Hello all...my name is Brian and I've been lurking around this site for the last two months and I quit smoking last monday!
I can't believe how easy it is so far. Sure, the first three days were rough, but I got through it. The concentration problems were bad for me because I'm a college student taking science classes and I had to kind of, "abstain" from homework for a couple days :)
The major difference between this quit and my previous quits has been education....and lots of it. I've probably read every single article in the archive...as well as a good majority of the posts in the "highlighted posts" section. I finally understand what ADDICTION is...and this knowledge made it pretty much impossible for me to continue smoking!
After I first found this site a few months ago, I was of course still smoking. I wanted to quit, but I wasn't exactly sure why. My family members (including several ex-smokers) always put pressure on me to quit, but I never allowed myself to believe what they were saying. I had a vague notion that cigarettes were making me feel downtrodden and lazy, but I explained this as part of my normal personality (it couldn't have been the cigarettes, I thought).
But as I began to master the principles of addiction, it was like a beam of light was fixed upon me and I couldn't hide from my addiction any longer. At first I hated the idea of being put on the spot like that....but then I realized that everyone else here went through the same thing and experienced that same flash of insight. That made me feel really good and it helped me to make the final decision to quit. What a great decision!

