Pat,

  You are still doing well as long as you have not put any nicotine into your system.  Many people go through an initial period where they claim that "it was easy" and "now it is hard."  They can't understand why.  Learn to accept it for what it is.  Life has ups and downs, and having quit is part of life.  Sometimes life is difficult, sometimes life is easy.  You must decide, at some point, that you are in this for the long haul.  You can handle it one day at a time and in the long run it will get better.

 

  You have, at your fingertips, an awesome resource.  The book that your daughter gave to you, I took everywhere with me in the first month of my quit.  I read the anecdotes many times because in the beginning we need constant reinforcement of the idea that what we are doing may be a struggle but the payoff is immense.  What allowed you to smoke for so long despite the ill effects of tobacco smoke was denial.  You were willing to accept that your addiction to nicotine was stealing your life away because you you thought that you could not break free.  There are more than 35 days behind you to prove that you were wrong about that.  BillW raised a good question - Why throw away such an investment?

 

  Believe it, Pat.  It gets better.  Soon will come a day when you will only think about a cigarette when you see someone else smoking and your reaction will be one of relief that you don't do that anymore and not one of feeling deprived.

 

  Keep the promise that you made to yourself to never take another puff and you will never regret it.  Reading this may help.

 

Joseph

14 months