeal.

[helene_t]

hi Jocdelevat,

It is possible that quiting smoking hasn't been a health advantage in your case. Smoking obviously has some positive effects for some like weight loss and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, and presumably the stress related to quiting smoking is also no good in itself.

However, the statistics of your family nonwithstanding, the evidence for the relation between smoking and risk of cancer and heart disease is extremely compelling. The harm caused by smoking on the health of the overall population is enormous.

[USViking]

From ages 21-60 I averaged over 40 cigarettes a day,
plus from ages 30-60 I smoked about an ounce to an
ounce and a half of of pot a year, use about every
other day.

Just before I quit literally merely walking to the car or
getting undressed for bed made me breathe heavily and
made my heart pound.

I got a prescription for a smoking cessation drug in 2007
but put off filling it because I was afraid it would not work,
and the worst prolonged pain by far that I had ever experienced
occurred as a result of my previous attempts to quit.

I decided that my 60th birthday would be a appropriate time
to try quitting again, so I filled the prescription, followed it
to a "T", and By God the damn stuff worked. It really and
truly worked.

I put out my last cigartette at exactly 9:54am 6/30/09, and
have not taken one single puff since then, with no, repeat no
withdrawal symptoms at all, none, although a small, lingering
desire to smoke remains, and will probably always remain.

I did smoke pot 4-5 times in July-Aug '09, and then once again
on New Year's Eve '09, but not since, so perhaps the medicine
I took is implicitly meant to be effective against illegal forms of
recreational smoke as well as legal.

I also drink. I am not going to try giving that up for a while yet,
if ever, but consumption there is probably down by well over
a sixpack a week, another benefit of the healthier life I think
ultimately enabled by this smoking cessation medicine which
I finally tried.

I did not gain much if any weight after quitting, or experience
increase in appetite. I was about 20-25lb overweight, of which
I have lost about 10lb since also taking up exercise and diet.

I am not going to name the medicine. Ask your Doctor about
what I might be speaking of and there should be a good chance
of your getting ahold of the same stuff that worked for me.

It does NOT work for everyone, but it works for enough people
for YOU, you smokers out there, to give it a try.

[Jlall]

This thread made me go downstairs to have a cig

[babalu1997]

i lost a very nice friends this year

a bridge player and dilettante ( tho some would call him an odd ball)

in his early years he smoked heavily and had troubles with the bottle

he managed the bottle, and would even drink socially

but decided at a certain point that he could not give up smoking

about 3 years ago there were some suspicious things in his lungs

i am not sure if he gave up smoking

about one month ago he dropped dead at work on the eve of his frequently mentioned retirement-- he intended to go live in the bushes making his own shoes etc...

he always said he would never be an invalid

the smoking bloggers feted him the most, which was strange because there were many facets of him that could be feted

i still think it was the cigarettes

[diana_eva]

8 years since i quit. if you offer me a cigarette now i am still tempted. i have tons of coffee or tea with bridge to compensate.