WOW, I am so proud of you, I could hug you. I know how difficult it is to stop smoking. I know MANY smokers. I can't go into the people's house downstairs because the husband smokes. I can't go into their home on New Year's Eve because EVERYBODY smokes and you can't breathe the air.
Last New Year's the whole family came, everybody was taking pictures, all the really GOOD ITALIAN FOOD was laid out on the table. I was invited down, I went, I sat for 10 minutes. I could not breathe. I turned and 7 people were sitting in a circle and all were smoking. I had to give my regrets. They understood. They are nice people.
My home is a smoke free home. No one has ever been allowed in my house with lit cigarette.
Once, my landlord was about to come in, and I noticed he was carrying a cigarette. I went into my spiel. He understood. He put it out, THEN he came in. He also smokes 5 packs a day (I have never seen him WITHOUT A CIG in his mouth in all the 15 years I have lived in my home.
But he has genetics on his side. He's 82 and his mother lived to 105.
Quitting is extremely difficult. My own husband quit the year before I married him. He was an insurance investigator at the time. His job was to process insurance claims and he noticed all the people who had lung cancer (and had died),were smokers, and he counted all the claims. He then decided "what am I nuts? to keep doing this?" That is the day he quit and he never smoked again. He used to tell me the stories he read would curl your hair. I guess this was HIS lightbulb moment.
I often wonder to myself "what if his job had been something else?" He went on to become a Private Investigator. A non-smoking PI like Magnum PI.
Too bad that my own mom could not quit. When she was 79 (and she looked 95), I went down to Florida to visit her. I only thought you got emphasema and lung cancer if you smoked (I know all people with lung cancer are not necessarily smokers, I do know this).
My mother had emphasema and she was on tubes and inhalers and nebulizers. I will never forget that one time when she told me "melody, go and buy me a pack of cigarettes", and I opened her purse (and I counted them), there were 26 packs of cigarettes.
I didn't get it. But then again, I never smoked.
I went to the doctor on staff and told him what happened and I said "how on earth can she possibly smoke, she 's full of tubes, and nebulizers and inhalers, and she can't possibly be breathing correctly, and she STILL WANTS TO SMOKE???"
See, a non-smoker just doesn't understand the addiction. So the doctor said this to me "Melody, in your mother's case, it's too late, the nicotine has gone to her brain". I never knew this. I said "it goes to your brain", and he said "there is such a concentration of nicotine in your mom's brain, well, you have no idea".
He was right. I had no idea. She became senile.
On her death certificate (which I still have), under contributory cause of death it says: "Cigarette Smoking".
How sad.
So I really do applaud you and wish you much success.
AND BETTER BREATHING!!!
