How can I stop smoking?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Mods: I think that this is the right forum for this, but if not, feel free to move it.

I need help quitting smoking.

Have any of you guys had success in this that you can share?

I have tried several times and failed. Tried the Cold Turkey method as well as nicotine gum. Would it help to go see a doctor and look in to prescriptions?

I know that a lot of this boils down to a mental game, and I am split 50/50 on this issue. I want to quit, and no longer have the cough in the morning, and the social stigma. But I also want to smoke. Any help appreciated!

2

Maybe. My wife seems to be having good luck with Wellbutrin SR. Patch, gum, cold turkey, chew, all left her with hideous withdrawal symptoms. That’s not the case this time around. :stuck_out_tongue:

3

Don’t worry. Everyone stops smoking… eventually. :smiley:

4

This honestly worked for me. It sounds nuts, but try…

Break it down. Think of smoking in a physical sense. Not the physical need to smoke, but the physical actions involved in smoking.

Everybody who smokes knows how bad it is. Knowing the grim facts of smoking should be enough to make people stop, but it does not.

You cannot smoke unless you pick up a cigarette, light it, and put it to your mouth. No matter how much your mind wants, or your body needs to smoke, you can control your arms. When the urge to smoke hits, think of it in that sense. Do not allow yourself to physically initiate the act of smoking.

It was extremely diffucult for me to get into that frame of mind, but it worked. When you’ve quit for a day or two and you’re ready to break down and have that cig, look at your arms. Your physical actions are ultimately in control, and you have the most control over your physical actions.

Like I said, it sounds nuts, but if you can break it down to something that simple, you can quit. Good luck!

5

I recommend that you talk to your doctor. I quit cold turkey for about a year, but started back when I got too stressed out from work. Later tried the patch, didn’t work at all, the gum worked, until I got really stressed out. Saw the doc (an ex-smoker BTW), and she put me on Zyban/Wellbutrin which has enabled me to slightly cut back, but the side-effects are starting to get to me so she’s probably going to have to switch me to something else. I can tell you that before the side-effects kicked in, it was very easy for me not to smoke. So give it a shot. Also, you need to think about why you smoke. What is it that makes you want to light up? When you know the answer to that, you can work to eliminate those factors from your life.

6

I think this might possibly be more of an IMHO thread, considering that what works for one person may not work for another. I don’t think there is one magic bullet that will make everybody quit smoking.

That said, I wish you all the best in your efforts to quit. One of my best friends quit successfully after seeing a doctor and being prescribed a medication (I can’t remember the name). I quit successfully using this book. Other people on this board have related stories on how they quit by using patches, Zyban, cold turkey, etc…

You may just have to keep trying until you come up with the method that works for you. Good luck, it feels excellent to no longer be an addict.

7

I am a former 2 packs a day smoker for 15 years and quitted 15 years ago. I tried quitting several times and my friend even bought me cigarettes because I was such a grouch when I stopped smoking. Then, one day I told myself I wanted to quit. The difference was that I didn’t say I needed to quit, it’s bad for me or that I am doing it for (whoever). Those are reasons to quit and that I should quit. Not that I wanted to quit. One day I wanted to quit. Not for my wife, or whoever else. For me. Do you really want to quit or just need to quit?

They say that there’s 3 hurdles. The first 24-48 hours when the craving (physical and emotional) are the strongest because of the withdrawal. Then about a week later and finally around 30 days later. I was told that is when all the nicotine is completely out of your system.

I don’t think I can cite any reasons you have not already heard; money (and wow they are expensive now a days), illness, not seeing your kids/grandkids grow, bad role model, having to stand outside in the rain to smoke at work, etc, etc…

Until you quit, you will not know how much your clothes stink from the smoke.

I wish the best of luck. Quitting is one of the few thing I can be proud of in this life.

I will leave you with a morbid joke that anyone can quit smoking. It takes a real man to face lung cancer…
Jim

8

I quit cold turkey. Once I’d resigned myself to experiencing days of utter misery, I was able to get through it. No matter how bad it got, the end result was worth it. I quit smoking with an open pack in the house - knowing they were there helped, because it meant I was resisting them. Mr Cazzle decided to be helpful and moved them. When I realised they were gone, I was frantic - not having them there meant that it was no longer me resisting them, but me being denied them, and that made so much difference! Once Mr Cazzle gave them back to me, I was able to settle down again. After about 3 or 4 weeks, I gave them away.

