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COPD and Can’t Commit to Quitting Smoking
I was diagnosed with COPD a year ago and have made efforts to stop smoking but I keep buying cigarettes. I have quit for a couple of days at a time and keep going back. I don’t want to let go of smoking because I can’t handle the stresses in my life. I know continuing to smoke will make my life worse but I feel like I just don’t care in the one hand and to no avail keep telling myself I’m going to be even more miserable if I don’t stop. Has anyone else gone through this?
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@kuma
I read all the comments in this section, which now includes those with COPD. This special gift 🎁 we’ve been given called life is all about commitment. The only question is how much you want it. The answer, you’ll never know until you try.
🙏🏻 Namaste
I did for awhile. I realized, like drinking, one’s too many and 10 not enough. It’s been 5 weeks so far and I can tell the difference. When I have that craving, I walk or find something to stay active. It usually passes in 10 min or so!
I may have posted before. I’m just at 60 days. No cigarettes and no alcohol. I too have COPD. What helped with my ability to quit was at my last pulmonary appointment, I was told that I have av30% survival rate for 4 years. You don’t really think of anything until you hear that. My kids, grandkids, family all went through my head. I am now starting the process for a lung transplant to hopefully help buy a few years. Cigarettes are like alcohol. One’s too many and ten’s not enough. I wish you the best. I just try and stay busy but I’ll never forget those words.
I was dx almost a year ago. I was always a part time smoker although the last 10 years I smoked more but even at that 2 packs a week at most. Imagine my surprise when I was dx. I quit smoking altogether immediately. I still had an exacerbation several months after from being around dust. That was the first time I was really sick. Mostly bronchitis/flu like symptoms with a lot of phlegm. It took me over a month to get back to normal. I just cleaned out my car and found a pack of cigarettes so had one for old times sake. It was easy. But then the next morning I had that phlegmy feeling which was uncomfortable especially remembering how sick I was. Absolutely no need for me to smoke again. Imagine only having one in all that time, how quickly my body reacted.
Basically yes, I gave up smoking for over a year, and didn't find it difficult, but then fooled myself that I could start again in extreme moderation, for a week here or there if among smokers on holiday, this time I didn't stop easily, but did regularly stop for months, and of course regret waiting to stop completely again until my breathlessness was horribly extreme, but I am not telling you anything you don't know. But I can tell you that now even looking at a cigarette makes me feel ill.
Good luck, all you need is to have the thought "I WANT to give up" then it is easy, if you think "I MUST GIVE UP" then it is very hard and can't really be done successfully.
Cigarettes should be on the drug list that the Federal Government uses to rate them . Tobacco has killed more people than any of those drugs and is still at it . There are millions of people living without the fact that they have serious oxygen problems. I quit smoking for 23 years . Then one day I had sob., it was severe. I went to the ER . It was emphysema. Stage 4!!!. So Stop Now! It will not remove the damage that is done . But it may stop it soon enuf that you don’t get the shock that I did . Crystalena