A HUGE thing that I never really thought about until it was gone was the “ball & chain” aspect of it… once I wasn’t a smoker anymore, there was this wonderful freedom I found: I could sit with friends all the way through the meal and long past without the slightest discomfort or need to excuse myself to feed the addict.
Watch any movie without ever being distracted by the need to feed the addict!
Fly all the way around the world without ever going crazy with the need to feed the addict, no need to rush outside the terminal to feed the addict.
Luxuriate in sex without the need to stop and feed the addict… or worry about how, having fed the addict, I now stink and likely repel my lover.
I STILL sometimes stop and marvel and rejoice at how nice it is to NOT need my fix…
I haven’t read Mr. Carr’s book either, and for all I know it is everything you say and more. If someone reads it and gets help quitting, it is surely worth the trivial cost.
Thing is, though, some of its boosters sound almost like they are proselytizing for some new religion, which can be slightly off-putting. Some of us have automatic message-rejection filters that engage when a message is pushed home with such force, no matter what the message is.
Then you don’t understand how addiction works. Adult smokers are well aware that the habit will likely kill them (though I suppose some may be deep in denial). But they smoke anyway, because they are addicted.
Studies have demonstrated that tobacco is one of the most addictive drugs that exist. Though the physical withdrawal symptoms aren’t as impressive as say heroin, it is very strongly psychologically addictive (for some).
Hello Dr. I quit in 2004. It was not my first attempt, but it was finally the right time for me. I was having chest pains that scared me enough to give it a go. I did it cold turkey, but did chew a lot of trident sugarless gum.
I watched my mother die a slow miserable death from lung cancer. I knew I didn’t want to go that way.
I used to drink beer, had to give that up at the same time because the two went together like peanut butter and jelly! Walking helped me. Exercising in any way. Drinking a lot of water too.
My husband kept a partially smoked cigar in a glass tube. When the cravings hit, he would open that tube up and the rank odor was enough to get him through several more hours. It’s hard to quit, but oh so worth it. Hang in there and good luck. You can do it.
Morning, everyone! I made it through the night and am now approaching 24 hrs of no cigs. I was a little surprised this morning - when I got up I expected to feel real crappy, but I didn’t. I actually didn’t feel too bad at all.
Stoid: At page 55 of the book so far. Everything he says is making sense. I’m going to see if I can plow through the rest of it today (I’m a fast reader) between work and everything.
Malthus: Those numbers are interesting. And its true. We have all known for years how bad it is and we sit there and go “Nah, won’t happen to me.” :rolleyes: Keep lighting up. “That cough? It’s nothing.” Light up another. It is amazing how you can fool yourself.
Thanks! I image the partially smoked cigar smelled disgusting!! :eek:
The gum is helping me for sure. I’m going to try some other things to keep me distracted, hydrated and nutriated (is that a word? In other words, eat good and take my vitamins).
Many smokers here are deep in denial, posting about “benefits” and that anti-smoking ads threads make them want to light up. :rolleyes: They won;t admit they are addicted.
Good cite about dependence, I know dudes who were in Alanon who claimed quitting smoking was harder that quiting heroin.
I know I haven’t been pushing Carr specifically in this thread the way that Stoid has, and that’s largely because I have found people react just the way you say, but as someone who used his book to quit I totally understand where Stoid is coming from.
I was a heavy smoker, not quite 2 packs a day if you average it all out, but some days I would go through 3 packs. I smoked a lot. I tried to quit several times and each time I went out of my mind. Then I read Carr’s book and I just stopped smoking, and it wasn’t hard. I just stopped. And I wasn’t tearing my hair out, I wasn’t irritable, I wasn’t gaining weight, I wasn’t miserable like I had been the other times I wanted to quit. I was a non smoker and I was happy about it. It was a hugely positive thing in my life.
It really isn’t self help hoodoo bullshit. 80% of what he says in the book is being said in this thread. If you think the advice in the thread about how to cope with not smoking is accurate (things like, smoking doesn’t ease stress it causes it. Or nic fits will go away and you don’t have them for that long anyway) then you already like the book. The other 20% of the book deals with why you should quit, why you shouldn’t be afraid to quit, and why it doesn’t have to be horrible to quit.
A LOT of what causes people to not quit smoking is psychological. Yes nicotine is very very addictive, and you have to cut off that addiction, but the withdrawal symptoms aren’t really that bad and they only last for a short time. If you can sleep through the night without having to wake up to smoke, you can make it through a workday without taking a smoke break. The hard part is getting rid of the crutch that you have built up smoking to be in your mind.
Smoking isn’t interesting. It really doesn’t give you something to do, but you think it does. Smoking doesn’t release stress, it actually literally physically makes stress worse. You don’t need to smoke in social situations, cigarettes don’t make you interesting and they don’t cause people to want to hang out with you. Etc.
