Smoking sub-take 3-HST-take 1

[Patti]

On September 19th it was my birthday and it also was my one year anniversary of quitting smoking. I did it on my birthday for various reasons. The quit smoking experts always suggest you do it on a date you'll remember and I'm one of those people that really like my birthday because I've made it to another year and I also see it as a new beginning. So I felt this was a perfect time, however I'm not sure I would have done it that way if I were to do it again. It was very forced and I think I would of maybe had less problems if I'd let it happen naturally with the sub. But I also always knew this was going to be an extremely hard process for me. I don't necessarily believe it would be as hard for others as it was for me. I believe myself to be about 10% of the population that it would be this hard for. I don't think anyone here got how hard it was even though I kept talking about it. It very much felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body.

Even though I knew it was going to be hard, I also knew in my heart of hearts that this would probably be the last shot for me at quitting. I had pretty much exhausted all avenues of quit help products (some twice), and my feeling was that I have very high regards about Shannon and his work, and if I couldn't quit with his product, it wasn't happening for me at all. For this reason, even though I felt as bad as I did, I pushed the sub process to the limits and probably beyond. I forced the quit date. I listened pretty much 24/7 the entire time. I listened to it very loud most of the time with ultrasonic and I used earphones as much as possible (but not loud). This program fully discombobulated me physically and emotionally.

I had two bumps along the way and smoked twice. Both times I was drinking and because I don't drink much anymore I was pretty bamboozled with not so much alcohol lol, and I guess smoking just went with those times. But I didn't want anymore after each of them and no more the following days. This would have never happened before the sub. I would have went right back to it.

I think it's one of things, at least for me, that more time and experiences that I got through without using the smoking coping skill I was so used to, the better I would feel about not smoking. And life has been so wonderful, in that it would throw the craziest stressful situations my way to deal with, so I had to learn how to deal with them without smoking. In the beginning I was very resentful and basically felt torn between knowing I was doing the right thing for myself and denying myself what I really wanted. It was hard.

But I'm now coming through the other side. I feel about 75 to 90% percent better emotional, physically I'm still working on it. I very recently starting having an issue with my lungs. They're sore and it's hard to explain but I can feel them. The funny thing about me is that I never had that feeling that my lungs were clearing out, never got a cold or felt congested. I was so nervous about this feeling that I did get a chest X-ray that came back thankfully normal. What I do think that's going on is that all the toxins are now finally breaking up. I think I had conditioned myself so much, when I'd quit for 3 months and go back or 6 months and go back or even a year and go back. My body is waiting for me to restart and now that I'm not, it's possible it's gonna start to break up now. Idk, all I do know is that this is the longest I've ever quit and I really don't foresee me going back to it.

I know this is the only product that would of helped me to quit and I'd do it all over again, even if it wasn't a pleasant experience. Thanks Shannon for all your hard work, I know I was a pain in the butt, but I do appreciate you sticking with me and updating the program to help me and hopefully others.