What a ride this year (2011) has been.... its 2 months till I very proudly turn gold and feel I've changed so much during the last 10 months.  

My life was a lie, I engineered my whole life towards being able to smoke; which meant I calculated every move of every day.  I'd done this for so long that it inevitably had an effect on my life in general.  
How can I explain this? I guess I was living on a knife edge all the time, on the look-out for a little window to smoke or if I found a little one "would I get caught?".  So the change in my life has not only been the lack of guilt, and the obvious lovely health improvements, and wonderful good feelings about myself as a person but I have learned to relax again, does this make sense? 
 I hope so because I have the feeling that even smokers who aren't hiding away are living in a constant uptight way, unable to fully relax.  

This has taken a while, I've had to change my habits of needing to know where, when, how all the time and just go with the flow but its so worth it.

ALSO
I posted a while ago about my daughter who has been travelling and returned with a smoking addiction!! I did talk to her, didn't own up to everything it was just too humilating but if needs be I would have, however, she has a non-smoking boyfriend and told me she has stopped (she's also posted it on a well-known social network site!!) so I am so delighted that she is not taking the same path I chose all those years ago.

And finally!
I met my very best friend who had emigrated several years ago, we had a dream to one day meet up in Paris which we did and what a special lovely time we had.  
We used to live just up the road from each other and did everything together and usually with a cigarette.
So meeting up again, I was so scared, how was I going to feel? would I feel like smoking again?
Answer:  Not one little urge to smoke, nothing nothing at all!!!! but the best bit of all was that our friendship was as special as ever, as Meg put so well she is my rocking chair friend, and that friendship has nothing to do with cigarettes.  I truly hope that sometime in the near future she will also visit freedom and join me in this wonderful smokefree life.

I haven't posted in a while but do pop back here regularly to read, 10 months feels fabulous but I know I couldn't have done this without whyquit and all the wonderful people here, I'm sure if I read back through my journal I've said that a lot but I am constantly in awe of the support I have received from so many corners of the world.

Love to all us wonderful Freedom quitters.

Lucie

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Free and Healing for Ten Months, Two Days