My Anniversary

Over 1 year cigarette free. Never again. I'm done. I've smoked cigars and dope since then and had no flash-backs. Ive been wasted with smoker friends and no smoking.

I'm cured!!!

Never been a smoker so I can't imagine how difficult kicking the habit must be, but congrats Cheese.

Congrats Cheese. Best thing you could have done or yourself (and your son). I havent smoked tobacco in over a year, and havent smoked regularly for about 5 years. I'll probably never again. Keep it up.

- magno

Congrats Cheese,
I live by the theory that cigs will kill you in 30 years and chew will kill you in 30 years so why not just rotate. Given you start when you are 15 that is 75 years.

All joking aside. Moving to the UK was great for my Copenhagen habit. They don’t sell the crap here and guess what life is just fine without it. Those who still use should take this thread as a kick in the pants to ditch the habit. I have seen too many people die too soon and not in a nice way. Plus the coin you save will allow a lot more beer gear.

Awesome Cheese. If you can make it past the drunken bender or the sh!tty day on the job where you feel the need to go postal you're pretty much cured!

10-25-2002 @ 10:35a - The last cig I ever had. That was when I had a cig, got back to my office and listened to a VM from the doctor office. “Mr. DesertBrew, we’ve seen something on your chest x-ray and need you to call us back as soon as possible”. Turned out to be just some nodule (Valley Fever AZ dudes) that hasn’t changed over the years but after a bazillion tests and the whole scared straight thing, I was done.

You have no idea how great that sounds. congrats bro, I bet you feel great.


I myself am on day 6 cold turkey. And Im almost through the freakout stage

Great job cheese. I'm smoke free for over 20 years but I was a lucky one. I woke up one morning after a long bar night, hated the taste in my mouth and threw the butts in the trash.

A friend of mine had smoked for 40 years when he had a muscle pain in his back. Turned out to be pain from his dying lung. Emphysema took 1/2 of a lung and he hasn't smoked since. He's become a good herb baker though.

Congrats Cheesefood. Next month will be three years free for me. Like b4b, a while after quitting my nose had turned into that of a bloodhound. I do have a good cigar every now and again though. I was scared before having the first cigar since quitting cigs, fearing it would cause a relapse. Fortunately it didn't. Anyway, cheers.

I had quit for almost 2 years when I met my wife (who was a smoker at the time) and soon jumped back into old habits. She quit the moment she found out she was pregnant and asked me to quit when the baby was born.

Here's the trick to remember: it takes 3 days to break the physical addiction and 90 days to break the mental.

Chimone, just think: you're past the physical addiction. Now just keep reminding yourself how disgusting they are and how gross and disgusting smokers are.

I still smoke. I tell you, a smoke and a home brew just go great together. I've cut down a lot, but still smoke none-the-less. Have tried to quit before, but boy, that was pretty rough. My hat's off to you dude but geesh, now we all GROSS AND DISGUSTING? WTF is up wit' dat????

Cheesefood said:

Chimone, just think: you're past the physical addiction. Now just keep reminding yourself how disgusting they are and how gross and disgusting smokers are.

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Oh I am....

And what sucks, is that at work there are 25 of us here. 22 of those people smoke alot. I jsut don't want to become that guy who quits, then gives everyone **** for such a disgusting habit. Even though it really is disgusting.

Cheese, did you have to stop drinking for a while? Becasue thats the only thing I am really worried about.

Chimone said:

Oh I am....

And what sucks, is that at work there are 25 of us here. 22 of those people smoke alot. I jsut don't want to become that guy who quits, then gives everyone **** for such a disgusting habit. Even though it really is disgusting.

Cheese, did you have to stop drinking for a while? Becasue thats the only thing I am really worried about.

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I had a newborn. Drinking and smoking weren't exactly good options. But then when things calmed down, I forced myself to hang out with smokers in bars and not smoke. It sucked, but it forced me to stay strong. I didn't want to quit smoking by living in a bubble.

Then, there's this to think about:

My dad quit smoking 30+ years ago. Last summer, he had a major bypass surgery. When they were in there, they saw his lungs were black. Bypass surgery requires a lot of lung treatment (since they deflate them then reinflate them) and they noticed that my dad's lungs hadn't healed well.

You know how they say that it takes 10 years to reverse the damage from smoking? My dad's lungs have had 30 years and STILL aren't healed. He'd probably be dead if he hadn't quit smoking.

Ol' Grog said:

I still smoke. I tell you, a smoke and a home brew just go great together. I've cut down a lot, but still smoke none-the-less. Have tried to quit before, but boy, that was pretty rough. My hat's off to you dude but geesh, now we all GROSS AND DISGUSTING? WTF is up wit' dat????

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Seriously...it's a gross habit. Take a good look at a full ash tray and tell me how appealing it looks. Look down in the summer time and think about how some smoker threw their butt on the ground and now it's in your sandal and you have to peel it off your foot. Look at the darker skin tone of people who smoke. Look at old women who smoked all their lives and how have wrinkles all around their mouth and death metal voices.

Pay attention when you're in your car. Take a look at the cars around you, and pay attention to the value of the vehicle and the likelyhood that the person inside of it is smoking.

Hey man, I did it proudly for 16 years and always thought smokers were nicer people than non-smokers.

My new job is working for a company focused on treating and curing cancer. Imagine the fun stuff I'll learn there.

Well Ive heard a bit different. Ive heard it takes 9-12 months of being smoke free, and in a clean air environment to have your lungs heal themselves. But age, location, etc etc go into the equation also.