Every quitting experience is different, but for me it took a lot to realise that quitting essentially means doing nothing - it’s a choice you make every time the urge hits. Will I smoke, or will I not smoke? If you always choose “Not smoke” then hey presto - you’re an ex smoker. Just like that.

I found the Quit Meter from www.silkquit.org invaluable. The idea of setting it back to zero was repugnant, and carried me through a few times. Also, I liked the idea that every second it had counted off was a second I never had to live through again, and was one second closer to feeling normal again.

I also ate heaps of sour citrus fruit flavoured candy. Lemon and orange lollypops were effective in killing cravings. Plus, they gave me something to suck on and to hold. Chocolate didn’t help, and the coffee flavoured pop nearly did me in.

The smartest thing I ever did was to never smoke in the house or car. This meant that I didn’t associate smoking with any activity that I do inside. That was really handy! Perhaps as part of your preparation for giving up, you could change your habits so that you don’t smoke during activities that you do most often?

Good luck!

And just to brag once again:

One year, two days, 12 hours, 49 minutes and 48 seconds. 7350 cigarettes not smoked, saving $2,082.46. Life saved: 3 weeks, 4 days, 12 hours, 30 minutes. Thanks, Hardygrrl.

9

My experience is similar to DarkScooterPie’s. I had smoked for 20+ years. I knew that tapering off would never work for me. It had to come down to me wanting to quit for myself - not anyone else or even for my own health. Once I reached that point I used a combination of Zyban(Wellbutrin) and the patch. I recall the first week as being a kind of hell, but I ate a lot of Lifesavers and fortunately am blessed with a wife who was willing to humor me with the occasional, “poor, sweet, baby.” I haven’t smoked for two years and I’m pretty proud of that accomplishment.

I believe anyone can quit - if they want to bad enough and are doing it for themselves.

10

First, an admission: I have relapsed and am currently smoking again. Which just means I have to start all over again. Which I will, as I am not going to quit quitting.

That said, I agree and can attest that the combination of Zyban/Wellbutrin and the patch really does take most of the physical discomfort and mental disruption out of quitting, and makes it much easier than it used to be. Good luck!

11

GQ is for questions with factual answers. Since this is more a matter of opinion than fact, I will move this thread to IMHO.

12

My husband has not had a cigarette in about 2 months now (he could tell you the exact number of days, but he’s asleep right now). He’s tried switching to a lower-tar cigarette, cold turkey, Wellbutrin, gum, and the patch. The patch is the one that finally did it for him. I think it’s mostly just that he made up his mind to DO it this time. He’s used a lot of hard candy and gum, too, this last time.

He’s got a little trick, too…every day he takes three one-dollar bills, and sticks them in an old pimiento cheese tub. When he gets enough singles, he carefully irons them and bands them in groups of 50. He says that next year, on his birthday, he’s gonna take these banded dollar bills and spend them on whatever he wants. He doesn’t want to trade in his bills for larger bills. I figure that this is his way of having tangible evidence of his triumph over nicotine.

13

Since I am an ex smoker I’ll give you the old Cheezit pep-talk. :smiley:

Well, not really a pep talk but more of a “how I did it” talk. :slight_smile:

Anyway. About 1 1/2 years ago, my cat jumped up on the computer desk and dumped the full ash tray all over the place and into my lap. I have no real idea why it grossed me out so much at time but it did. I decided that I was going to quit smoking. I got in the car, went to Wal*Mart, bought the patches and quit smoking the next day. The only thing that I did with the patches that was different than the directions said was that they said to use each strength for 2 weeks. I used each strength for 4 weeks. As I said, that was a year and a half ago. I haven’t smoked since and I don’t miss them. Periodically, I will get an urge to have a smoke, but it very quickly goes away.

I think that the biggest hurdle to get over is that before you will be successful, you have to really want to quit. It can’t be a “I hope I can quit” thing. I has to be a "I WILL quit. I WILL be successful.

