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I stopped smoking April 1999. My son was a baby in the back seat of the car. I was outside standing in a cold drizzle, smoking. He was inside warm and crying. I thought, "Who's the idiot here?" I quit the next day, used a patch for a few weeks (less than their plan called for) and took that off for the last time on July 4, 1999.
I quit drinking, cold, July 15 1987. I'm an alcoholic. The only time since then I had alcohol in my mouth was communion one time. I don't even use mouthwash with alcohol in it.
I stopped smoking April 1999. My son was a baby in the back seat of the car. I was outside standing in a cold drizzle, smoking. He was inside warm and crying. I thought, "Who's the idiot here?" I quit the next day, used a patch for a few weeks (less than their plan called for) and took that off for the last time on July 4, 1999.
I quit drinking, cold, July 15 1987. I'm an alcoholic. The only time since then I had alcohol in my mouth was communion one time. I don't even use mouthwash with alcohol in it.
There's something about July I guess....
Very cool ta hear you're clean and sober. I quit smoking in May of 1981 after 7 years of smoking. I smoked about 3/4 pack of cigarettes a day. Woke up coughing and spitting out black yuck in the morning.
What finally made me stop was my 1 year old son on my lap way back then. He pointed to the smoking device ( I know, but it was the crazy 70's and 80's!) and said "What's zat?" with his tiny little fingers pointing to it. I could not answer him. I did a 180 degree turn in my mind and gave up smoking all forms of entertainment right then and there.
I'm left with moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that is well-controlled here late in 2019. Good thing I discovered (with my doc's help, of course) Advair Diskus. I have asthma, too, and it shuts it all down so that I can even exercise outside without shortness of breath!
I thank God, my wife and my son for waking me up to this health problem and setting me straight.
I stopped smoking April 1999. My son was a baby in the back seat of the car. I was outside standing in a cold drizzle, smoking. He was inside warm and crying. I thought, "Who's the idiot here?" I quit the next day, used a patch for a few weeks (less than their plan called for) and took that off for the last time on July 4, 1999.
I quit drinking, cold, July 15 1987. I'm an alcoholic. The only time since then I had alcohol in my mouth was communion one time. I don't even use mouthwash with alcohol in it.
There's something about July I guess....
Very cool ta hear you're clean and sober. I quit smoking in May of 1981 after 7 years of smoking. I smoked about 3/4 pack of cigarettes a day. Woke up coughing and spitting out black yuck in the morning.
What finally made me stop was my 1 year old son on my lap way back then. He pointed to the smoking device ( I know, but it was the crazy 70's and 80's!) and said "What's zat?" with his tiny little fingers pointing to it. I could not answer him. I did a 180 degree turn in my mind and gave up smoking all forms of entertainment right then and there.
I'm left with moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that is well-controlled here late in 2019. Good thing I discovered (with my doc's help, of course) Advair Diskus. I have asthma, too, and it shuts it all down so that I can even exercise outside without shortness of breath!
I thank God, my wife and my son for waking me up to this health problem and setting me straight.
I wouldn't have stopped smoking if not for my son. My wife quit when she found out she was pregnant. She nagged me to quit for several months after that. But I kept on going. 3 packs a day for more than 25 years. I just took it outside after she became pregnant, never smoked in the car, never close to her, only smoked close to the boy after he was born if I had him in a stroller at the small park across the street and he was upwind. Then no more, just like that. I never really missed it. I kept some cigarettes around because I didn't think it would happen. But it did.
Drinking was another matter. That took an incident during a blackout that I both couldn't remember and couldn't deny. And it was a lot harder. I was drinking a fifth a day, or close to it. That kind of drinking went on for around 15 years, then I quit it dead. First year was difficult. Getting back together with my first wife (which was a giant mistake all by itself) 2 years later was the closest I ever got to it coming back. And I was determined I wouldn't start again because life would have taken a much more tragic turn. If anything, I wouldn't be here now. Almost wasn't anyway, but it was my sobriety that helped me (barely) get through it. I was even in ICU for awhile with a girl sitting next to my bed waiting for me to die (I didn't realize that's why she was there at the time) due to ulcers brought on by bad stuff that was happening to me (like I said, getting back with her was not a good thing). But I still never drank once, no matter how horrible things got, no matter how much better I would have felt (for a short time only) by drowning it all with alcohol. Since the ulcer didn't kill me, she had visions of having it done herself. She would have succeeded if I'd been drunk, no doubt in my mind.
