Quit on January 22, 2013
4,323 Days Quit
Thanks to Mark and John. I wasn't able to log on the Nope365 for a couple weeks. Yay! I'm back Ready to pledge daily and check out some good posts, which helps my smobriety! Keep your quit "one Day At A Time.
StaciT
QuitNet Profile
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Quit Date
January 22, 2013 -
Medication
Cold Turkey -
My Quit
This is : Hank of the Sky. Quotes I love and that help me.
10/19/2021
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
Helen Hayes
This has been the hardest year of my life. ----------But I did not smoke!
11/07/2020
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again. L. ~ Frank Baum~ Author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
10/02/2020
Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.' 🤣
08/13/2020
“More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
Thanks Larry!
07/24/2020
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
August's Quote
08/06/2020
Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise. Victor Hugo
07/01/2020
One of my favorite writers, Mary Oliver. This reminds me to breathe quietly.
“oxygen"
Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine
stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a
stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your
right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a
beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know
where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except
everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles
to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.”
― Mary Oliver, Thirst
06/20/2020
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes
06/15/2020
“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
06/02/2020 While America burns.
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver
05/27/2020
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. ~ Khalil Gibran
Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking.
William E. Simon
I like living, breathing better than working... Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It's a kind of constant euphoria. Marcel Duchamp
“By talking to yourself every hour of the day, you can direct yourself to think thoughts of courage and happiness, thoughts of power and peace. By talking to yourself about the things you have to be grateful for, you can fill your mind with thoughts that soar and sing.”
― Dale Carnegie
"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." - Salvador DalĂ
All you have to do, is do your best.
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
~ E.E. Cummings
God, (higher power) give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
03/22/2020
Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.
~ Saint Augustine -
Advice
NOPE & ODAAT
Hank's "Quote of the Month"
09/05/2020
This is a post of the Month because it is so good. 1Q2S. Posted this just the yesterday.
Many of the words and concepts in here are beautiful, especially the last sentence where it says "You are the medicine" . This is relevant here because although there is as much help
here, at this website, to quit smoking, as you could possibly find anywhere in the world, you still have to do some of the heavy lifting on your own by deciding you will not take that puff. We can help you, guide you, teach you; we cannot physically keep you from taking that next puff. That is where "You are the medicine" comes in. Use your own strengths and use the help here. No Smoking!
HOW TO HEAL DEEPLY?
Maria Sabina, Woman Mexican Medicine / Oaxacane, wise wife, curatora (healer) and poet.
′′ Heal yourself, with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon.
With the sound of the river and waterfall.
With the sea swing and the birds floating.
Heal yourself, with mint and mint leaves, lilac of India and eucalyptus.
Soften with lavender, rosemary and chamomile.
Embrace with the cocoa bean and a touch of cinnamon.
Put love in tea instead of sugar and take it while looking at the stars
Heal yourself, with the kisses the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain.
Be strong, walk with barefoot on earth and with all that was born.
Be smarter every day listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your 3rdeye (forehead eye).
Jump, dance, sing, so that you may live happier.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember... you are the medicine. '''
Maria Sabina.
10/30/2019
“Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.
Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more.
You’re doing just fine.” ~ Charlotte Eriksson
01/01/2020
“How simple it is to acknowledge that all the worry in the world could not control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and that there will never be a time when it is not now.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography
02/05/2020
Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.
Erich Fromm
Quote of the Month, 03/08/2020
Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life. – Giovanni Papini
04/03/2020
Living here on Earth, we breathe the rhythms of a universe that extends infinitely above us. When resonant harmonies arise between this vast outer cosmos and the inner human cosmos, poetry is born.
~ Daisaku Ikeda
REPOST From tc guy 5/7/2002
Peace to all who read this. I seldom start a post, unless it is to honor someone's anniversary. But I feel compelled to share something that I seem to be sharing a lot of lately... and that is my thoughts on 'No Man's Land'.
No Man's Land is a dangerous and scary place... and it is a lonely time during a quit. I call No Man's Land that period of time between about 1 month and 3 or 4 months into your quit, or about the time from the end of your first month until you become an Elder.
This is a time when many people slip and go into a full relapse and have to start over... if they can start over, that is.
