I have been absolutely quit smoking for 6 years. The first time time I quit? I spent each day 24/7 wanting a cigarette. One day I thought I would just die without a cigarette and walking through the place where people were smoking and sniffing was not that satisfying anymore. I had not physically smoked a cigarette in a very long six months. I was desperate so I bought some nicotine gum. I got in the car without reading the directions. Gum is gum right? You just put it in your mouth and chew. I did and I really chewed it. Suddenly my mouth was numb and my head was pounding. I thought I would surely die and this while driving down the street. I got rid of the gum and when I got home I read the directions about chew a couple of times and then hold the gum in your cheek. I didn't use gum anymore but tried patches and all the other tricks of quitting. I learned one thing that I will do my best to remember always and that is this, you may trick your friends, family, neighbors and most any other human but you cannot trick yourself. You cannot trick yourself no matter how much you try. I was so smart that I knew that straw I was puffing on was NOT a cigarette. I started back by smoking a few puffs here and there and soon it was a pack a day. Oh no, now I have to do it all over again.

Looking back that first time I quit? was only physical quitting but mentally I was still a smoker. One thing we should never do is replace one drug with another. There came a time when it was either be a smoker or make my mind up totally to quit. Prayer was my greatest help in this battle and it really is a battle. I kept trying to get out of the car to buy a pack and my feet would not move. That was the day my miracle came. I never wanted one after that.

It was quite a story and one day I will write about it for others. One thing that I remembered and held on to, that helped me, was words I read, "Those who try to quit more often are the ones who will finally succeed". Just because you go back and smoke it does not mean you have to keep going back to the addition and habit. Even if you quit and go back then just quit again and again until one day they will be gone permanently. This is only true if you really do want to get rid of the cigarettes. I know, I know, you smoke because you like the taste. Not so, we smoked because we were or are addicted to a drug. Not one of us really love the taste of a cigarette.

We love the high that comes with the puff. The day this is admitted is the day real quitting begins. If we did love the taste then why not go take a bite out of a full ashtray? Another help that I had was in not being in a smoking environment anymore. Being around friends and family that smoke is torture. It is like the alcoholic that hangs around in the same bar that was used to get drunk in and having the same drinking friends.

It is like being on a diet and people can't stand to see you hungry. They will try to feed you. The same is true for smoking if they are smoking then they really don't want you to suffer and they will give you many reasons why smoking is ok. When you are craving this will sound so good to you. You will have to avoid those people and places if at all possible until you are over the real hurdle of quitting and then you won't want to be around it anymore.

I am now married to a minister and he is a tremendous help in all things. I haven't even thought about smoking in so long I am having to draw on memories to write this. I started smoking when I was 15 and smoked until I was 54. That is a lot of damage. I have just looked at my hand and tried to imagine a cigarette in it. I can't even imagine it now it has become so foreign to my way of life and I believe that is what makes the difference. Whether we avoid the place we used to smoke or being around people who smoke it is still a lifestyle change.

I nursed many years ago and we smoked right at the nurse's station then. Amazing isn't it and thankfully that has certainly changed? I have seen people who where dying of lung cancer and one of the last things they asked for would be a cigarette. We would turn off the oxygen and fire one up for them. Afterward we ran to the nurse's station and smoked because we felt so sorry for them. How stupid could we have been? The addiction runs very deep and according to statistics it is the hardest addiction there is to quit. After all it is legal and how dangerous could it be, huh?

  When I read about the others who quit I was touched by the death of Wanda's father and remembered those patients who had died requesting a cigarette. GOD Bless you Wanda and I know how it feels to quit and the bad feeling inside now when we see others smoking and wish we could help and maybe our writing will help because what others wrote and said helped me and you along the way.

  Come on YOU CAN QUIT! Get your life back because addictions take your life from YOU and control YOU. If I can help you in anyway let me know.

May GOD Richly Bless You in Your Efforts,

Sylvia Kolenda

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