Six months clean!

Hi all! So I am new to this group and thought I would share my story ... such as it is! I smoked for over 50 years. Tried several times to quit ... cold turkey, hypnosis, etc and failed at all attempts. Last November (22 Nov to be exact) I woke up with a cold. Slight head cold symptoms and a pretty good cough. Test for COVID and was negative. Tested again the next day and still negative. By then my cough was really getting worse. On the third day, smoking made my cough much worse. I took a good, long look at my situation and determined that I had been given a golden opportunity to quit smoking. I stopped then and there. I felt so darn bad that the first 72 hours went by without me even realizing it. I then started adding up the days as a way to reward myself. I coughed for 3 1/2 weeks and when it was over, it was over.

At around 3 months, I realized that what was making it so difficult was not the physical addiction as much as the "in my head" addiction. Luckily for me, the craving usually lasted only about 30 seconds or less but they were/are soooo annoying! I started out with urges about 15 times a day. At 3 months, I noticed that they went down to about 10 times a day. At 4 months ... 5 times a day which is where I am at now. Not too bad!

Now for the sad part ... I have a lot less post-nasal drip (from allergies) but that is the only thing I notice that has improved. In fact, now at almost 6 months, I am starting to have some anxiety symptoms. I know this will get better with time. Now I just have to get rid of the 30 pounds I gained!