Project Description
Glynda, AB, Canada
Length of Smoking: 40+
Amount Smoked Per Day: 25-50 cigs
Quit Day: 3rd day of the program
“I was killing myself. By the time I came to FS, I thought I was gonna die, I really did. That’s how bad I was feeling. I don’t think I would be alive today if I hadn’t come to quit smoking here 14 months ago to start taking care of my health. So it can be done. It’s worth everything, to quit smoking and to come here to get healthy. I would have a hard time paying if it cost twice as much to come here, but I would try to find the way, if I needed to do it all over again. Because it saved my life.”
Improvements with: Quit Smoking, COPD
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Attempts to quit. I smoked basically most of my life. It was over 40 yrs. of smoking. I mean I’ve tried everything to quit it, absolutely everything. I’ve tried hypnotism, Champix, Wellbeutrin. I’ve read the books. I do not know how many quit smoking books I’ve read. I’ve got to quit smoking courses. Just nothing worked, absolutely nothing. I’ve had tried many many times. I just I don’t know if I ever made past two days. It was just… whenever I quit, it was all I was thinking about: I wanna a cigarette, I wanna a cigarette, I wanna a cigarette! Eventually, it is just too easy. You are at home, you just open your cupboard and take a pack of cigarettes. And no relief seems to flow. And you say: Ya, ok…I always seemed to smoke more, when I did that. When I quit before – that was all I thought about. | One of the things that made it easy is that I did not need to quit before I was coming. When I came here, I smoked probably for 2-3 days. I thought about it every day, counting my cigarettes, and I finished my last one on about the 3rd night. By then, for some reason, it did not seem very hard. It seemed like nicotine was flushed out of my body immediately, so I did not need to worry about it… And all the support I’ve got from everybody every day. Everybody that comes to Fresh Start seems to support everybody with whatever they come here for, and the staff, too. So it was like the cravings were not as bad. Everyone keeps so bus. I’d go hours, and then I’d get a flash: Oh, I need to do something. And I’d go: oh, ya, it was a cigarette. I put in my mind that I would never have another cigarette, so that talk would go away so fast. And to me it was absolutely amazing. And I couldn’t believe it. |
| Triggers. I wanted to be out of my environment, because there are just so many triggers there. | After 3 weeks I went to Comox to rent a car. As soon as I went out of the airport, it hit me. It put me back in the same environment. But because I knew I wasn’t a smoker anymore and I wasn’t smoking, it was just easy to walk past that smoke pit. And when I got to the car (I was one of those people who would smoke in their vehicles), I got into the rental car, and something was missing. And I remembered… oh, that’s a cigarette. I don’t smoke anymore. Off I went… Those triggers helped me to deal with the triggers when I got at home. All of these triggers were easy to deal with there. So when I went home, it made the same thing. And in 3 weeks it was so much easier. |
| Accountability.A lot of the times when I quit, I thought I will just quit on my own and don’t tell anybody. And it’s like I was setting myself for a failure, then I am not a failure to anybody, except myself. | When I first went home, I knew I was accountable to my sons who were just ecstatic because they thought they’d lose their mom, and they already lost their dad. It wasn’t just me. I was accountable to them, and I did not want to disappoint them. I just had it in my head that I’ll never smoke again, and it was huge. |
| Impact on Lungs. The COVID came, and I was coughing all the time. I was even afraid to go out, because of the stigma of COVID. I mean, the coughing was just terrible. I was diagnosed with COPD. Before I came, I’d been on inhalers and in the morning I used that inhaler to get my day going, or I wasn’t breathing. And I think it was two days, maybe a day after I quit here, and I quit using my inhaler. I don’t think I used it the whole time I was here. Before I had to use it every day. | I’ve been at the retreat for 2-3 days, and I didn’t use inhaler since then. They (inhalers) are not completely gone. I use them… where I work, there is a lot of silica in the area, and you are breathing it in all the time. And it also gets very cold. It gets 30 C below, and it is very hard on your lungs. I do have to use it occasionally, but very rarely. In the summer I can go 2-3 months without ever using one. I’d say in 3 weeks my lungs improved enormously. |
| Lung Healing. Even if I had just quit at home, no way my lungs would have improved nearly as much. | There are a lot of products here to improve your lung capacity. It is important to take a lot of protocols that will clean out your lungs. They have some wonderful breathing exercises here to try to get some of this out of you, that junk you’ve been putting in your lungs. So I was doing breathing exercises every day, the salt cocoon – you are breathing in the salt air. So much fresh air, walks outside are so good. Being right beside the ocean, breathing in the ocean air. The infrared sauna seems to help a lot. Steam baths are just wonderful, and you have every night 45 minutes every night. |
| Ability to exercise.I couldn’t exercise. My lungs in terms of overexertion or anything like that, I was out of breath. | Probably, a week in, I was doing so much better, even going for walks. I’ve been taking yoga and fitness class, and I am not running out of breath. Now I can go through the whole class and I have enough lung capacity to participate. I may run out of steam, but not out of breath! |
The information above is based on the following resources:
- Unedited Video Testimonial Materials
Disclaimer : Results of participants differ and the Fresh Start cannot guarantee that you will experience your improvements in the same way as in this testimonial. The Fresh Start is not an allopathic medical facility and does not claim to either diagnose or treat any disease. The Fresh Start does not guarantee a recovery from any specific disease or a health symptom.
