jaset, thanks for the reality check! lynnexx [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 10/24/2006 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 168 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,521 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �672 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 18 [B]Hrs:[/B] 21 [B]Mins:[/B] 53 [B]Seconds:[/B] 9

Jaset Good to have you back...I was wondering where you where...Thanks for the wake up on that one...Really good to hear from you... nonic [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 12/25/2006 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 105 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,539 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $735 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 19 [B]Hrs:[/B] 15 [B]Mins:[/B] 49 [B]Seconds:[/B] 28

Sorry, but Iam on a roll. Persuading someone to quit is one thing, but to live through an event that is like something out of a horror movie is another. We all have a story that we just cant get out of our head and yes, we do tend to put it in the back of our heads and forget it. That is, forget it until it happens to us. Then thats picture or story becomes reality. Then it becomes foremost. Then what do we do? Do we feel sorry for ourselves? We certainly cant change it by that time, can we? No, we have to prepare NOW! Before that happens, we have to DO MANY THINGS TO PREVENT what we dont want to happen. The images and the storys and the events of other people must play an important roll on our quits as well as our thinking and ultimatly our outcome. If you take a bad picture that is a real picture and is reality and put yourself into that situation, what will you do? You are more afraid to think about it than to act on it. That is the addiction and that is where you must re-train your brain! This quit is nothing more than re-training your brain and the structures that control the crave. It must be re-trained in the same way that we trained it when we first sucked on that filter. But the fact will always be, if we dont re-train our brains, then we will be put in a position where the pictures and the story will be reality. The pictures and storys of death and emotional break down will be a fact. It can not be helped, its part of the big picture. The smoker and the quiter must look at those images and they must realize that those images are in fact real. We have to understand that the addiction gets in the way of those images and storys. If we retrain our brains to except thoes images, then we can and will succeed. Why? because we have the ability to re-train the structures in our brain that blocks out our lessens our thinking. Iamges of my mother helped me tremendously, but not in the bigining. It was after I spent a long time re-thinking and re-training my thoughts. Thats when it hit me. So in all actually, it is nothing but a mind game and how we created the images and storys to be less important. Thanks for reading. Jaset [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 11/17/2006 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 142 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,856 [B]Amou

For some of us, smoking (and not the addiction) is reality. Smoking was a relaxor for me. I new about the addiction but always thought I could handel it when I was ready. Well, "ready" came and went. I was more addicted than I thought and when it started to effect my health, I realized that the addiction was real and it was not going to be easy to fight it. As the years went by I seen family members become very ill from smoking and some of them even died a horrific death including my mother. I sat at her bedside and literally watched rust colored blood seep from her lips. Alway thinking to myself that she was just unlucky and that this could never happen to me. I was scared out of my skin. Well, I did make the connection. I was not going to let my kids watch me die a horrible death, no way! My whole life changed the day she expired. My wants changed, my attitude and even my through process was affected. The thought of seeing her lay in that coffin was terrifying to me. To watch my 5 older brothers weep and weep. To watch my father hug her in the coffin was a reality check for me. I watched the one most important person in my life lay ther helplessly knowing that I could not do one thing to bring her back. So yes, I was scared, scared enough to begin my journey into a life without nicotine. It took me several quits and a few years befor I finally put an end to these killers. But it took that January day to make me realize that I had to make changes no matter how long it took. My story was in now way a negative response. It sums up a very important meaning. You can say that the iddiction is more important than the will to live, but you cant hide the fact if the will gets the best of you, the outcome will be death. There is no other way to say it. It is a fact, not an intuition. So, I will say it again, should anyone think that they are losing there quit, perhaps you should re-think your quit. This is real folks, it is not fiction. this is what will happen. The encourgment, to quit tools, the forums are all there to help us. This is all fine and dandy. These tools that we have been provided with is a wonderful thing. But we must not forget what the ultimate outcome will be, weather it is in 5 years, or 1 year. We must look at it from many stand points, not just o