Oh, in case you are wondering? I smoked for 36 years and when I quit, I was smoking 3 1/2 packs a day. So, I have absolutely no doubt that if you want to quit, you can.

Good luck.

14

Well, I used patches for the chemical addiction part. The’re not perfect (and the cheaper ones can itch like hell), but they helped me.

I smoked cigarillos (King Edward, Cafe Creme, etc.) when I was in a pub and desperate. The key is to not inhale, and the fact that (for me) they tasted so very bad. It helps with a small nicotine rush, the feel of smoke (although not in your lungs) and gives your hands something to do.

Don’t use cigars and definitely don’t inhale. I got my dad smoking cigars (he’d have reverted to cigarettes), but instead of using them for the psychological part, he started inhaling. Five years on, he smokes 5 cigars a day and chews the gum. Still, he was a 40-60/day man, and had started smoking 50 years earlier when he was 7.

Also, don’t be afraid of addicting yourself to something else. Sweets and diet coke are a lot easier to kick than smoking. And never, ever have another cigarette (that’s the beauty of the cigarillos - you have those to fall back on when you’re drunk and beginning to think you can have just one cigarette).

15

A lot of people reccomend Allen Carr’s book, which I have read and think is pretty good.

There’s a web-site – smokeworm.com, which offers (for free) a quit smoking method that is a pretty shameless ripoff of Allen Carr’s book.

For what it’s worth, here are some thoughts of mine on the subject:

First, ask yourself why it is that you “also want to smoke.” See, after you’ve been smoking for a while, there isn’t much actual pleasure left. When you smoke, you’re mainly filling a void that was created by previous cigarettes. So the pleasure is largely an illusion - you’re mainly getting yourself back to where you would have been in the first place had you never been a smoker.

Second, keep in mind that it is impossible to consume cigarettes in moderation, especially as a former smoker. After you have quit, you will be tempted to smoke, just a little bit, for any number of reasons - a stressful event, a happy event, pressure from a friend, a desire to “test yourself,” etc.

You should view these temptations as follows: Imagine that you are a prison guard, assigned to keep watch over Hannibal Lector. If Hannibal makes a small, reasonable-sounding, innocuous request, what are ya gonna do? That’s right, ignore it, or you’ll wind up getting screwed.

Third, don’t quit smoking until you’ve got a plan to quit, and thought about it for a while (perhaps a week or two). The mental preparation will give you a lot of extra energy when the time comes.

Fourth, I wouldn’t bother with nicotine gum, the patch, or any of that stuff. I wouldn’t bother cutting down either. See, the craving for cigarettes comes from having nicotine in your system. So consuming nicotine in any form will only undermine your efforts.

Fifth, face the fact that it will be a tough time at work or school for a while after you quit. You may end up making mistakes that will get you yelled at (it happened to me). But in 10 years, you will probably not remember those mistakes. You will, however, remember quitting smoking.

Last, remember that you will always be “a puff away from a pack a day.” After a few weeks, Hannibal won’t bother you so much any more. But he’ll always be there, ready to pounce on any indiscretion on your part.

Best of luck!!!

16

I am planning on quitting smoking again myself.
I will go cold turkey. I am allergic to the patch (bandaids and surgical tape too - really gross rashes and blistering), tried gum (my mom chewed nicotine gum for 3 years and then went back to smoking - plus it tastes disgusting), tried Zyban/Wellbutrin (first two weeks was fine then didn’t sleep for weeks and then fell into an intense depression due to Zyban).

I’ve quit 3 times for 6 months each time. The physical withdrawl symtoms only last 3 days. The psychological addiction is what takes longer to get over. This time I have to change my method of dealling with stress.

Side Note:
I sometimes joke that every time I’ve quit smoking - a friend dies - it has happened 3 times already and always the day after the funeral I start smoking again. Don’t laugh this actually happens - so when a friend wants me to quit smoking I always ask them if they want to be the one who dies because of it.

I’ll try again - but if someone else dies when I hit the 6 month mark - I’m a bit superstitious - maybe that will be my last attempt at quitting. :wink:

17

I quite more than two years ago when I got pregnant for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, being pregnant wasn’t enough for me to quit, it was the horrible chest pains that were caused by smoking while I was pregnant. It just wasn’t worth it.