I am a runner. I love running. I really love it. I love the way it's a part of me as much as anything. It shapes who I am now and how I feel about myself. I wasn't always a runner though, it's something I've done for 4 years now. Before that I was a smoker.
I have Allen Carr to thank for my status as a non smoker. I read his book in one sitting and when I finished the last page I was a new person. I wasn't a slave to cigarettes any more. I would no longer smell bad and feel lousy. It was the start of a whole new life and I felt like a completely different person. I didn't go mental with cravings or eat everything in sight or use patches or drive people mad or bite my nails. I simply continued my life as it was, but as a non smoker.
Instead of feeling like I was depriving myself of something I actually felt like I had given myself a dirty big gift of greatness! I'd never felt like that before. So my life began anew and I felt that whatever I decided to do in life I could do, so I attempted a few crazy things. I often wonder if I had never smoked would I have gone on to do the things I've done since. Because it was only in stopping smoking that I felt an overwhelming sense of "I can do anything". It was a real turning point in my life.
I love you for this post! I wish my smoker husband could feel like this. You're a hero!
ReplyDeleteYea I love when you achieve something that makes you feel great. Fair play on the cigarettes.
ReplyDeleteI was in Holland other week and never noticed before how rotten your clothes smell after a night out in places where they have smoke. I don't remember it being that bad years ago.
That picture is great though.
Hi Jo, has he tried Allen Carr? When I see smokers now I just want to shake 'em and tell them they're missing out!
ReplyDeleteMilan I love that picture even though it appears to be glamorising cigarettes!! Like Jo in the next post with her "big house envy", I look at that photo and have "big boob envy"!!
Ach, big boob aren't all they're cracked up to be...
ReplyDeleteHe did indeed do Alan cArr, many years ago, and stopped for years - he didn't smoke when I first met him - and it's been more on than off for the last 15 years, hte bastard. He promised to stop before we got married and I married him like a fool even though he didn't.
Believe me Milan, the smoke smell was that bad - I stopped going to pubs because of it - waking up with it in my hair, on my hands, ugh...
As a rabid non-smoker, being married to a smoker, it's like having a third person in the marriage, I hate it so much. I wish there was an answer, but he has no interest in stopping. :(
I congratulate you on the fact you have remained off them for so long.
ReplyDeleteI have tried willpower, hypnosis, patches, gum, nicotine inhalers, patches again (worked till I got a mortgage), and the final straw Allen Carr, none have worked for me and it kills me.
So as a smoker with the noose around my neck I congratulate you very much.