Of not smoking.
No, I didn’t have a plan to quit, wasn’t even on my fake bucket list of “things I need to do someday”.
I fell ill. Not seriously “OMG!!! He’s in the hospital and gonna die” ill. Just, ill. Respiratory infection, cold/bronchitis/pneumonia whatever. Bad enough to miss a week of work, but two tests say it wasn’t covid. Taste is slowly returning to normal, except for tobacco. See, the thing is, this infection, this cold, this whatever it was, not only took my sense of smell and taste(temporarily), it took my desire and craving for nicotine. When I tried to smoke after recovering a bit(because I thought I wanted too), not only did it taste like an armpit smells on a bad day, I couldn’t bring myself to actually inhale it and enjoy it. It was all mere puffery on my part, the smoking of that cigarette.
But now…now…now the torment truly begins. The past few days have been spent in periodic torture of failed habit. I smoke while doing this thing, or before or after doing that thing or at these fairly regular intervals. I’ve done so for 40 years now. It’s not the cravings for a drug, those are gone and mysteriously so in my mind. It’s the lifetime time of habit and ritual that are still there, lingering like a pair of worn, comfortable old shoes.
What do I do with this? How do I still these restless hands and jittering mind screeching soundlessly into the void of sudden change and loss?
Some people take up chewing gum. Others develop different irritating habits, albeit less lethal ones such as cracking knuckles, chewing nails, or even cleaning nails. There are fidget toys out there you can try as well.
My dad was told to quit smoking NOW by his doc. He came from a family with lung problems and he (and I) inherited them. So he did. Dad was strong willed. Still, two years later, while organizing his tools he came across an unopened pack of cigarettes. He opened the pack, put a cigarette in his mouth and started searching for his lighter. Only when he couldn’t find it, did he awaken to what he was doing and throw the cigarettes out. Habits are hard to break.
I wish you every success in breaking the smoking habit.
I started knitting. Keeping my hands busy with something and especially something with no connection to the things I used to do with my hands when I smoked helped a great deal. You could do almost any handiwork thing if you don’t want to knit. A friend of mine took up playing the guitar. Good luck.
People laugh at me when I tell them this, but as God is my witness I swear it worked for me.
I bought a pack of cheap Bic pens, the kind with the little removable cap that has the pocket clip attached to the cap. The cap has little holes in it. DOn’t know why, but they’re there.
Anyway, I found that sucking on the cap of one of those pens felt the same as drawing on a cigarette. It toook the same amount of vaccum to suck air through it as a cigarette and the size and shape was almost identical. I could go though the same physical motions as smoking which seemed to completely satisfy my cravings until my cravings went away after a few weeks.
That was 2007, I haven’t smoked – or had any desire to – since.
And apparenly Discourse no longer is marking my misspellings or bad grammar as I compose my posts. Wtf?
I smoked tobacco in an attempt to stink of tobacco rather than the weed I smoked almost as often as I smoked tobacco. I think it worked more because people avoided being close to me because they knew I was a smoker, but whatever.
I made full government retirement so quit and took the money. I smoked the rest of the cigs I had bought (cartons from the rez were cheaper) then just stopped smoking because I didn’t have a need to ruin my health and spend sooooo much money anymore.
It wasn’t bad. I got twitchy and whiny because habits are worse than the tobacco addiction. Chewing salted pumpkin seeds makes your mouth pucker and gives your hands something to do while you are ignoring your habits. We found an unopened pack a couple of weeks later and it was pretty easy for me to take them to the neighbor’s across the street. I couldn’t throw them away and I didn’t want them for myself, if that makes any sense.
I was a casual needlepoint stitcher before quitting because I couldn’t risk burning thread or fabric. Now I’m a machine and my habit only costs me about 40 bucks a month.
really starting to fucking hate food in general, and hard candy specifically, toothpicks are now banned in Castle Vader and if I ever have to deal with another plastic drinking straw again, it might mean murder(not really) its that 5 or 10 minutes while driving, or whatever, when I’d normally light up, it’s friggin irritating cause I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t plan for this, I wasn’t actively or passively looking to quit, it just happened so I’m rolling with it, but several times a day it just doesn’t seem worth the aggravation. The weirdest part is that after meals is the least bad time and driving is the worst for some reason.
You are fighting your habits now. The nicotine is out of your system, your body is no longer craving it. Driving is tough, there really isn’t anything else you can safely do with your hands, but perhaps a fidget ball or something for the other times? Busy hands don’t need a cigarette as much as idle hands.
Keep it up, you are doing great. You are going to save soooooooooo much money and you smell better, you won’t be burning holes in your clothes or car seats and its good for your health.
yeah I know, rreally the only thing keeping me at it is the money.
I mean, we’re talking what, 3, 400 smakerels a month? something like anyway.
I’m too old to give a shit about the rest and I never wanted to leave a good looking healthy corpse anyway.
I stopped smoking inside years ago and another bonus is not having to go out in the freezing cold or sweltering heat every hour or so. I’ll glance out at our across the street neighbor bundled up in the sideways sleet and feel smug that I’m not out there anymore. That’s kinda cool too.
I found puzzles to be a great distraction, gives your hands and mind something else to concentrate on. Took me over a year to really break all my behavioral habits. Smoking in the car was a bad one. I quit smoking in the car before my quit date so it wouldn’t bother me so much. Good luck I know it isn’t easy but keep it up. It really does pay off in the end. Also singing when I got a craving helped me too.
Good reminder, thank you. I smoked in my car until I quit and then wanted to smoke at my triggers. Hubs thoughtfully had my car fully detailed and once I couldn’t smell the smoke, driving wasn’t nearly as much of a trigger as before.
OP, have your car detailed and wash/clean all of your outerwear. You might not notice that faint lingering scent but the pleasure seeking part of your brain sure does.
There have been several of us here who quit smoking by vaping and several who had not intended to quit smoking but, like me, ran out of cigarettes one day and just didn’t buy any more.
I’ve been vaping for 10 years after smoking 2 1/2+ packs a day for 42 years. There was no stress, no weight gain, no craving. I was spending over $600 a month on cigarettes; my vaping habit, the last time I calculated, costs me 43 cents a day … that includes using very nice fairly expensive high-end vaping devices and making my own unflavored e-liquid so I know exactly what is in it.
Do yourself a favor. Yes, I know you can find all kinds of outrageous scare stories from the anti-nicotine naysayers but nicotine does not cause cancer, smoking does. Vaping is (at least) 95% less toxic than smoking.
A New Study Finds That Smokers With No Plans To Quit Are Much More Likely To Stop Smoking If They Vape Every Day
No more doubts: e-cigs are less toxic than traditional cigarettes.
thank you but no. It all smells like burned sugar to me, and at the urging of some very evangelical vaping workmates, sampled a few “different” flavors of juice or whatever its called. It all tasted like burned sugar to me. Nope, to misquote, “either you’re clean or you’re not, much like being pregnant”. If I’m gonna quit, I’m gonna quit all the way done.
That’s fine — your choice. I also detest artificial flavors.
In case any others looking into vaping may read this I’d like to repeat myself a bit with the phrase “unflavored e-liquid”. It has a very slight taste of ‘cigarette’ but no artificial flavoring added.