Quitting before your quit day?

[Angel.wings]

I set my quit day for the 18th of September, but this morning I woke up and realized that I've already been 11 hours without a cigarette. What a good head start! I read this one article about nicotine addiction and how all my dopamine neurotransmitters have been hijacked by nicotine and that kind of scares me. It's like I've been powerless all these years. I've been a desperate slave, my mind brainwashed to the point where I feel like I can't do anything without cigarettes. That makes me not complete as I am and puts me in a constant state of not accepting myself as I am. I don't want to be addicted to anything. I want to make my own choices and not based my life around a drug.

[Junior7]

Congrats on your decision to quit, whether you choose to do it today or on the 18th!  Congrats on getting yourself educated about this addiction!

[YoungAtHeart]

Your understanding of this addiction is accurate.  It's why we kept doing something we knew was bad for us.

If you think the time is right, then it is.  Get your quit kit ready with your sugarfree gum, cinammon sticks, list of reasons you are quitting and the list of distracting ideas that sound like they will work for you and get to it!

Just decide you will not smoke NO MATTER WHAT and you are on your way!

You CAN do this!

Nancy

[Thomas3.20.2010]

Be Prepared:

http://whyquit.com/joel/dayone.htm

You CAN do this!

[newlife5]

quitting is a big step... but you can do it  we did

[ShawnP]

 I ended up quitting a week earlier than i was supposed to.Why not? if you are confident, go for it.

[Deena-A-Yenni]

I say go for it.

[annimarlee]

Haha!  GREAT!  I also moved my quit date up by 10 days!!!  Mine was the 15th, and I woke up on the 5th and said "why not today?" just like you did!  I am on day 4 now - 85 hours or so.  I feel WONDERFUL and very grateful and glad that I moved it up.  Get going, and congratulations!

[Giulia]

Nothing wrong with quitting before your quit date as long as you've done your prep work.  One of the things that helped me was to copy certain posts that spoke to me that I either printed out or had handy in a file on my computer.  They spurred me on and kept me on top of my quit rather than feeling like I was floundering in tarfilled waters.  We ARE brainwashed by our cigarettes.  And EX tries to de-program the old operating system and install a new one.  Here we brainwash too.  But in a positive way.  Washing away the slavery and washing in the confidence.  Cleaning out the lies of addictive belliefs (aka EXCUSES) and inputting the truth.  If you want to quit, if you want the freedom of which you speak -  there can be no excuses in your brain vocabulary to smoke.  THAT alone is the most important lesson to grasp.  Everything else in your prep work helps.  But without that deep seated in your bones, you will continue to relapse.  You need to ask yourself if you're truly ready to relinquish all excuses.  Are you?

[Angel.wings]

Sorry about the multiple postings! I will be more patient next time and wait to see of it actually posted. But thank you for all the supportive responses. Whyquit.com has been very helpful so far in my education. I am stil going strong. All I have to do is focus on today. 

[Giulia]

Not to worry, but glad you deleted them.  The site seems particularly slow today.  Very frustrating! 

And you're right - all you havve to do is focus on TODAY.  This is all about one day at a time.  Rah Rah!

[johio]

I really like this blog.......You are exactly right in your description of being brainwashed.

 In my case, I had to rebrainwash myself (By reading and learning everything I could about this addiction), and I stayed close here and reinforced what I had learned.

I carried a small notebook that I called "MY Quit Book" In it Ihad all kinds of short comments about smoking. I would read something, or hear something about smoking that I wanted to remenber it, then I would enter it in the book. I

In addition, It had a number of lists that I made: One was my reason list...all the reasons I needed to quit....I am still adding to that list....Another was my thankful list...all the things I was thankful for. and so on.........I would highlight all the entries with a bright yellow marker....then I would read this book many times a day...it only took a coupe of minutes...and by reading it enough times,I internalized these messages, 

When I took these  inside of me, it became an obsession to quit....My quit became more impoertant than my habit. It's hard to explain,but I went through a change, but I had to rebrainwash to do it.

[promise_judy]

Your going to be fine. If you have those thoughts just remember to come back to the present.

XOXO