Last updated on October 21, 2015
I chose the name “The Happy Quitter” because I started out as a smoking cessation blog. I gave up smoking after 35 years and I gave it up with ease. What I experienced was the contrary from what I had been told. I didn’t fly into a rage, I didn’t feel the need to use medication or other things to help me quit. I put my last cigarette out and walked away.
Relapse, or the thought about quitting my quit, never really came to my mind until I joined a quit-smoking forum. I joined two of those support forums for a short while, one was worse than the other. I suppose every ex-smoker becomes an expert on how to quit smoking, or at least that’s what many think. They just repeat what they have been told over and over, without research or questioning…and what’s worse, without thinking.
I didn’t feel like an expert, I felt more like an outsider. I had many questions about addiction in general, about the way I reacted, compared to others, who had to fight so hard. I didn’t find the answers, until I started my own research. Some of the stuff I found was eye-opening and showed me how uneducated the people on the so called support boards really are.
Many articles that can be found on the internet about smoking or quitting smoking are absolute humbug, other are extremely helpful.
Once a week I look in my status and I can see that my very first posts, the ones that I wrote when I started here at word press, are still being read almost every day.
I still get emails from people who quit smoking, or want to quit smoking and with many I stay in touch and we email back and forth on a regular base. The thought that I might have helped another smoker to become smoke free makes me smile.
I don’t think we bloggers are supposed to change people’s life, but we might help others to deal with life’s challenges.
Many of us write about our own experiences or share the things we learned and our blogs are being read, because the things we share have meanings to others as well.
I would like to know, that I made someone rethink an opinion they already had. That would be the biggest reward for me~!
Singular Sensation
If one experience or life change results from you writing your blog, what would you like it to be?
I started smoking about 3 years ago, 2 months before I turned 30, and after seeing that there’s no point in doing it, I said I’ll quit at the beginning of this year. It went well for a few weeks, but my partner kept smoking (he started smoking some weeks before me, when he changed his job). I didn’t feel the need to smoke, but just seeing them there made me think “oh, well, I’ll just have one”. And now I’m back at it and my willpower flew out the window.
Sign up at a quit smoking forum and ask your partner to smoke outside (if you guys smoke in the house). Most smokers don’t want you to stop but they will cooperate. My husband continued smoking for two years after I quit. We always smoked outside so that wasn’t an issue but I remember asking him to keep his cigarettes in his jacket. I didn’t want to be tempted seeing them laying around. After a months or so it didn’t bother me anymore.
It’s not will power that you are missing but motivation 🙂
Thanks! Well, I don’t think my partner is at fault for me not quitting but it would help if he wouldn’t smoke at home. I believe I can make him quit too since he’s also thinking about it but he usually smokes at work, which doesn’t help him make this decision once and for all. As for me, I gotta be more determined but bad habits are usually difficult to cut. Still, I’ll do my best and hopefully I’ll succeed 😁
You will succeed. Sign up at http://www.quittrain.com . Quit smoking with others. I went every day to a quit smoking forum that sadly doesn’t exist anymore. They had a lot to do with my success. Knowing that you are with other, helped. The quittrain is alright. They are a bit too fixate on the ‘addiction part’ but as long as you stay away from the moderators and only interact with other ex-smokers you should have fun and gain more confidence to stay a non-smoker.
Thanks!!
It’s surely interesting that someone could quit by the help of an online forum. It shows to me that we can positively get affected through it. It’s really hard to quit it at once and not many people an do it. Did you see any change with how people walk next to you or stand in places such as a bus stop? – G.S.
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I hope our readers can be happy quitter like you.
Thanks
You have done so well 😊
I think you truly underestimate your power to connect with others and help them. I’m pretty dern hard headed and you’ve certainly given ME a lot to think about, girl!
Oh boy, now I am blushing 🙂
😀
I did not find it easy and still dream of smoking after having given it up in 1952 or so. I suppose the ‘dream’ is really more of a revenge on having been so stupid tp smoke in the first place. I will never smoke again.
Gerard, how are you? How is your finger?
I think I outgrew smoking and that’s why it was easy on me. I was done with it the moment I started coughing in the night..if that makes any sense.
It turns out for me, too, that the decision to quit — a real decision, not a sort-of maybe, I’ll just try and see how it works out — was what it took. After that, it WAS easy. I never joined any support groups. I couldn’t quit and simultaneously talk about smoking. Like any western hero, I had to do this one alone 🙂
I had so many question and got so many stupid answers at the support boards, it wasn’t even funny.
Honestly I think I outgrew smoking and when I was ready, that’s when I quit. I like thinking I might be a miniature western hero. 🙂
I am happy for you. Congrats are in order. I now have 13 months in as a quitter. Yea!
Congratulations to you. 13 months is big. You made it 🙂 I stopped counting, but it will be two years coming February.
Thank you for stopping by 🙂
You’re welcome