I already posted this in response to a post from Penguin but I thought I would start a new thread for anyone else who is going through this.
You may remember me as the one who nearly chose to start smoking a couple of weeks ago when my boyfriend announced after months of occaisional smoking, that he was to become a full time smoker once again. Since his first serious relapse blamed on his mum's cancer scare at the end of last year, he has had such a love/hate relationship with smoking (detailed in my post "an addicts denial") and it has been incredibly confusing and emotional to live with him. Well I am back to calm now. A few days after I stopped the tears, sulks and tantrums, he has admitted the truth. He obviously feels a strong need to smoke but he doesn't enjoy it. Most of the time he doesn't just hate the idea of smoking, he actually doesn't even enjoy it. He hates the effect that his smoking is having on me. He feels tremendously guilty for upsetting me, wasting his money and risking his health. And finally, he is incredibly jealous of me for my success, but is also inspired by it, and is really going to go for it on his new quit date, 30th March. Whether or not he succeeds, I am not so bothered now that I know how he really feels. I feel immensely proud to have succeeded and you should too. I would imagine that most people who have ever "decided to quit, tried it and then changed their minds" would be going through many of the same emotions as my boyfriend but won't admit it - they are worried to say they really want to quit, because they is scared of failure, so they deny that they want to quit.
My best advice for anyone going through this situation is this:
(1) Don't smoke. It will only remind you why you wanted to stop, and then you will have to start your entire quit from the beginning again even if you only had a couple of puffs.
(2) Try to imagine the inner turmoil your smoking partner is going through. A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend was saying things like, "I love smoking. I never wanted to stop, you bullied me into it." These statements were what tempted me to smoke again, I thought I must be really missing out. He now admits he only said it to stop me whinging about him smoking.
I hope this helps somebody, I felt I should pay a bit
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Quit Meter
$100,562.00
Amount Saved
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Quit Meter
Days: 4839
Hours: 23
Minutes: 0
Seconds: 28
Life Gained
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Quit Meter
45710
Smoke Free Days
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Quit Meter
182,840
Cigarettes Not Smoked
