Congratulate Me, Boys!

[Grandma Ruth]

Not only have I completed my Race for Life - see picture - but I've done a year without smoking !!!! What do you think of that??

[Redband]

First, well done on the Race for Life, a very worthy cause (I see you raised a nice bit of money). I'm sorry I didn't sponsor you but I have done for someone else.

Second, brilliant effort on giving up the smoking.

[WPandP]

Hey, great job on both fronts!

[Knave]

Woot!! Great job!! Congratulations to you Ruth. I have watched family members try and try to give up smoking. Only to continue. Covered in guilt, and the butt of in family jokes, I might add.

[nedfumpkin]

Congrats....I wish I could quit smoking too....as far as the running...I'm a half blind - half cripple...couldn't run for my life if I needed to....

Kudos!

[Hawk]

My highest compliments to your Ruth! Who knows, it might inspire me.

[Gwizz]

Congrats, anything is possible when we try hard enough.
Hay, whats in that bottle.

[Grandma Ruth]

Thank you, thank you one and all!
It all goes to the same cause, Redband, so don't apologise!
What's in the bottle Gwizz? "Diet Water" of course!

[Hawk]

This diet water - does it actually burn calories while you drink it?

[Grandma Ruth]

[thegrindre]

Way to go, Ruth.
I've just had to change my brand. My sigs have gone up $10 a carton in the last 6 months. Can't seem to quit, though.

(And watch who you're callin' boy. )

[Grandma Ruth]

Sorry, Gramps!

Here's a serious tip if you ever do try to give up. Well before you stop, six months or even a year before, make it a rule never to smoke whilst you're doing anything else. Go outside, go in the bathroom, go somewhere away from what you're doing. I used to smoke whilst I was on the computer and that's the time the cravings hit, as soon as I sit down I'm reaching for a cigarette. It's better now but I do wish I'd "broken the link" in advance - it would have saved me a lot of grief!

[thegrindre]

Gee, that'll be a hard one for me. I chain smoke when I'm sitting here....

Hey look at Ruth's posts. You're almost there, Ruth. Your 500th post is just around the corner.

[Grandma Ruth]

What, you mean I could be an engineer????? Never in my wildest dreams ....

[Gwizz]

You have to be a real bucket mouth to reach 500.

[Canadian Viking]

Bravo for kicking the habit, Grandma! And your serious tip shows excellent insight into the behaviour of we humans. We develop patterns where one activity, or emotion, links to another, and can gradually lead us into a chain of detrimental things. Glad to hear you're breaking that tobacco chain.

With a few technical problems to prompt your posts, and the gift of the keyboard gab, you'll be an engineer in no time.

[JSS]

Grandma Ruth, what took you so long to quit smoking?

The common believe seems to be that environment and to some extent peer pressure gets one to smoke while in addition the nicotine keeps one “hooked”. This however did not completely hold true for me.
Growing up with my Grandparents I had easy access to all kinds of smoke-ware since they owned a Tobacco Store. Still recall my first taste of a cigarette that I had (before I was even ten) hiding under a barn. It was quite a high.
Over the next few years I smoked everything (on and off) from pipe to cigars and it was all free i.e. easily accessible. My Grandfather did not really encourage it, besides making the smokes available, but never did forbid it. The times I smoked most was when we as apprentices had to use the railroad to go to our weekly sessions in schooling out of town. The amount of smoke we generated in our rail car rivaled that of the steam engine pulling our train.
The moment I was legally allowed to smoke (at 16) smoking did not appeal to me anymore and except for an occasional puff on a cigar, never really smoked again. My wife smoked all along over the last forty years or so until she stopped last year after having pneumonia.
It is just interesting that even so all of my known relatives smoked, I never really “took” to it.

[Grandma Ruth]

Isn't that something? My family were just the opposite, nobody smoked except my Grandad, and he would have maybe two or three a day - when I knew him, of course, he was older, I suppose he smoked more when he was younger. It would be interesting to know what makes some people almost "immune" to the hook of tobacco - if it could be isolated and manufactured what a grand thing that would be!

[thegrindre]

You have to be a real bucket mouth to reach 500.