{"id":6333,"date":"2016-01-01T20:28:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T01:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6333"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:50:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:50:07","slug":"10th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6333","title":{"rendered":"10th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve often used the old line, “It’s easy to quit smoking! I’ve done it a dozen times!”<\/p>\n

That line, though, actually gets to the core\u00a0of why I kept smoking for so long. I’d quit, then six months later I’d figure that I had smoking\u00a0kicked – and I’d have “just a puff.”<\/p>\n

To really truly quit, I\u00a0had to admit that I was powerless over nicotine.<\/p>\n

After 30 years, and many quits, I couldn’t really deny\u00a0that.<\/p>\n

But first I had to lose a friend, a smoker who was only 50, and almost lose my brother-in-law, a smoker who was just a year older than me.<\/p>\n

That’s where I was in December 2005. I was living in Dubai, still in shock over the loss of Rob<\/a>\u00a0from a sudden heart attack, hearing that Mark had also come close to death from a 75 percent blockage of his left carotid\u00a0artery.<\/p>\n

I had to face it: I was 46, I’d smoked off and on since I was 16, and\u00a0if I didn’t quit it could kill me.<\/p>\n

There weren’t support groups in Dubai for Americans who wanted to quit smoking. Social media was nearly non-existent, so there was no Facebook page for people trying to quit smoking.<\/p>\n

But I found QuitNet.<\/p>\n

It had all the elements that make an online support group attractive: forums, tips, first-person stories from people who’d quit, and medical information. It was run by Boston University. It had been around for some years by then,\u00a0and it was free.<\/p>\n

[Note: QuitNet.com is now owned by a for-profit company. I was unable to find out\u00a0what its connection is, if any, to the\u00a0university site.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I set my Quit Date for Jan. 1, 2006, and began saving my cigarette butts in a jar. I made up a “Quit Book” – writing out or printing out my favorite tips and motivational sayings.<\/p>\n

After my last cigarette, on New Year’s Eve, I poured water into the jar of butts.<\/p>\n

Whenever I was hit by nicotine cravings, I shook that jar, took the lid off and inhaled.<\/p>\n

There’s few things on the planet more disgusting than the smell of old, wet cigarette butts. And the black, gooey sight of it was a good reminder of the condition of my lungs.<\/p>\n

That jar, a tip from QuitNet, was a great help. But it was backed by the motivation: I really wanted to quit and stay quit. I really wanted to live and not be controlled by nicotine.<\/p>\n

And I was willing to admit that, because I am\u00a0powerless over nicotine, I simply can’t take a puff ever again.<\/p>\n

Admitting I was powerless, I could be more honest with myself about cigarettes. I could declare it: “I liked smoking. I still like the smell of cigarette smoke.”<\/p>\n

And\u00a0when I stopped repressing that desire and instead gave it voice, somehow it became less powerful.<\/p>\n

I’m very grateful to QuitNet. I’m absolutely thrilled and proud that I haven’t smoked in 10 years. My lungs are probably clean by now.<\/p>\n

I’ll count that as an accomplishment<\/a> for 2006.<\/p>\n

Here’s the penny in honor of that anniversary. And here is a list of resources to help quit smoking: Support<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"2006<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve often used the old line, “It’s easy to quit smoking! I’ve done it a dozen times!” That line, though, actually gets to the core\u00a0of why I kept smoking for so long. I’d quit, then six months later I’d figure that I had smoking\u00a0kicked – and I’d have “just a puff.” To really truly quit, … read more 10th Anniversary<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[51,514,518,517,516,515],"class_list":["post-6333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refraction","tag-51","tag-cigarettes","tag-habits","tag-nicotine","tag-quitting","tag-smoking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6333"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6341,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6333\/revisions\/6341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}