My life as a smoker
I started smoking when I was 12 years old. I stopped smoking exactly one week before my 37th birthday. I smoked about 20 cigarettes a day for 25 years aside from my many attempts to quit.
Why and how I quit smoking
I took Zyban to stop smoking last year and was successful for two and a half months. I started again when I stopped taking it. This time I took a different approach, using Nicabate lozenges.
I decided to finally stop smoking when a person I know was rushed into surgery for a triple bypass from 50+ years of smoking. I decided that I don't want to put my family through that and came to see how selfish I was being by continuing to smoke.
Advice
My husband is a non-smoker, so he desperately wanted me to quit smoking. Once I decided to quit and followed through with it, he said that I should spend the money I would have smoked on myself.
So far, I have purchased concert tickets to take my son to his first rock concert, tickets to a show, and will be soon purchasing myself an ePad with my NOT SMOKING money. =)
I agree with something I read here when I decided to quit:
- "Don't revisit your decision to quit!"
Terry Martin, Smoking Cessation Guide, says:
Once we get some smoke-free time under our belts, the reasons we quit smoking can become a little fuzzy. When that happens, it's easy to rationalize why smoking just one or just for tonight should be okay. However, the truth of it is that there is no such thing as just one cigarette for a nicotine addict, and our reasons for quitting are just as important today as they were the day we stopped smoking.Congratulations on your success with quitting so far, Angie. Keep your eyes on the prize and your feet moving forward one simple step at a time. You'll get there just as surely as others have before you.
