WE NEED LOTS OF SUPPORT

[lizzie]

I think the emergency chocolate cake will have to come out of the washing machine where I hid it.

Needs must when the devil farts in your face

[The Grock in the Frock]

ha ha is that were it is.....im off to feed sprogs and eat cake.talk later.........p.s dee has got the cats back,the O.H caught carrying on,so dees left minding the girls cats again,but she would of had them.....sorry

[lizzie]

No probs. ttfn Grock.

[Jude]

Keep it up girls, I know how hard this is for you all, and I really, really want you to succeed and truly admire your courage for doing it with such a big audience, afraid I haven't got half your guts!
PS, Miss Porcas, would Piglet squeal on you???!

[pigletwillie]

You bet your trotters he would!

Miss Porcas

P.S. Thanks for your support Jude, and everyone else out there. It really does mean a lot. There are times like this (when you wake at 3.30 a.m.) that a cup of tea and a cigarette would go down a treat. I've settled for a cup of tea and a nice helping of KG I ate like a pig yesterday so must just keep having a slice of KG instead of Jaffa cakes and Pizza!

[Chantal]

Hang on in there Miss P, and eating like a pig is just fine, although I hope you mean quantity rather than your snout in some swill.

You're all doing really well so don't you dare give in now. If you get really desperate, get the contents of someone else's ashtray and stick it in a jar then add some very hot water. Put the lid on and give it shake. Remove the lid and inhale. After you've been sick, remember, that's what your breath would have smelt like just after a fag. I used to smoke too by they way, quit years ago.

[peter]

RE Chantal's tip, just make sure any butts do not have tobacco attached still, or you may find yourself trying to dry them out and use them.

Addiction desperation can make you do strange things!

Spend some of the "saved" money on those really good gardening books you always promised yourself, then you can peruse them at 3am.

Best find some snacks that are low-cal or eating like a pig may end up depressing you at 3am.

[Anonymous]

Come the 17th of this month it will be 19 years since I gave up the evil weed.

I was very, very fortunate in that I had a friend I worked with who collected the money off me each day that I would have spent on fags, and put it in a Post Office savings account for me. She was relentless, if I said I had no money on me any day, she replied 'well you'd have found it for a packet of fags so you can find it now!'

When I gave up B&H were just under £1.50 for 20, so I was saving £1.50 a day, which worked out at £10.50 a week, which was roughly £550 per year. I believe that for a similar habit these days, it would cost somewhere in the region of £2,000 per year.

I think the financial incentive is probaby the greatest (if you can overcome the horrid cravings). Given the two examples of savings above, in my case £500, or in your cases nearer £2,000 a year. If someone was to dump £2,000 in notes in front of you, would you get a match and set light to it and burn the lot? I think not!!! But that is exactly what you are doing now!!

As you are all struggling, "I've been there, done that got the video and the T shirt", as they say.

It's not easy!

PLEASE GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!!

valmarg

[pigletwillie]

Hi Valmarg

It's good to hear success stories and it's also nice to know that so many of you are supporting us. I must say I have found it more difficult as the days go by, but I am hanging in there. Unfortunately I have turned to food and am stuffing all sorts of junk down my throat Today - cornflakes, then out to Wilko for some more plant pots and yet more seeds. Passed by the cake shop on the way to Wilko. Stopped in the cake shop on way back. Ate a large hot sausage roll before going into the bookies to bet on the Grand National. Ate the Danish the second I got out. About one mile to home in the car, Piglet detours to the chip shop, where I had a cone of chips. Since I got home I've had a huge bowl of stew, 5 chocolates, a packet of sweets and a glass of red wine. I don't even LIKE red wine!!! I have to add that Piglet was with me every step of the way. However, he didn't have any cornflakes!

Since we won £20 on the National (£10 each), I stuck mine in my jar and added £2, so that's me paid up until Monday night, so I can't have a cigarette now even if I wanted one

Well done to you Valmarg. 19 years. Do you realise you have saved £28,000 in that time? I bet you wish your friend was still putting it in the Post Office account don't you I have £32 in the pot now. That's disgusting isn't it?

If you were still smoking, you would be forking out £5.50 a day (that's what B&H cost). I think you (and I) have given me the incentive to stick it out. The cravings have got to stop at some point. Piglet and all my family have been so proud of me I just couldn't let them down now.

Thanks again Valmarg - I really needed that encouragement. I keep wondering how Grock went on last night. That would have been the biggest test so far for her.

Lizzie seems to be doing okay as she doesn't seem to bleat on about it like I do! Well, Lizzie. How ARE you getting on? How do you combat the cravings?

Love, Miss Porcas

[Tigger]

Mrs P - I'm so proud of you.

[pigletwillie]

Thanks Tigger Hopefully, by the time I see you at Malvern I should be totally free of the evil smelly old things. I'll certainly have plenty of money to buy some new plants or flowers!

Or I might just save it all and buy a house!

