I've now got 8 stints myself. I have been lucky, I never had a Heart Attack. They caught it before it got that bad. Caused a life style change for me.
I still need to lose weight, I'm 6'2" weigh 235. Doc wants me down to 175 or 180. I have small bones he says.
As for quitting smoking, I decided I was going to quite smoking and drinking at the same time. Yes, I was an alcoholic, no one had ever seen me sober, so they did not know I was drunk. I had just got divorced and moved back in the dorm. (I was on active duty in the Air Force). The guys I lived with in the dorm knew and helped me kick those habits. It was rough for about the first week, at one point I was sitting in the floor crying, screaming, and wanting a drink and a cigarette, but two Airmen took it upon them selves to see that I stayed sober and smoke free over a long weekend. Then it got better, at least the shakes went away. But you have to have a support mechanism in place of some type. Like the wife, family, or friends. Today, I still crave a smoke occasionally. Especially when I am around a good smelling pipe tobacco. But then I think back about the problems I had quiting and know I don't want to go through that again. As for drinking, I have never wanted to get drunk again. I can sit and have one or two drinks at a social event, then switch to coke and not have a problem. We have all kinds of liquor sitting in a display cabinet at our house, and I never have a desire to drink any of it. Some of those bottles are over 25 years old, and still have liquor in them.
