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My Health
In the past few years I have begun to feel the physical effects of smoking for over 25 years. These symptoms include:

• A pressure, heaviness, and often pain in my lungs in the morning.
• Morning cough.
• Loss of my singing voice.
• Breathlessness in my reading voice.
• Unpleasant irritation of the mucous membranes of my mouth.
• General tiredness and loss of energy.
• Headaches.
• I realize that I need to take naps to combat the tiredness I feel because my body has to process all the poisons that cigs have.
• Cigarette hangovers after late nights out.
• The need to exercise early in the day, before having smoked a lot.
• Waking up at night coughing or with tickles in my throat.

Psychological Reasons
These reasons are varied. When I smoke I feel like I live behind a literal curtain of smoke or inside a cave of smoke. It creates a condition in which I am separated from life and the people that I love. It is a barrier. I also feel:

• Complete self-hate and loss of self-esteem.
• A constant feeling of guilt at what I am doing to my body and the consequences that my smoking might have on my children, i.e. the care they might need to give me later in life.

Smoking has also affected my enjoyment of life. For example, because of my work, I have to travel and I love to travel. Now, however, that smoking is prohibited everywhere, I no longer enjoy traveling because cigarettes are more important.
I realize, because of the above, that cigarettes are more important to me than anything else and that this is the life of an addict. I find this sad. I realize that cigarettes have made me lose myself.

What I am doing to help myself: I swim, I started a yoga class, and I do the bicycle and treadmill three times a week. There is not a single day when I do not do at least one hour of exercise, but sometimes it is as much as three hours. I know that I need these endorphins and that this is a huge part of my quit. I also have one massage a week to keep the stress down and I take steam and sauna baths several times a week. I have not gained weight, although I could lose 5 pounds.

I have recently(two months ago) visited my OB/GYN and all is well(cholesterol is 150 - one thing to be proud of). I have not been to see a lung specialist. I plan to do this when I am 6 months free of cigarettes.

I started with a quit partner, but she caved in after two weeks. So, I am alone in this. However, due to this forum, I now have a lot of quit partners.

What I feel after not smoking for a month: I can already feel a sense of self-esteem returning. My lungs feel a lot better and I can sing again, although I still don't sound like I used to. It is still very hard and I am now on 14 mgs on the patch. I no longer feel as if I am in the minute-to-minute survival mode that lasted for two weeks. Now, I feel a deeper and more complex battle taking over.

Key things that motivate me:

• I want to quit on my own and not because a doctor has told me that I have to.
• I am terrified of all of the health consequences of smoking.
• I want a clean life and I no longer want to be a slave to cigarettes.
• I want my self-esteem back.
• I want to feel better physically.

EB (Quit date: May 6, 2003)
Pull up your socks. These are no small potatoes!

EB Celebrates 6 Months Without a Single Puff
EB's One Year Smoke Free Milestone Speech