Jaset, Thank you for posting this. It was a very powerful post. Yes, it is true that some people do not like to be scared, but the possibility of lung cancer is a very real possibility if we don't quit. Like whynot said, this might not help anybody quit smoking because until we are ready, we just won't do it... but it might very well keep somebody from lighting up again, which is even more important than quitting in the first place. This website is all about helping people quit AND helping them STAY quit. No, a story like this would not have affected me in the slightest when I smoked... but these types of stories do help me remember what COULD happen if I don't stay quit. Again Jaset, thank you for this very touching and yet very frightening post. Sometimes, we DO need to be reminded of the harsh reality that smoking kills... whether we want to think about it or not. Crave the Quit! Pam [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 6/17/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 660 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 16,518 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $2725.8 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 47 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 43 [B]Seconds:[/B] 44

Members, The SSC is made up of a diverse number of quitters and as such we have received varied responses to this thread. We respectfully ask that all posts be reflective of the terms outline in our User Agreement and as such I have edited the thread accordingly. Again, take what you need and leave the rest. This post may not reach to you but it may for others. Thank you for your co-operation. Danielle _____________________ The SSC Support Team

Serenity, your story was very inspirational. It's a frightening story but, it's heartfelt, a testimony, a first hand account of what you and your dad went through. Your story will reach people who want to quit without turning them off or making them so afraid/nervous that they want to smoke. Great post Serenity. I know you still have very vivid memories of that time with your dad.....as if it were yesterday. My dad died from complications due to diabetes but, I spent my time holding him until he left this world. Just the two of us and I know what you felt. In twenty years, it'll still feel just like yesterday to me. Tutti [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 2/18/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 49 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,235 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $175.91 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 5 [B]Hrs:[/B] 6 [B]Mins:[/B] 13 [B]Seconds:[/B] 45

If that post helps even one person quit - than it was worth the time and effort. We are here to do that, to help even if its only one. Some may need a "graphic' description, some may not. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 3/5/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 34 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 867 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $358.7 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 4 [B]Hrs:[/B] 4 [B]Mins:[/B] 27 [B]Seconds:[/B] 24

I agree a bit with Dutch. Prior to having my kids, the people I loved most in the world were my folks, and probably most of all - my dad. When I was about 14, Christmas 1975, I watched him die of lung cancer. There were times when there was nobody in the room but he and I and I literally, held him as he (tried to) gasp his last. Rocked him back and forwads and rubbed his back, begging him to breathe while he shook his head, tears running down his cheeks (never seen THAT before) and fought to try and drag air down in to his chest. And I STILL some way down the line, picked up a pack and started smoking. When I had kids of my own, I would play that little scene out in my head, substituting me for my dad and one of my kids for me, and much as the scene horrified me, I STILL couldn't scare myself into quitting. My stop smoking counsellor says that smokers kill synapses in their brain. Synapses that will never be the same again, as those of somebody who has never smoked. That's why the smoker or the quit smoker, can look at all of those images and somehow, they are never quite as real, quite as effective as they are for a never smoked person. We just cannot make that connection real for ouselves somehow. We really can, feel the fear and smoke anyway. THAT'S what we have to guard against in our quits. The sheer insidiousness of the addiction that allows us to be immune to the bad pictures. I don't think you will EVER persuade somebody to quit or to stay quit from painting a scary picture. I am sure we all can, and all have tried that ourselves a million times before we quit. S [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 12/10/2006 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 119 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 4,180 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �714 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 12 [B]Hrs:[/B] 6 [B]Mins:[/B] 49 [B]Seconds:[/B] 53

[quote]take what you need and leave the rest[/quote] says Danielle, and I agree. Not everyone responds to a pat on the back and kind words. Not everyone can 'always look at the bright side of life' as the song says. For some, a good hard virtual slap in the face is just the ticket. Reality, people. We're not living in Toon Town. Whether it's spoken out loud or typed in a forum, I honestly believe many of us have had a version of this thought at some point. Otherwise we'd still be smoking. Otherwise we wouldn't have even bothered to try and quit. Well said, jaset. Keep it real. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 1/1/2007 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 97 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 2,238 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] �533.5 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 8 [B]Hrs:[/B] 4 [B]Mins:[/B] 29 [B]Seconds:[/B] 22