Today’s Daily Prompt is all about quitting things or endings.
Tell us about something you’ve tried to quit. Did you go cold turkey, or for gradual change? Did it stick?
Photographers, artists, poets: show us THE END.
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I think we’ve all quit things or finished things at some point in our lives. I used to be a smoker, I quit cold turkey 8 years ago. It wasn’t as hard that last time as it had been so many times before. Like most smokers I had quit many, many times before. Just to go back to those little addictive sticks of death again and again.
What made the last time so much easier and made it stick for good was simple. I like breathing. It got to the point that it was either smoke and stop breathing, or quit and continue breathing in a much easier way. I also developed an allergy to smoke. Yeah, ironic huh? A smoker who was allergic to smoke.
Now I hate the smell of cigarette smoke and if I’m around it too long or around too many smokers at one time, I feel my breath getting shorter and my eyes water and I start sneezing. Not pleasant at all.
I pretty much quit eating sugar too. I became a diabetic after getting really sick about 5 years ago. I never knew diabetes could develop that way! My doctor explained that they are now finding out that, yes, some diabetics become diabetics after a severe illness. It’s believed I was probably pre-diabetic before hand and when I got really sick, it lowered my natural defenses and bam! Diabetes here I come.
I went home and cried. I thought it was the end of the world. I knew someone in my past that was diabetic and he died much too young because of complications from the disease. He also developed it much younger than me, barely out of his teens. I got it much later in life.
It isn’t a death sentence unless you don’t watch what you eat or take care of yourself. Before I got sick, I was a coke-a-holic. I drank coke cola a lot! I mean seriously a lot. That quit the day I found out I was diabetic. Whew, talk about withdrawal! I got headaches for days afterward. But eventually I learned to do without. Now I drink diet pop/soda about once a day. Usually thought it’s water or coffee or tea.
I take care of myself now, no sugar (ok, I cheat once in a while, I’m not perfect!), lots of water and watch what I eat. It becomes second nature now to look at food and drink labels. You would be shocked at the sugar content in some things! Like sausage! Who would have thunk sugar was in the sausage! But it is in some.
Before becoming a diabetic, I used to literally faint at the sight of needles. Yup, I was the one the nurses hating taking blood from. Zonk! Down on the floor I would go. Lights out sister! Now? Pffftttt! Needles don’t bother me one bit. I mean really. I would be hard to give myself injections every day if I kept passing out. So that’s another thing I quit, fainting at the sight of needles.
Years ago I quit my ex husband too. That was more of a gradual quit. Should have been a cold turkey one. The marriage had not been working for years. For almost the whole 13 years I stayed. Some things are hard to quit cold turkey, even when a person knows it’s bad for them. My marriage was like that. He kept promising to change, I kept believing him. Till the emotional abuse became too much for me to handle. I almost lost myself because of him.
So I walked out without a dime to my name. One suitcase and what little of myself I could pack into it. I walked out, but he didn’t want to leave it at that. That’s where the five years of hell afterwards come in, but that’s another whole other story. So that was another kind of quitting, or ending.
Like I said we all have them throughout our lives. The quitting of a job, the ending of a relationship, the stopping of eating or drinking something that will harm us. Even little things, like going a different way to work, you quit one direction and go in another. Life is made up of stops and starts. Big and small. It’s how we grow as a person, it’s what shapes our lives. Those stops and starts can be good or they can be bad. Your choice. My choice.
I chose for me, I’m adventurous like that.
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The Last Chapter 
Horrible, some of the tough choices we have to make because of seeming harmless decisions along the way.
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So so true Helena, but at least we get to make those choices.
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You’re so courageous, Jackie. Good for you.
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Thank you Amy. Not so courageous I’m sure. A person has to make these decisions for themselves.
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I think I lived I your mirror life. I quit smoking almost six years ago after I got sick. I was actually on oxygen 3 years. I was addicted too Coke a cola too. I gave that up almost 10 years ago. I have a coke once and a while. I also had to give up a man. I guess what hasn’t killed us has made us stronger.
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Well hell Kim, if it didn’t make us stronger what would? LOL
Life is full of choices, we make good and bad ones. So far we are evening out, right? 🙂
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Yea I guess so. 🙂
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Life isn’t easy x
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No it sure isn’t.
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Yea! Good for you. Me, too…been there, done that….same as you…breathing is better!! Yea….us!
Raye
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Way to go! Yay us!
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Jackie, we are so much alike. I too quit things when they become too hard to continue. The first time I quit smoking it was because I was having trouble breathing. It was so hard as I couldn’t remember a life without cigarettes. But when I started back up 9 years later and subsequently needed to quit it was easier because I had already learned the triggering mechanisms and how to change up routines that would cause a craving.
With alcohol, I am an alcoholic, it wasn’t until I learned I was pregnant that I quit….cold turkey. I’ve slipped only once since then, just like the cigarettes it was due to stress but it only lasted for a weekend and the responsibility of my child drove me sober.
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We can be strong when the needs of others makes us strong. Good for you Lois! I’m proud of you. I know it can’t be easy. I never had a thing for alcohol so it never became a problem to not drink when I became a diabetic. Alcohol turns to sugar in the system. I too had to change a lot of habits when I quit smoking. Little things could trigger a withdrawl. But we both beat it and am better for it. I keep telling you we be soul sistahs! 🙂
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I believe you. 🙂 I’m glad you never had problems with alcohol. So much of our socializing revolves around it that to quit I had to opt out of joining friends. It’s been 27 years since I had a drink but only now and the do I want to try it and it’s easier to say no.
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You already know this, but I think you are one of the strongest and bravest women I know. I’m proud of you – and proud to call you friend.
Sugar is insidious, isn’t it? It’s in everything. I’ve been drinking Coke again – it’s like a drug. I’m ready to go back to water with lemons in it.
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Thank you Maddie, you are too bad in the strength department yourself. I’m grateful and proud to call you my friend!
Sugar is evil girl, it really is. Water w/lemon is so much better for you. It’s terrible how addictive sugar is.
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You have overcome a great deal in your life, Jackie. I’ve not heard of an illness bringing on diabetes, but I’m not surprised. I was lucky to be a casual smoker and it was easy for me to give it up early on. Didn’t have the time or the money. Would light them and then forget them. I lived with smokers for the first 40 years of my life and it did take it’s toll on my lungs. I’m an addict too, with food being my drug of choice. I could tell you some stories that could almost rival an alcoholic’s. By and far the hardest thing to give up was the soda. I can’t even drink diet soda anymore. It causes severe leg cramping like you have never seen after only a few sips. Sugar hides in everything. I was looking for sausage this morning while I stocked up for our cold snap and noticed one brand I used to buy regularly had corn syrup in it. So I went back to Johnsonville’s mild Italian which had one gram of sugar naturally. I’m borderline and insulin resistant so I have to watch it too. NO FUN at all! 😦
I haven’t told the stories about my marriages and divorces on my blog because my kids and family read it. I think about it sometime. I was much luckier than you both times. My home page wallpaper says “You have the choice to say, this is not how my story will end.” You did it. You are getting a happier ending than you would have had you stayed. You have learned to trust your intuition. It will just keep getting better and better. Hugs my friend. MH
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I lived with smokers all during my childhood, which probably didn’t help matters any. I understood about food being addictive, it is with me too. I suppose you could say it’s our drug of choice. Sugar is a bad bad thing! In so many foods! I always have to check labels.
Once I got away from my ex, yes I could see that I could and needed to write my own story, my way. As for family and friends who read it. Oh well, it was my life, my memories, if they can’t handle them then they should’t read it. I’m mean that way. ahahah. Hugs to you my friend.
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