I have some observations that may help some of you who are literally hanging on by your fingernails... or who may find yourself there tomorrow.
The first month is an exhausting but exhilarating experience... you are locked in nearly daily struggles and you get the satisfaction of successfully beating your addiction that day. You go to bed a WINNER each night (as Troutnut would say), and you are justifiably proud of yourself. Your friends and family are also supportive as they see you struggling each day to maintain your quit. And you are being constantly supported here; whether or not you post... just being here is good for your quit. And so, the battles are won and it actually becomes easier and the battles occur less often as you finish 30 days or so.
Around 60 days, you're starting to have some really good days, with very few craves and some nice insights about yourself... but then again, you still have some bad days. Those bad days can really be depressing... you begin to wonder if you're ever going to be able to relax. Your junkie is whispering to you, telling you that 'just one' won't hurt. You've conquered your daily triggers, but now you start tripping over the occasional ones... a death in the family, unexpectedly bad news, money problems, health problems, going on a long car ride, a trip to the bar, or whatever. You have a strong crave and you begin to doubt your ability to keep your quit. In addition, the 3D support that you used to get is pretty much gone... non-smokers figure you should be 'over it' by now, smokers don't like to hang around you much because they feel guilty and addicted (remember that feeling?), and people who have quit may not remember just how much love and support you need well into the first few months. They all think you should be 'over it', you think you should be 'over it'... and the temptation is to have 'just one' to see if you ARE over it.
But of course you're not over it, are you? That 'just one' whisper becomes much louder and becomes 'just one more'... and each time you give in to that whisper, the craves come harder and sooner. The one way to guarantee that your craves will never go away is to light up, to slide that old cigarette needle into your arm and shoot up. Those craves will be back and keep coming back.
But if you protect your quit, your craves will eventually weaken and become even fewer and farther between.
As you get to around 100 days or so (some will be a bit longer)... you will begin to really get a healthy perspective on your addiction. You will see the huge role that smoking played in your life, you will see clearly what that addiction really cost you. And you will understand that it was a very high price to pay... the loss of your confidence, your emotions, your self-control... your SELF. All enslaved to your addiction. And you will begin to see that you can look forward to a non-smoking future without romanticizing your addiction. You see it clearly for the life-stealing evil it was... and is. You see a much different future for yourself than your past has been. And it no longer scares the crap out of you to think that you are done smoking... in fact, you embrace that thought with joy every day.
But you have to get out of No Man's Land first. How can you help yourself? And how can those of us who have been through it help you?
First of all, you need to understand that you aren't alone. If you haven't already done so, make a pinky-finger promise with 2 or 3 good quit buds and exchange phone numbers with them. Promise to call them if you're ever in trouble, and make them promise the same. These are your 'life and death' quit buddies... you are literally trusting each other with your lives. Then call them... often. Just to see how they are doing, and to tell them you're doing well too. Be totally honest with them, this is life and death.
Second, understand that you're going to have some unexpectedly bad days... but they are going to be further apart. Shrug them off, laugh your way through them, call your quit buddies... whatever it takes to get through them without smoking. Some battles will be easy, some will be hard. Come here and post, send qmail, exercise, learn to cook, take up a new hobby. Whatever it takes, keep going to bed a WINNER each night.
Third, ask some of the older qsters to keep an eye on you... to contact you to see how you're doing. I have been asked to do that for several of you recently and I am happy to do that, as I am sure that others are too. We know that you just need to hold on a little bit longer and change your focus just a little to make that breakthrough. And then you will OWN your quit, and it will be a very comfortable thing.
Last, take a deep and honest look at your past life... your life as a smoker and compare it to what your life is like now... and what it will be like in the future. You have to develop that vision of your future, of the person that you are going to BECOME now that you have freed yourself. You have to believe in yourself. You have to love yourself enough to deny yourself your addiction.
No Man's Land doesn't have to be so lonely and scary and dangerous. You need some company and some courage and some faith in yourself. And when you emerge from it, you will not be the same person that entered it.
Never question your decision to quit! This is the most loving thing that you will ever do for yourself. A few days of discomfort in exchange for a lifetime of freedom. You will never find another deal like it. Protect your quit. Don't smoke, no matter what. Peace. Ron
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