Smoking

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lynnehelen

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I feel I am being called to choose between my faith and my enjoyment of cigarettes. After a lifetime of sometimes wild abuse of tobacco it is fitting that I should give it up. I know of an older lady who did so at my age after 30 years of tobacco use. Recently I experienced grace in the form of normal results on a lung capacity test when I had been given to understand that I already had emphysema.

However I am at risk for developing the disease and, after my bout with fear of death I realize I have much to live for and want to stick around. Also, obviously I wouldn’t give up my faith so the cigarettes will have to go.

This seems like an impossibility to me. I have smoked since I was 12, heavily on and off since I was 17. I can no longer financially afford to smoke heavily and neighbors have objected to my smoking. I am down to a pack a day.

I seems so pleasant to pray and believe and then take a cigarette break, and I understand that smoking in moderation is permitted according to the Catechism. After a lifetime of abuse, though, I don’t really tolerate the smoking well and I do understand that I need to give it up.

I prayed the Sacred Heart of Jesus for help. I think I’m scared, it’s been like a comforting lollipop all these years, a substitute for help that I do have now but I’m so accustomed to it I don’t know how to let it go. I love the thought of life without it but at the same time can’t imagine it and for private reasons I lack some other normal pleasures.

:bigyikes:
 
lynnehelen said:
I prayed the Sacred Heart of Jesus for help. I think I’m scared, it’s been like a comforting lollipop all these years, a substitute for help that I do have now but I’m so accustomed to it I don’t know how to let it go. I love the thought of life without it but at the same time can’t imagine it and for private reasons I lack some other normal pleasures.

:bigyikes:
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I started at 14 and stopped at 52. Don’t just try on your own. You need a bunch of information, understanding, you need to quit again and again and again and again until you succeed.

You’re a drug addict. Go start Googling how the addiction works. You aren’t “taking a smoking break,” you are going outside to shoot up. It changes your brain chemistry.

You go get every bit of information and help you can. Check for programs at your hospital, call your local cancer society, get educated. You’ll fail. Never quit quitting.

I had three heart attacks. I didn’t stop. I had two parents and a step-father who died of lung cancer. My brother and I smoked at the funerals.

My not smoking, finally, was a miracle of Grace. You just start quitting and praying and learning and you never ever stop until you are free.

It’s hard. It’ll be hard. You don’t have time to wish it would be easy. You start stopping now. Get to work.
 
Our father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us,
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
 
My dad started smoking when he was 14, and smoked 2.5 packs a day until he was 55. I remember him quitting and starting up a few different times. But he announced on his birthday one year that he was quitting cold turkey, and he did. I think he may have chewed the gum for a few weeks, but that was it. He did it. If he can do it, I feel like anybody can do it. There are different ways of quitting–maybe you need a support group, or the patch, or the gum, or the medicine, or whatever–but you can do it. I’m praying and rooting for you!
 
I pray each and every day for people who smoke – that they will give up smoking and hopefully give up the possibility that they may get lung cancer. My sister smoked from the time she was a young teenager until she was diagnosed with lung cancer. There is NO cigarette that’s worth what she went through – I saw her in the hospital the day before she died and she was in agoney - when her son called me the next day with the news that his Mom had died I thanked God – please give it up!!!
 
God bless, one thing, though is that Satan uses the threat of having to quit smoking just at those times when I am vulnerable to try to break my faith. But the Lord works everything to the good. From your lips, to His ear, as a Jewish psychiatrist once said to me.

🙂
 
I started smoking around the age of fourteen, I quit cold turkey July 5, 2005. I started smoking again the day after my six year anniversity, twenty months later and I have wanted to quit after a year. It is very hard to give them up this time.
I know if I depend on God I will quit, but I just haven’t been able to lay it at His feet, but I will, I’m certain of it.
 
I have several family members who have beaten the habit, it’s hard but they persevered and succeeded. Praying for you to beat it.
 
I started in 1986 and quit on January 7, 2012 after 24 years. If I did it you can do it. I used to smoke while I was drying my hair, every time in the car, all the time every day, 2 packs a day.

It is horrible and awful for the first six weeks, although not all the time. After six weeks it gets much much better. I’ve been almost quit for 15 months now and I cannot believe I ever smoked. I did it 50% for my health and 50% for God.

I would very very very very very much recommend, switching to electronic cigarettes, and toning down your nicotene gradually. This works much much much better than going cold turkey or using lozenges or gum. You can still puff and do through the simulation of smoking with nicotine and water vapor, and will get immediate benefits of not inhaling smoke.

You just have to decide to do it and do it. Even if you muck up and smoke again just quit again. I smoked about three different times after I quit and the last cigarette I have had was last August. Good luck. 😃
 
As a fellow smoker seeking to quit. I am praying for you.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, JESUS. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. AMEN.
 
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