Mrs P

[Tigger]

Good God - I knew they were dear, but I didn't think they were that expensive!

What about a small holiday home for the Gang then? I'll put in a few bob..........

[lizzie]

Hi Mrs P

I'm struggling I must admit. Really struggling. My 16 year old kicked off the other night and I admit to having 2 fags. It was either that or smack her one!!!!

However, threw the packet in the bin as soon as I realised how stupid I was being and put extra in the tub. £15 quid in there now so not doing too bad.

I start off ok but, as the week goes by, I find it harder.

I gave up for 5 years and went back on theml. Don't ask me why, I can't remember!!!. Then I gave up again for 3 years and went back. That was at Nanas funeral and, as i'd nearly died some years ago, it took something to get me through the crem gates cos I had to walk past where my ashes would have been scatterd if I hadn't of made it!!!

Then I gave up again for about a year and started again.

I don't drink alcohol at all, doesn't bother me if I never touched a drop again but fags are a different matter. They seem to be my addiction!!!

It's good that Grock's giving up to cos her allotment is next to mine so we can keep an eye on each other!!! Plus, her husband is very anti smoking, he's an ex smoker himself so he'll moan at the pair of us!!!

It is hard but I will conquer it. Maybe giving up 8 weeks before Sian takes her GCSE's was probably not good timing. Still, the time never is right. It's just another excuse not to bother!!

Keep going Mrs P. You're doing better than I am!!!

[Anonymous]

Lizzie, sweetheart, what I should have said was that the last time I gave up smoking was 19 years ago. I have been in the same situation as you - given up for four years, 18 months, etc, etc. I would have to say, that having not smoked for four years, I really had to persevere to get back on them, because the first smoke I had after all that time tasted vile! I think, looking back, it was when my mum died, and in such times of stress, you reach for your dummy. That's what I look on smoking as, the adult dummy!

I think the money incentive really made me crack it, and having someone to take the money off me each day, and to invest it for me made me realise what a stupid habit it was. We bought several 'caiptal' items with my savings, one of which was a 12' x 8' brand new greenhouse.

I think it would help if, like me, you had someone to take the money off you each day, because the day will come when you haven't got the cash, you'll say to yourself 'I'll put double in tomorrow'. Come tomorrow you still haven't got the cash, and you enter into a spiral of not putting in the money. The other strand is that not having any money, you dip into your goody box.

Looking at your reply Mrs P, I didn't realise just how expensive the B&H had become!! Bloody hell - excuse me, but that is more than £2,000 a year. What items are there that you would like to buy, but haven't got the money for just at the moment???!

Going back to Lizzie, some of the previous times I had given up goes back to the time when smoking was the norm, and if you refused an offered cigarette, saying 'no I'm giving up', you would have been greeted with 'go on one won't make any difference'. Believe me they couldn't have been more wrong. That one leads to two, and before you know it you're back where you were before.

All the pangs of withdrawal are worth it in the end. YOU CAN AND WILL KICK THE HABIT.

I'm afraid I'm with Lizzie's husband on this one. The 'none so pure as the purified' (or the reformed whore) syndrome. I cannot stand the smell of ciggies. Even when I'm out shopping etc, if I see someone smoking, and the wind's in my direction, I will do all I can to avoid the smoke.

There is only one person in my family that still smokes, and that is my brother-in-law. When they come over to see us he doesn't smoke in the house, he will go outside for what he calls 'a fag and a fart break', which is fine, but when he comes back in he stinks (and I don't think it's a fart he's brought back in with him). Even his daughter said to him once, 'dad you stink'.

On the more sombre note, smoking killed both my mum and dad-in-law, and my husband's younger brother is doing his best to follow suit.

I know it's hard. Think positive. Come midnight you should have done a fag free week. Next week is going to be easier, and the week after that easier still. It will, it will it will!!

JUST STICK WITH IT!!

And remember, that one fag will lead you back to where you were before, so don't succumb, because all the agony you are going through now will have been for nothing!!!!

Takes me back all your agonising, but I hope you can do it.

As I said with Lizzie, if you don't at first succeed, try, try again. You'll all get there in the end. Just don't let me down you lot!!

valmarg

[Chantal]

I agree with everything you say Val, I've done the same thing, given up, started again, given up etc until finally I kicked it. The one thing that made me start again EVERY time I did was drinking too much and not having a brain cell left that could say no (usually to my sister of all people, but to be fair she'd drink as much as me). I too now cross the road to avoid people smoking and can't believe that I was ever stupid enough to have done so myself. I didn't have anyone to support me either as most people, including my family other than my sister, ever knew that I smoked.

Stick with it Lizze, and Grock and Mrs P; as Val says, if you give in now you'll have gone through this for NOTHING and you'll have to go through it all again if you decide to give up again. You really are through the worst, honestly you are. It just gets better from here on in. Stash that cash, buy yourselves some BIG EXPENSIVE treats with the pot and you'll soon feel so much better.