I just bought Jack a couple of cartons of smokes yesterday and they cost $136 each ... eight packets of 25.

Crumbs.

I'm still reeling at the 120 a day. I had to move fast to get through 40. Has your OH stopped?

I hope your children have recovered from the shock - or did you just tell them it wasn't meant like that?

I am grateful and lucky that my cravings didn't last for more than about a year. I hope yours fade quickly.

Okay, so you're 42 now and still have cravings... I think we all know, from people we know and stories we've heard, that if we don't have cravings forever after we're very fortunate. It's like with Alcoholic Anonymous and other organizations: one day at a time.

OH never smoked Lesley - he has been known to have a cigar on occasion, but he's never actually smoked.
That's it exactly CmdrK, one day at a time!

Today marks 6 months smoke-free for me, after almost 25 years as a butthead. I come from a long line of hardcore smokers and then, oxygen tank haulers. I was one of those smokers who thought I'd never be able to quit, didnt think I had it in me to give it up. Somehow, I did. The day I stopped, I had a pack with 5 or 6 remaining that I finally trashed after a few weeks. Not sure why I kept them so long, maybe as some sort of test. Anyway, I passed the test and haven't gone back. Sure I gained about 15 pounds because I spoiled myself. Welcome back, tastebuds. I have had dreams about smoking, always secretly, because even in dreamland I'm an ex-smoker. The craving come up every now and then, it's just much easier to ignore them.

I guess the whole point to my posting all this is that if you think you're one of those smokers who will never, ever be able to quit, you are wrong.

Congrats, dumb_bunny! And good luck staying an ex-smoker. One good bit of advice that sees me through is that a craving will go away in a little while whether you smoke a cigarette or not.

Sorry, Rowena, I'm sure I knew that - and then I got it into my pretty little head that he smoked with you. I don't suppose he and the children miss it much, now you've stopped?

I couldn't do the one day at a time thing. I had to make it one hour at a time.


Wish I'd said that!

I have never smoked, but I grew up with parents who smoked. My mother got lung cancer and survived, but she lost half a lung; my father also got lung cancer, and he died. I think I might have been slightly asthmatic as a child because of the environment I grew up in.

When I went off to college and was in a smoke-free envionment, I found I couldn't bear to be home for very long for all the smoking.

Did you really spend $5K/year on cigarettes? That's more than $416/mo.

Yeah, I did. I think smokes are much more expensive here. A packet of 25 is about $15 NOW and I smoked a pack a day at my worst.

Hope your Mum is doing okay now.

At my peak I used to light about 60 a day, I say light as I used to take a puff and rest it in the ashtray to do some work, take a puff then put it down again, often I hardly smoked half of it, could be less. I then lit another and so it went all day. In the last proper job that I had it was no smoking in the office (they all are now) and I didn't go outside to smoke, I just used to have my first one when I got home then virtually chain smoke all evening.

When I 'stopped' smoking, what I did was to tell myself that I wasn't giving up smoking, I was just delaying having the next one. I just went to look and the half empty cigarette packet is still in the cupboard together with lighters. So far I have delayed since March 2000.

If you told me that I couldn't have a cigarette I would crave it which is why I just delayed. Sometimes I still have the feeling that I would love to have a cigarette but with my health the way that it is now, nothing at all to do with having smoked, I won't be lighting up soon.

After the endocarditis, I had an aortic valve replacement, was closed up with surgical thread and little stainless steel loops the length of my sternum, and was sent home to recuperate and eat myself into blobness.

After a while, I did what I always did after a cold - thought I'm feeling better now, I can have a smoke.

Husband said, if you smoke, you'll cough, the little stainless steel loops will burst open, and your insides will spill out.

Inspired! Of course it was abject nonsense but it really put me off. Back to the peanut butter and banana sandwiches...

Edited for daft typo

Now Lesley, as a woman like me, when you eat very hot or very cold food does your sternum hurt? I have asked a man that I know and his sternum doesn't hurt then he is a huge man as in 6 feet 8 inches tall.

It seems to me that the wire heats up or gets too cold which causes pain. On Thursday I was eating a hot sausage roll and had to drink cold water to stop the burning.

That's it, Sue. I think I just figured out why I kept my last pack for so long. Showing myself they were there and ready for a good smoking. I suppose that took some of the pressure off the idea of never smoking again.

Sorry, Sue, that doesn't happen. Unless it's because I don't eat or drink anything hot enough to burn? But no, I've never had anything hot (or cold) have any effect on my sternum at all.

I'll ask at my cardiac exercise class. Most of the people there haven't had surgery but one or two have and I'll see if I can remember which ones they are.

Started smoking in 1958..........in the Navy we got Duty Free Allowance of cigarettes you see, and I thought "I am not missing out on this", and in any case most people smoked at that time anyhow.
At the "peak" I smoked around 25 cigs a day, but by the time I had a heart attack in 2003, was smoking around 15 a day.

Pity I had to give up smoking (haven't smoked since 2003) as I used to enjoy a cigarette, but I enjoy still being alive even more!

We all know the dangers of smoking and attendant health risks, but to level the playing field a bit, smoking does have a beneficial side. A cigarette was a good calming inducer when stressed, it was also good to help concentration, good at keeping you awake and alert when on a long drive, and a pleasant addition to the after meal coffee as well as giving the system a "kick start" in the mornings.

Anyhow, I was told I had to give up - so I gave up......easy? Well shall we say I didn't find it particularly difficult, just annoying that I could no longer do something that I hitherto enjoyed. However, sadly as we age, many things come under that category. For example I have recently been advised medically to give up driving.......now THAT is a "pain" !

Maybe I was lucky, being a relatively light smoker, giving up wasn't difficult.

Never smoked myself, but have family who did (or still do).

Mom never did either, as she's asthmatic (though she has a coworker who smokes like a chimney--I've never understood that).

Grandma quit after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Uncle Michael still does, despite having been diagnosed with COPD and being on Coumidan.

Great-uncle, who's diabetic, does, as well as my twenty-year-old cousin and his father.