Also, you probably don’t really enjoy smoking all that much. Even if you do enjoy it a little bit, is that enough to keep doing something that is guaranteed to kill you?
Cut off the addiction, free yourself from *whatever *your personal psychological barriers to quitting are (for me it was fear that I couldn’t do it, since my last attempts had been so miserable) and the rest is easy. 3 bad days of withdrawl, followed by 3 weeks of lingering withdrawl symptoms and you are done with the physical stuff. After that it’s all in your head.
I read Alan Carr’s book. I still smoke. I asked for nicotine patches for Christmas, since I can’t bring myself to buy them for ME ?? I will be reading through this post for support. My problem is I only smoke about 7/day, have low blood pressure and am in seemingly good health. Been smoking about 18 years, and it’s hard to quit because hardly anyone knows I do it (only in my car alone or the garage). I’m doing it because of the money factor mostly, and my daughter caught me in the garage, and now she gives me slack. Embarrasing
It’s tough - I wish you the very best of luck, Doctor.
And social. It’s true that the physical part isnt that tough, but like the Heroin addict said- “It’s not like you have a bunch of friends hanging around offering you a free hit and shooting up outside the bar”.
This is very very true. There were several friends that I had to avoid for a few months after I quit because they would try to get me to fall off the wagon. It was innocent I think, but it didn’t help.
I used to be this way RedBloom — I only smoked about 5 to 10 cigarettes a day, always by myself reading on the back porch at night, or in the car. I didn’t want most people I knew to see me smoke; I knew it was a stinky, filthy habit and I didn’t want to be perceived that way. I bet you’ll have good results with the patch. It doesn’t sound like smoking is a part of your lifestyle at all. Won’t it be nice to rejoin the family in the house instead of hiding in the car or in the garage? Best wishes!
And I’m rooting for you too, Doctor. I’m imagining the new, fresh-smelling you!
The last time I quit, I was successful for a week and then decided to try a cig to see what effect it had. I didn’t even finish that 1 cig. However, I soon started to smoke just 1 a day. No biggee, right? That went on for a couple of weeks. Except now it was getting to 2 or 3 a day. Then I got some heavy stress on the job and whammo, I was right back up to my usual amount. I blew it by being dumb enough to pick up a cigarette “just to see”. Nope. Don’t do it. It is an addiction not a habit.
I just finished Carr’s book. He makes some good points and I like the way he lays out his data. I already had most of this data from my previous quit from another author. But, Carr does have some of his own unique insights.
In any case, what I found is that I cannot “cut down” on cigarettes. My only successful method is to stop, cold turkey. And it does start with the decision for sure. Carr’s book will help a lot of people. The website is a little over the top, but that is unfortunately pretty standard fare for advertising. Hell, if you want to stop smoking, spending the equivalent of 1 or 2 packs of smokes ain’t gonna be very significant.
Anyhow, I think the decision comes first and then the method is really what you feel will work for you. No method has yet to prove 100% effective otherwise there would be no smokers by now.
Thanks, Ellen. It has been over 24 hours now and I am doing better than I expected. And yes, as a matter of fact I still smell like my strawberry shampoo instead of an ashtray this morning. That’s novel!
The problem is that no one ever wants to be wrong. I know I was in denial about it. My moment of revelation came when I decided I needed to quit because I could not afford it and found out it wasn’t so simple. It was at that moment I realized that I was addicted, not just having a bad habit. It still took me years to make a serious attempt at quitting and if I wasn’t an idiot about it, could have been a success.
This time, there is no turning back. Non-smoker here. I ain’t dragging myself down again.
Certainly that all sounds good, and in fact is pretty well what I’ve been saying in this thread. I have no quarrel with the message, since it’s pretty well the same as what I already know to be true - that the withdrawal is a week of mild unpleasantness if you simply quit cold, that most of the addiction is psychological (though nonetheless powerful for all that), and that the best way to deal with it is to break the patterns one has built up around smoking.
Sounds like good sense to me at least, and if Mr. Carr’s book lays it all out in a persuasive manner, it is obviously worth the money - I’m merely reacting to the way the message is sometimes delivered, and not only here. Pretty well any forum discussing smoking has its Carr advocates, and their fevour can be a trifle unsettling.
I get that, and I agree that proselytizing of any stripe isn’t necessarily the best way to change people’s minds. The Carr advocates can be obnoxious, I am just trying to point out why they are the way they are. They really are, for the most part, genuinely excited that they were able to quit.
When you hit two weeks of being cig free, treat yourself to a steak dinner. It’s gonna be absolutely amazing how much better that steak is going to taste.
Well, since the message is just “the info in this book can save you from lethal addiction in a manner more tolerable than you ever hoped and you can buy it used for a dollar and that’s the beginning and end of it”, rather than “buy this book and join us on SeaOrg!” don’t you think your filter sensitivity is a little silly and could do with some calibration?