In spite of all of the smoking, in spite of all of the alcohol, I'm still in very good health. I have a few little things at almost 67. But nothing like I should considering what I've done to myself. I put the reason for that largely on the fact I used to walk everywhere. Even when I had a car I walked. Miles and miles, not across or down the street. Good weather, bad weather, I walked. Almost my entire life. When I was little we didn't have a car for a few years, so we all walked. When we got one, I kept walking except when my parents made me get in. I rode a bus to school, but walked home. My dad was a mail carrier and I used to walk his route with him sometimes. When I joined the Air Force, I kept walking. It was good for my body, my weight, my lungs, my legs (of course). I only usually used the car if I was sick, if the distance was too far (5 miles was good, more maybe not), I was late or in a hurry, or if the weather was so bad it didn't make sense. Even then, sometimes I rode a bike instead.
Anytime. Ya, i hear tobacco/nicotine can be real addicting.
My best friend of 47 years died from smoking a year ago last May. He was a two pack a day guy for as long as I knew him. Camels. I gave up on lecturing him years ago. His last couple years were painful for the both of us. I took him to the VA Hospital in Grand Junction several times, I literally picked him up and carried him to my car the last few times that I took him. He had gotten so weak that every few weeks the iron in his blood, well, there was damn little of it. He received transfusions every other week to the end of his life. He was humiliated about it all, not so much that I carried him to the car, but how it affected his family.
My dad started smoking when he was in high school. Lucky Strikes. He passed at 72, in 1983. He was a big man when I was a kid, 6'2", 225 pounds. He worked oil fields in SE NM, around Lovington, Hobbs, and Jal, and later got into trucking. He was diagnosed in February 1980, and when he passed in May of 1983 he was down to 120 pounds. To watch him wither away like that was hard to take.
I got into power plant and pipeline construction starting in 1968 when I was a road crew laborer for the Forest service. On all the construction jobs I worked at from the Four Corners Plant in Farmington to all the coal plants and nuclear facilities in Colorado and a 172 mile 3 state pipeline, 75% of it in New Mexico, I'll bet I worked with maybe a dozen people who didn't smoke. I was friends with over a dozen that I would visit, anywhere from Salt Lake to Roswell to Raton and all over Colorado. They've all passed on, one made it to 74. Everyone else died between 65 to 70.
My best friend of 47 years died from smoking a year ago last May. He was a two pack a day guy for as long as I knew him. Camels. I gave up on lecturing him years ago. His last couple years were painful for the both of us. I took him to the VA Hospital in Grand Junction several times, I literally picked him up and carried him to my car the last few times that I took him. He had gotten so weak that every few weeks the iron in his blood, well, there was damn little of it. He received transfusions every other week to the end of his life. He was humiliated about it all, not so much that I carried him to the car, but how it affected his family.
My dad started smoking when he was in high school. Lucky Strikes. He passed at 72, in 1983. He was a big man when I was a kid, 6'2", 225 pounds. He worked oil fields in SE NM, around Lovington, Hobbs, and Jal, and later got into trucking. He was diagnosed in February 1980, and when he passed in May of 1983 he was down to 120 pounds. To watch him wither away like that was hard to take.
I got into power plant and pipeline construction starting in 1968 when I was a road crew laborer for the Forest service. On all the construction jobs I worked at from the Four Corners Plant in Farmington to all the coal plants and nuclear facilities in Colorado and a 172 mile 3 state pipeline, 75% of it in New Mexico, I'll bet I worked with maybe a dozen people who didn't smoke. I was friends with over a dozen that I would visit, anywhere from Salt Lake to Roswell to Raton and all over Colorado. They've all passed on, one made it to 74. Everyone else died between 65 to 70.
Smoking is just hell on people.
Im so sorry to hear about your coworkers,your dad,and your best friend,Double H.My condolences.You are right that smoking is terrible on folks.
I remember around 1969-1970 or so I was watching commercials on TV warning about the dangers of smoking. I also remember telling my family that "I wasn't gonna be one of the dumb ones and smoke cigarettes."
Well...best laid plans of mice and men with that one. I got hooked on cigarettes in 1973 and finally gave them up in 1981. I smoked "just" 2/3rds to 3/4ers of a pack a day, but, like I mentioned earlier, I was coughing the black stuff up in the morning by 1979 and/on till 1981.
Yuk. I am now a Respiratory Therapist and a Sleep Tech. so I have seen much more damage to people from smoking the past 14 years in this medical career. Cigarettes and, so it now seems, vaping, are very, very harmful to your health.
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I know, but it was the crazy 70's and 80's!) and said "What's zat?" with his tiny little fingers pointing to it. I could not answer him. I did a 180 degree turn in my mind and gave up smoking all forms of entertainment right then and there. 