There was this report on 60 minutes where this reporter (cant remember his name0 quit smoking after 40 years of smoking non filters. 1 year later he had a cat scan and his lungs were clean as anyone elses. But really there is no set rule for how long it will take. Each person is going to be diferent.

And on that note, you can also tell the diference in peoples lungs by where they live. Take someone who has lived in downtown Los Angeles their whole life. Their lungs are goingto look totally worse than someone who lived in rural farmland far from pollution.

But Im a firm believer of, when its it your time, its your time....nothing you can do about it. But I want the remainder of my life smoke free.....well tobacco free anyways. I actually went out and picked up a vaporizer for other things.

Chimone said:

But Im a firm believer of, when its it your time, its your time....nothing you can do about it. But I want the remainder of my life smoke free.....well tobacco free anyways. I actually went out and picked up a vaporizer for other things.

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Ohhh...a good segueway for the argument of determinism vs libertarianism and the paradox of religion in the determinist mindset!!! Yeah!!!

(j/k...let's not go there.)

The tradeoff of "No smoking while I'm drinking" for "No hangover the next day" sealed the deal for me. I haven't had a hangover headache in the past year.

Congrats! think of how much money you are saving. I always try to equate how much money i will save to beer costs. If you smoked a carton every two weeks thats an extra 3-4 six packs of great beer every two weeks. How much is cartons running nowadays? 30-40 $?

All in all, Congratulations.

Everyone is different, but this is what the American Lung Association has to say.

At 20 minutes after quitting:
blood pressure decreases
pulse rate drops
body temperature of hands and feet increases

At 8 hours:
carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal
oxygen level in blood increases to normal

At 24 hours:
chance of a heart attack decreases

At 48 hours:
nerve endings start regrowing
ability to smell and taste is enhanced

At 2 weeks to 3 months:
circulation improves
walking becomes easier
lung function increases

1 to 9 months:
coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, shortness of breath decreases

1 year:
excess risk of coronary heart disease is decreased to half that of a smoker

At 5 years:
from 5 to 15 years after quitting, stroke risk is reduced to that of people who have never smoked.

At 10 years:
risk of lung cancer drops to as little as one-half that of continuing smokers
risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases
risk of ulcer decreases

At 15 years:
risk of coronary heart disease is now similar to that of people who have never smoked
risk of death returns to nearly the level of people who have never smoked

Great News Cheese!

I dabbled in smoking (would bum one from a friend alot) but fortunately never got hooked and the last one i bummed was over 6 years ago.

I am fortunate enough to live in a town that has been smoke free for a few days more than a year!!!! It is awesome. I can go to a bar and leave and not smell like an ash tray, and all the smokers that go to bar just step outside and have one. The smokers bitched for about a month and tried to protest, but when the nightly news started detailing how local bar business was up the protesters gave in and started going to the bars again.

I have friends that smoke and I never understood their bitching when at home they step outside, but when they are out on the town it was seemingly impossible for them to do that, it was their god given right to smoke inside, until now.

I still enjoy a good cigar, when the weather is nice outside!

Restaurants in my town just went smoke-free. Unfortunately, we've entered the stage of parenting where going out to eat is more fun in theory than in practice.

Yeah, with a four year old i know what you are talking about. On the bright side if we take her to a bar that serves food as well, then if she is up and down in her seat or gets out of it to walk around the table to sit in my lap then no one cares. Why? Because it is a bar and a smoke free one at that.

Congratulations Cheese .... I can say it was one of the harder things I ever did and that was 20 years ago. I had cravings for the longest time until I started doing some exercising and getting the cardio system jump started. That ended the cravings and now I'm running marathons. CONGRATS

Ol' Grog said:

I still smoke. I tell you, a smoke and a home brew just go great together. I've cut down a lot, but still smoke none-the-less. Have tried to quit before, but boy, that was pretty rough. My hat's off to you dude but geesh, now we all GROSS AND DISGUSTING? WTF is up wit' dat????

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Doesn't the HB put your cigs out when you do them together??

Seriously, good deal Cheese. Congrats!

I quit in Mar '90. Almost 17 years smoke-free. I smoked for 18 years and got tired of it. Put it down and never picked it up again.

Funny how all you former smokers have become like "born again Christians" and now crucify the brethrens that still smoke..................

Ol' Grog said:

Funny how all you former smokers have become like "born again Christians" and now crucify the brethrens that still smoke..................

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Hey now, don't go bashing all us former smokers. Smoking is a personal choice. Do I think it is a bad choice, yes. But... I'm not going to go preaching about it to you.

Remember that post I did a while back saying that Arizona is now smoke free. Yea well we're not. So many people bitched and complained that they postponed it until March. And now theres rumors of an evaluation of said law, and maybe a reversal.


WTF? Personally i think they saw that they put $1.25 additional tax on smokes, and cigarette sales didnt drop. Which means ALOT more money for the gov't.....who knows, thats my conspiracy theory for the day anyways.

trinitone said:

Hey now, don't go bashing all us former smokers. Smoking is a personal choice. Do I think it is a bad choice, yes. But... I'm not going to go preaching about it to you.

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Yea, I made a pact with myself never to turn into "that guy".

Cheesefood said:

Over 1 year cigarette free. Never again. I'm done. I've smoked cigars and dope since then and had no flash-backs. Ive been wasted with smoker friends and no smoking.

I'm cured!!!

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Congratulations Cheese!!!!!