Updated December 16, 2014.

At 18 months smoke-free, Rick has a lot to be thankful for.  

From Rick:

It was a day like any other day in April of 2013. I was awakened by the loud wheezing in my chest. And I could feel the congestion in my throat as well as my chest. So much so that before I could get out of bed I could taste the sticky salty muck on the back of my tongue. And about then getting out of bed was what I needed to do.

After a quick trip to the bathroom to clear my system as much as I could it was time to go back to my room, reach for my e-cig, get my eye opener fix and start the new day of this pattern of self destruction.

This predictable ritual had been the plague of my morning for more than a month by then. It wasn't the first time either. Back in February of 2012 this pattern had begun. It was the result of over 30 years of smoking cigarettes. I knew then that I had to quit smoking. And, after about a month of false starts I had. That quit lasted 9 months. Long enough for all of the scary memories to fade and for euphoric recall to take hold.

In December at a holiday party I had just one and after 3 days of bumming I bought a pack. Within two weeks I was buying a pack a day. Within a month I was over a pack a day. And within two months the congestion I described above had started again.

I decided to quit again. The quit didn't last a day. So I tried again. I soon discovered that being able to quit for months on end had been replaced by not being able to quit for even a few hours, much less a whole day.

To limit the damage, I started using e-cigs. which also allowed me to get a fix inside of buildings that prohibited smoking. It was awful. I woke up every morning to clear my throat so I could smoke which led to a greater need to clear my throat. And it went on day after day.  April of 2013 turned into May and everything within my downward spiral continued to get worse. After about 35 years of smoking I was in what can fairly be called a death spiral. 

But sometimes you just get lucky. You find something to be thankful about. You can be floundering on something for a long time and then suddenly things come together much better than you could have foreseen.  And just a week before many of us celebrate Thanksgiving I can look back and find much to be thankful for in this quit.

The beginning of the end of the negative cycle mentioned above and the beginning of the positive cycle described below began on Monday evening May 20th 2013. I was on this very laptop I am typing on now doing a web search for smoker grills. I kid you not. For whatever reason there may be the search engine ignored the word grill, focused on the word smoker and led me to this website.

I was so inspired by the quit stories I read from many of you and others that I decided to try to quit again. I felt the same foreboding that many of you have felt. That fear of seeing another quit be in vain. But as I kept reading, I found an article here that suggested that if you set a quit date you had a greater chance of success. So I made up my mind that night that when I ran of of cigarettes that the next day that would be it. No More. 

Now I have a quit that is a year and a half old. And, just a week before Thanksgiving day I have a lot to be thankful for.
  
First,  I am thankful for the length of my quit itself. When I first came here I was really worried about whether I'd already lost the ability to stay quit. That nine month quit I had in 2012 had been my longest quit. Now this one is twice as long. 

In fishing and many other things, it is true that size matters. If you quit for long enough you'll see benefits that you would have never known about. Maybe the greatest secret gift is deep breathing. If you stay quit long enough for your lung capacity to return, you will be amazed at how relaxing deep breathing can be. It really can give you a natural high that is actually good for you. You don't have to worry about damaging your body day after day. And that too is something to be thankful for. 

I feel better now than I remember feeling even in my twenties. It took a while to get here. In the first month of this quit I had two doctor appointments and sought to discover just how bad off I was with all of the congestion and perhaps even worse things than just the congestion. Going to sleep every night to the sound of wheezing and then waking up the next day to the same is just no way to live. And by the end of the first month of my quit I no longer had to. And as long as I stay within my quit I don't have to now. 

And then there are the smaller things to be thankful for. The fact that food tastes better. The fact that I don't ever have to worry about smoking strategies and how long I have to wait this time. All of these positive changes, and many more all began 18 months ago today when I began this quit.

 I am also  thankful for all of you. I won't go on as to all of the threats this quit faced in the first eight months. In short it was shaken many times in the first eight months by losses. Job loss, a car loss, some other losses and worst of all, the loss of my favorite uncle. But so many of you helped me stay rational through it all. Reason can overcome seemingly unbeatable problems. Thomas Paine once said ''The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.'' And you all have empowered me with this weapon, or tool if you will, on many occasions. 

And finally, I am thankful for the confidence that comes from this positive cycle. I can't promise that your quit will solve your problems, but it makes them much more solvable. When you can think, use the tool of reason without the need to poison your body because your brain thinks that you need the poison, (a quite unreasonable idea itself if you think about it) you can come to solutions faster. And without then possibly being compromised by the need for additional nicotine fixes while you work on your solutions.

So today I am thankful for my massive quit. A quit that is both bigger and deeper than what I could have imagined when I began this journey, 18 months ago today. And I know that it is possible to discover even more positives over time.

Rick

More from Rick:  A Vacation from Smoking