It's been a rough road. Although there are no cigarette ads on TV, you still have people smoking in movies. I have news for them, their money cannot buy a new body that's not nicotine ravaged.

UPDATE FOR JUNE. As of 10 days ago, 06/03/07, I haven't smoked in 6 months and have no desire to. Unless I start smoking again, which I seriously doubt, there will be no more updates. Good luck to those who join me. And God Bless.

UPDATE FOR APRIL. I'm living in the same house with a smoker. When I go to NY, the same happens. It didn't bother me in the beginning; I was that determined to stop. However, I noticed that when I entered the fifth month, the cravings began again--real strong. Perhaps this is the reason I didn't make it last time. I started smoking again around the fifth month. But this time I'm determined to stop.

I'm still coughing at times. My doctor says it's partly allergies and partly my lungs getting rid of the nasty stuff. He also said my complexion no longer has a yellow caste to it as it did when I smoked. I look and feel healthy. When he checked my lungs with a stethoscope, there was no wheezing. I know it'll get better as I go along.

UPDATE FOR FEBRUARY. I'm still not smoking. Still using the gum. I dropped down to the 2mg strength on the Nicorette, fresh mint, coated gum in mid-January. The 4mg was much too strong. And now they're having sales on the gum. I found the new fresh mint, coated gum, plus the citrus tasting gum at Wal-Mart. They had 170 pieces for the price of 100. I started out in December with 9 pieces a day of 4 mg. Starting in mid-January I went down to 3-5 pieces of the 2mg and feel so much better. I had trouble with poor circulation in my legs for years--that's gone. Lots of other physical improvements too. No more heart palpitations. There's an improvement in skin, my teeth are whiter. Wow. I sound like a commercial. LOL

UPDATE: I'm still not smoking. Still using cigarette gum. Love the new stuff; the mint with the hard outer shell that resembles and tastes like chicklettes (sp?) It really wasn't so bad during the holidays when I attended Christmas and New Year parties since the people who still smoked went outside. But I have two smokers in the house and I told them they really didn't have to go outside and smoke. It didn't bother me. You see, they're out of breath a lot and they cough like crazy. I don't; that's incentive. My skin is clearing up. It no longer has that light muddy look to it from nicotine in the pores. I feel so much better and I'm mentally determined to stay a non-smoker. I've gained five pounds, but lost 1 1/2 so far since I'm able to work out for longer periods of time. Please join me. The main thing is: do it for yourself.

Most of the experts on quitting smoking will advise you to use an aide to help break the cigarette habit which is a strong addiction. I think it's because cigarettes are such a big part of our lives they just about control us.

You see, it takes ten minutes to smoke a cigarette. I timed it. If you smoke a pack a day, that's 200 minutes or 3 hours and 20 minutes of wasted time smoking. You tell yourself, 'I'll have a smoke before I walk the dog' or 'I'll have a smoke before I do the breakfast dishes'. It's akin to a reward for performing our daily chores, like smoke breaks at work.

In fact, this applies to everything. You go shopping and purposely pick a store further away from home so you have extra time to smoke that cigarette or you'll wind up sitting in the parking lot finishing it.

So what helps you stop? Patches left large areas of bumpy red rashes on me. The gum didn't always work. Neither did chewing hard candy and sticks of licorice. I tried 7 or 8 times to quit since that five-month period and faced one failure after another.

What finally worked was the idea of picking a quit date and working it beforehand, the same as I did before quitting for five months. For instance: days ahead of time I'd perform self-hypnosis before I went to sleep at night. I kept repeating over and over again, "I no longer wish to smoke," until I fell asleep and later recalled telling it to people in my dreams.

By the time I quit, to my surprise and amazement, it was easier. People smoked around me and I didn't care. Cravings were nothing but annoyances solved by deep breathing for a moment or two. Nicotine gum helped whereas it never did before. I chewed maybe 3-4 pieces a day instead of the 9 allowed.

Quitting smoking is more than killing a craving. It's a mind set whereby you know in your heart and mind that smoking isn't for you. Not only because of the dangers of cancer but because of the hours wasted when your time schedule is already stressed beyond belief. 90 hours a month or more smoking a pack a day. 2 packs means longer wasted hours.

I started smoking after quitting for five months due to the pressure of being a caregiver. Now I realize that pressure is present in our lives no matter what. Sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's severe. So go ahead and smoke. However, when you finish that cigarette, the pressure's still there. Better to learn to deal with the unhappy times in our lives than to increase a bad habit that solves absolutely nothing.

For me it's been 18 days of no smoking. I've had poor circulation in my lower extremities for a year or more. Hey, I can feel my feet again. I can taste food for real. So many advantages. I'll give an update from time to time. For those of you who are trying to quit, I hope this has helped.