**A NICOTINE FREE PERSPECTIVE**

[Peterlock]

Hi Folks, :wave

Well according to www.sharemeter.com

• I have now stopped smoking for 16 days, 6 hours, 1 minutes, 37 seconds. That translates into 975 cigarettes NOT smoked, for a savings of $255.93! I have increased my life expectancy by 3 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 20 seconds.

But as happy as I am with that bit of news it has little to do with this post.

I woke up this morning made my way into the kitchen to brew my Green Tea and shuffled, tea in hand to my office where a plant now sits were my big ole' filthy ashtray used to.

At about eleven AM it dawned on me that I wasn't coughing anymore in the mornings - I would cough terribly and so loud that I would go down to the farthest part of the house so not wake Sean...but it rarely worked. Smokers cough I was to learn recently is actually a good thing in the sense that your lungs are trying desperately to spit out all the tar, toxic fumes and poison you've been forcing them to inhale.

I also learned that "light" or new smokers are fooled by not having "smokers cough" they think it's a good thing - but it's quite the opposite. Their poor lungs are making no effort whatsoever to dispel all that gunk.

Anyway, I'm getting used to not smoking, I know I'm still in a danger zone but things around me are beginning to change..or rather I'm changing.

I'm not coughing at all and frankly I don't remember when it stopped, but it did.

Later, I sweated and graoned my way through the 3 mile Walk Away The Pounds workout, cursed at Leslie Sansone and headed off to the market.
Being Saturday it was crowded, while waiting to check out there was a woman with her mother at the register next to mine, they both reeked of cigarette smoke. Their voices were croaky and dry, coarse and unpleasant - the voices of women who've smoked for too long.

I noticed their skin, deep wrinkles and dry as baked sand I had no doubt the smoke had aged them both well beyond their years. And they coughed the deep phlegm laden cough of smokers - I felt horrible for them.

Leaving the market, kids on a work break took long drags on their cigarettes, it was my first time encountering cigarette smoke up this close in over two weeks - it made my throat hurt, it reminded me of how New York smelled after 9/11...it brought back sad and dreadful associations.

When I got home, I kept thinking how lucky I am..just to have this day just to be able to breath and not cough. To be able to get home from the supermarket and not be gasping for air and sweating profusely - not having to rest for an hour before putting the groceries away.

This is all new to me, this energy and feeling of well being , I'm like a kid with a new toy.

After putting the groceries away, I put in the one mile WATP work out not because I particularily wanted to - but because I could.

Peter ha

[Laurenfra]

That was a beautiful post Peter. Thanks for sharing, and congrats. :hug

[goin2Bgood]

Awww Peter :hug You're doing so well. You're going to **** for swearing at Leslie Sansone, but until then you're doing great and you'll get to sit in the non-smoking section :::snickerflee::: :guns

[brabea22]

i apologize for such a late post, but i think you are doing marvelously.

i quit cold turkey in January of 2004 and cancer struck a little too closely to home soon after, which reinforced my feelings. my dad (who had used tobacco products for 35 years) was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and was given very little time to live. i watched him go from a strong, robust, jovial 320 pounder (yeah we are all bigguns in my family) to a wasted, pale, old man. the chemo tore out his thick curls and his cheeks became gaunt. i would go to see him all the time and i would be sure to let him know that i had gone XX days without a smoke. he would smile and tell me how good that was. it was my way of letting him know that his passing was going to teach me a valueable lesson, that even as he faded he would know that he helped make his son a healthier person.

he was 49 years old when he died this past september. when he passed away, he was so small and frail, you would have guessed him to be in his 80s.

whenever i am feeling weak and have the urge to smoke, i think about my daddy laying there in the hospice bed. i see his sunken eyes and his receeding gums and i think about how much i miss him. then i curse my ever-lovin butt off that nicotine exists and i make it through my day.

you can do this peter. the cravings have never left me but they get weaker and appear less often. i support you, and i am here for you should you need me.

-bran

[Laurenfra]

Thanks for posting bran. I pray many will read your and Peter's words.