LYNN DUMBLETON

Hi Fellow Quitters, or would be quitters , hopefully,

This is to introduce & tell you about Mary & Me ( LYNN). WELL we’ve quit which is TOTALLY BRILL, because we never thought we would, we’ve both smoked since our early teens!!! Life with ciggies is nice & easy, like having a dummy, but it got to be an expensive & unsociable dummy.

So I wanted the support of a group, I’d lost 3 stones with a group & had heard about  FagEnds starting up in our area, so now the Ciggies,  it had taken me the best part of a year to get there, a positive frame of mind, I wanted to quit, I was fed up of the cravings dictating to me.  Now the group!!!!!

I enquired for us both at my Doctors, The Smoking Nurse got back to me with all the relevant info. SHOULDERS BACK!!! I met Mim, at the Butt Lane FagEnds Group, she was brilliant, really friendly & supportive. After discussing all the different  products we decided that patches would be best for me. I set the day, New Years Eve!!!! I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but I really wanted to do it. I bought an inhaler, which was a great comfort, something to fiddle with, while I broke the hand to mouth habit. Mary came with me on the 9th Jan, her Birthday, nice pressy to herself.. We play golf together, golfing & smoking went  together like strawberries & cream, four of us would light up on the first tee, then we’d play golf. Apart from getting out of  breath , up hills, coronary bank we call it, straight up ,down, & straight back up again left us gasping for breath, with stingy lungs!!!! NOT NICE AT ALL we were also tired of the social stigma too, not anymore, we practically skip along now, but really it has made  such a difference in just 14 weeks.

Mary had a nagging little man on her shoulder, go on have just one, he’d say, you know you’ll love it, no one will know, one won’t hurt, She really disliked this little man & he took a while , about 6 weeks to finally crawl away & leave Mary alone. Hopefully he’ll stay under that brick forever, only willpower could see him off & make him stay away, I used to give him a  good flick, but only Mary could sort him out!

We thought we’d never be able to do it, after trying to quit  lots  of times,& falling back into old habits, we really thought we’d  never do it, FagEnds was our Quiting Friend, our extra willpower place to go where people understand, where you can talk about your difficulties, & share with other people what you’re going through, no  one judging you, just positive support.  It helped me no end to be part of a group where I could go every week & feel proud when I blew into the tube & it told everyone I hadn’t had a ciggie, or I could phone the Helpline for support  at  any time, knowing I didn’t have to go it alone was great.
 With Mary by my side & the group, we succeeded & now  feel lots better about ourselves.
Even now the smell of cigarettes isn’t totally gross, like everyone says it is, it still smells quite pleasant to me, perhaps one day it won’t & perhaps one day I won’t still think about them, but it’s early days, after 40yrs of smoking, 14weeks  isn’t a long time.  I wrote this with thanks to Mim, Liz & Bernard, FagEnds &  The Roy Castle Foundation, you see sometimes good things  can happen out of sad situations.  

Cheers & Good Luck  Lynn