REPOST By Troutnut 1.  Date Unknown

I want to talk about discomfort today. We all have discomfort at one time or the other. Our daily choices lead to more discomfort, or less discomfort, more or less. Decisions we make today about our addictions have real consequences. Let’s look at a few of them.

Some of the pros and cons of quitting or not quitting.

Comparative Discomfort Quitting now involves voluntarily subjecting yourself to some discomfort now to avoid a lot of discomfort later. It’s kind of like saving money. We might go without some temporary comforts now so we can have even better comforts later. Or we can spend recklessly now and suffer the consequences later. The choice is ours.

Let’s do the math:

Quitting: There will be craves from withdrawal. There will be old habits to replace with better ones. There may be some sleep disturbances. There may be some expense if you are on NRT or drugs to help you quit, but this should be offset by your savings. There may be the need to go without, or cut back on alcohol for a while, or even permanently in some extreme cases. You cold even lose some friends when you alter your social routines. You may miss some social or travel opportunities in order to protect your quit. You may experience some temporary bodily reactions like gas (quitulence), zits, weight gain, etc. You will possibly be grouchy for a while. Or stupid. Or forgetful.

Not Quitting: Not quitting, or failing in your quit also comes with discomforts. They are a little harder to predict as to when and where they may occur. You will still have craves from withdrawal every time you have to delay administration of nicotine. Smokers have WAY more craves than quitters do, and they go on and on, for as long as the smoker smokes. There will be the constant and growing expense of feeding your addiction, and this expense is guaranteed to increase as the cost of sickarettes, and your consumption of them increases. This is because all addictions come with “tolerance”. Simply stated, it takes increasing amounts of the drug to get the same high. You will miss out on some friends you might have had who can’t, or don’t care to hang out with smokers. Less than 14 out of 100 people still smoke. You will stink. You may lose employment opportunities. Your health insurance will cost more because you smoke. You may suffer financially or not be able to plan adequately for your retirement because of the money your spend on your addiction. You might give up some travel or social opportunities because of your addiction. Smoking causes death in approximately half of the people who continue smoking. And the half that live usually have severe breathing problems, or heart problems, and usually cannot lead active lives. You may find yourself with cancer like I did. My surgeries caused a great deal of discomfort and still cause some problems 12 years later. You may lose your sporting activities like skiing, hiking, hunting, or fishing. That cough will continue to get worse, and the shortness of breath will get worse too. Heart attacks will kill many smokers and leave their loved ones alone. Smokers affect those around them negatively too. Even their pets.

When we quit the discomforts are fairly predictable. And they are generally temporary. Things get easier and easier the longer we are quit. And nobody ever died from quitting smoking.

When we don’t quit, the discomforts are pretty unpredictable, and it is reasonable to expect that they will continue to get worse and worse with time, never better. And many of them are fatal.

Having smoked for over 30 years, and quit for over 15, I can tell you for sure that quitting is by far the better deal. I have suffered the discomfort from both, and there is no doubt that quitting is the easier, softer way. Quitting just makes sense to me. To trade some temporary non-fatal discomforts that fade with time over some real life-threatening discomforts that get worse and worse with time is a real no-brainer.

And here is the most important difference. You can take my word for it that quitting is about WAY more than just quitting smoking. It is a positive, life-changing event that will change your life in many almost miraculous ways. This manifests differently for every quitter.

But here is the deal… once you accomplish this… it will dawn on you that if you can do this, you can do anything you want to do. And then you will! That will be truly priceless.

I promise!  Your friend in Montana Troutnut1 -dennis