Stories and experiences by: TheOldPhart

Today marks seven years of being nicotine free for me. At 2:30am on July 12, 2012 I had what my cardiologist considered a massive heart attack. I was told at the time how lucky I was to survive such a heart attack. Having lived through it . . . I believe what I was told whole heartedly. Since 2:30am on July 12, 2012: I have had a stent inserted into one of the arteries in my heart. Three other ar...

Five years nicotine free for me, passed by five days ago and I didn't even notice that it had. I now think of smoking so little that the fifth anniversary of kicking my fifty-three year addiction to nicotine passed me by unnoticed. After fifty-three years of smoking from one to three packs a day, I wouldn't have thought it possible; yet, it did just happen. You can do it too! To find out how I di...

You may want to enter "TheOldPhart" (without the quote marks) in the Search entire site box, and read through the stories I have written so far. I am 70 years old and smoked for 53 years. I quit cold turkey and on July 12th I will mark 5 years as an ex-nicotine-addict. Read my stories and suggestions to see how and why I quit. It just might help you.

Every time I hear someone refer to smoking as a bad habit, it irritates me. Make no mistake about it, smoking is not a habit . . . it is an addiction . . . and calling it by a name that makes it appear comparatively innocuous, less harmful, less dirty, or just plain less evil than it actually is, is dangerous and can prove fatal to you and to others! Ingesting nicotine by any means is harmful. Re...

It seems that most times when I get an urge to give-in and light-up, someone who loves me and whom I love give me a reason not to. Hearing my son say that he is proud of me is probably the best support mechanism I could think of. I haven't had many opportunities in my life to do something my son could be proud of me for. Quite the opposite, he has given me many, many opportunities to be proud of ...

One of the things I am aware of since quitting 3 years 6 months and 16 days ago is the fact that I can smell things again. In the 53 years I smoked, I forgot that some (actually most) things had a scent. I am not speaking of things like perfumes, after shave lotion, and deodorant. Most of those things I could easily do without smelling. It is things like snow, new mown hay, an autumn day at the l...

I smoked my last Cigarette 3 years, 5 months, and two weeks ago. A trick I learned very early on in my quit process helps me beat the cravings. That trick is to remember that the cravings I used to get rid of by lighting-up will go away whether I light-up or not. Those cravings do not last one bit longer by waiting them out than they do by lighting-up. So, the only difference is that if I wait th...

Regardless of how many skirmishes will be fought in any given war, the most important skirmish is always The Next One! This is especially true in kicking an addiction. We need to learn to view each withdrawal incident as a skirmish in a war. Why? Because when we attempt to kick an addiction, we are engaged in a war. A war of mind over matter with several prizes up for grabs. If we are the victor,...

3 years, 4 months, 6 days ago there was serious concern that I wouldn't live to see today (my 69th birthday) or any of the other things I can now celebrate. Things like a glorious sunrise, a beautiful sunset, the sound of the rain softly falling around me, a telephone call from one of my sons just touching base, an E-Mail from one of my grand-daughters telling me I am now a great-grandfather for ...

My hint/title of "Move a muscle . . . Change a thought" is not original. It is heard frequently by the members of Alcoholics Anonymous because it works. Actually, it was passed-on to me by one of the toughest and brightest people I know . . . my youngest son. Here I sit at 69 years of age and my younger son is my teacher. He became a recovering alcoholic about 9 years ago when he joined AA and he...