This. There is no way around this. You have to actually do it. It will be unpleasant, especially for the first two weeks or so, and a bit less for the next six, but past that, things really aren’t that bad. But you do have to get through these times.
You might be saying to yourself that getting through two months without cigarettes would be very hard, but I was comforted by the idea that the two months were going to pass anyway and that I might as well use them productively. That said, my original quit date wooshed by without my doing anything. It took a while for me to actually find the strength to stop.
Another thing to do is to focus on gains instead of losses. Don’t think, “I have to quit because I don’t want to get emphysema,” but rather, “Without cigarettes, it will be easier to breathe, which is nice.” Things like that.
I have more help for you if you’d like, but I will stop with this except to say that I quit just short of a year ago (December 17), and while I miss it sometimes, I miss it in the sense that I miss The Simpsons when it was good. It isn’t as big of a deal as your addiction-afflicted brain is making it seem to be.
If you’re only smoking 6-10 cigarettes a day there are probably specific times/situations in which you always smoke. I’m guessing: when you first get up or the first time you leave the house in morning, while driving, after meals, breaks at work, random down times (like waiting for a table at a restaurant), and right before you go to bed. This was exactly the case with me.
What I did was gradually stop myself from smoking, one situation at a time: first I stopped smoking inside the house (this helped a ton, especially during the winter), then I skipped that first one in the morning, then I stopped smoking in the car, then I stopped smoking during breaks at work, etc.
The hardest thing for me was the random down times; when you’re just standing around, like waiting for a bus or something, that’s the ideal time to smoke, because it’s just something to do. But, once I had gotten myself down to just the random down times, I was only smoking maybe one or two a day, even skipping a day or two in a row, and when I was ready I just stopped.
One thing that helped me personally after I had mostly quit, and of course YMMV, is I had a pack tucked away; just knowing that I had them was comforting, even though I wasn’t going to smoke them (nor would I want to smoke months-old stale-ass cigarettes, even though at least once or twice I broke down and smoked one of them; that in itself it pretty discouraging).
This. Exactly. No indoor smoking, but downtime smoking (morning coffee, in the car at lunch, evening by myself on the porch). Hell I’ll go 10 hours without smoking if I’m out with people/kids/shopping, and smoking doesn’t even occur to me… until that car door shuts and I’m alone. I also keep a pack handy for comfort. I am in the process of cutting down, one at a time. Seems to be working so far.
A good friend of mine turned 32 this month. He has smoked for years, and has always been overweight. About two years ago he started exercising regularly, and has lost quite a bit of weight. He recently started using an e-cig to try to quit smoking, something he should have done long ago.
He had a heart attack last Monday.
He survived, but is still recovering. He had a stent put in and is on blood thinners.
I have never smoked, so I can’t give advice on how to quit. I can ask that you please, for the sake of your friends and loved ones, find some way to do so.
I’m sorry for your friend. But I wanted to point out that smoking and obesity aren’t the only things working against him here. With having a heart attack that young, it’s safe to say he absolutely got the short end of the genetic stick. Several of my morbidly-obese chain-smoking family members have had heart trouble, but never until 55+.
Not that smoking and being fat are GOOD for you, of course.
What worked for me was to HTFU (not SFW with speakers) and stop putting cigs in my mouth. As phouka states environmental factors have a massive impact, so if you can’t avoid them you’ve just got to suck it up and deal with them. For me that meant avoiding some social situations for a while, or changing my behaviours.
I used to always smoke while waiting for the bus and train. I started always carrying a book (even if it was the only thing in my bag) when traveling alone so I could read instead while I’m waiting. The first 3 weeks were awful, but after that it got easier. At that point I stopped counting so it didn’t feel like I’d ‘lost’ something.
Hey OP, when you say you tried to quit and failed - do you mean that you were unable to stop smoking ever, or that you quit smoking entirely for a significant period, but started again?
My father was a 40-year multi-pack smoker, and what finally worked for him was the Nicoderm patches. The thing was, he had a tendency to get his words garbled, so because of other pharmaceuticals in the news around then, he would tell people that Norplant helped him quit.
It was relatively easy for me to quit because I didn’t enjoy cigarettes. My advice is to train yourself to hate them. Another little trick (although it works best with a rich benefactor!) is to promise yourself an expensive reward whenever you go another 24 hours without smoking.
There used to be a whole cadre of Dopers who swore by this method (Easy Way by Alan Carr), and always chimed in on the quit-smoking threads to tout it. Enough that I tried it myself and I now swear by it … to be clear: it took a couple tries, but I am convinced it is the one and only way to psychologically turn the corner so that you never want to go back. Now most of those who recommend it don’t post anymore. Give it a try. Don’t be afraid to read it. It is a quick read and you are under no obligation to quit while reading it. (Note: a more accurate word than “quit” is “escape”… the book helps you realize this).
I’m one of them. I also think that the book is great and I highly highly recommend it. I was smoking 2 packs a day when I quit. It was, as advertised, easy once I made up my mind to do it. Which is not to say that getting to that place was easy, but for me getting over the mental hurdle of thinking that I was able to quit was the hardest part. That said, everyone has a different hard part, but everyone will also agree that the first thing you need to do before you can quit is WANT to quit.
To the OP, what do you like about smoking? You already know what you don’t like. So why do you like it? Take some time to figure out what you will be missing if you quit. You need to know what you are giving up before you can decide if it is worth it.