This is EXACTLY how I quit, Carltons included. 30+ years ago and counting.
My attitude going in was that if quitting is so hard, I damn sure wasn’t going to do it more than once.
Either quit or no quit; there is no try.
This thread just reminded me that I have been smoking for 32 years now…from the age of 16 to now 48. I smoke about a pack and a half a day of Marlboro Blacks, which are basically just the cheaper version of Marlboro Reds.
I really need to quit.
My husband and I quit a little over 2 months ago, using Chantix. I think Chantix pops into the receptors that nicotine does and keeps the cravings from happening. I haven’t had a cigarette in 8 weeks and I haven’t had a craving since I quit. The worst thing is keeping from following old habits: “It’s breaktime…I need to smoke!” “I’m in the car…I need to smoke!” “It’s been a while and there’s the back door…I need to smoke!”
But Chantix seems to kill that nervousness that you haven’t had a hit of nicotine in a while.
I’ve never been a smoker, but this post gave me an idea that may help. kayaker’s friend showing his app to people, shows people that he’s determined to stay off cigarettes.
I quit drinking 4 years ago (not an alcoholic, but I had a drinking problem.) I still sometimes wish I could drink, but the fact that I have told people that I quit, is one of the factors motivating me to stay sober. I think that if I went back to drinking, I’d be letting my friends down. Perhaps the same can be applied to quitting smoking.
Wishing you luck, Buttercup Smith. You can do this! 
I started smoking around 1970. I was up to a carton a week by 8/7/16 when I started a 30 day hospitalization. Since I couldn’t smoke there they put me on the patch. A week of 21, a week of 14, a week of 7. and a week of nothing. They finally sent me home, where I had 3 virgin packs left. I couldn’t let them go to waste, so I smoked them over 7 days. I ran out about 10/15/16. I haven’t smoked another since.
I don’t think of myself as an ex or former smoker. I’m an addict. I haven’t quit; I’ve just run out. Maybe I’ve just stopped for a while. I was picked up for a ride by a woman I knew smoked but usually didn’t when she was around jme. SHe must have just stubbed one out. I was sort of tempted to ask, lucky for me she smokes Kools. It a week later and I just opened the window top get fresh air in my face.
So, I’ve was probably over the physical addiction when I got home. You’re over that now. It’s the psychological addiction that’s the problem, and we’re working on that, right? One cigarette won’t kill me. I could probably smoke one a day. But then I’d want another. And another after that. If I don’t smoke the first one, I don’t have to worry about the 8th one.For some reason, it took me about 9 months to get around to taking my ashtray off my desk and washing it out. I had dumped out the butts and ashes but you know, it was still dirty.
Yeah, I borrow some stuff from AA and maybe NA too. It’s worked for me for 14+ months now. I don’t want one very often now.
I know I can just that I am struggling. Maybe it’s the holidays. I used Chantix for three months. Worked great but my insurance stopped paying for it after three months. Now I am on Wellbutrin which has a similar affect but not as good. The Chantix without insurance is $399 per month. That’s not happening. So I will continue with the Wellbutrin (Zyban equivalent) and the gum until I can wean off both. I will not go back to smoking no matter what.
Eight months isn’t really that long. It keeps getting easier.
Eight months IS long enough to start thinking you can have just one, but it sounds like you’re not falling for that.
Pay attention to whether it’s the addiction or the habit that pulling at you. If it’s the addiction, use a nicotine supplement. If’s it the habit, create another habit to take the place of a smoke break.
It’s not at all unusual to be having trouble at this point.
Brace yourself. I smoked for less than ten years; quit more than forty years ago, and find myself wondering if I’m old enough now to take it up again because something else will surely kill me before the tobacco would. I’m not a non-smoker; I’m a smoker who has been a long time since his last cigarette. Still, after twenty years or so I stopped waking up in the morning having dreamed that I smoked, so that was something.
I felt like that for about two or three years, but if somebody invented a harmless cigarette tomorrow I probably would not have one.
I enjoy the occasional smell of cigarette smoke, without wanting one. I’ve had a thing of nicotine mints kicking around the house for nearly a year without taking one. I think I am a non-smoker, rather than a recovering smoker now.
I really miss cigarette breaks - walking away from a project to clear my head, or to reward myself after a chore. I’ve found alternative behavior.
I tried vaping once, and every cell in my body reacted like a 16 year old to sex. Didn’t do that again.
Don’t do it. You could walk across the street to buy a pack of smokes and get run over by a bus.
I had what I called a two-pack a day habit, but i went through at least 3 cartons a week. Quit 20 years ago. As you know the first 3 weeks are hell. Then it gradually gets easier. It sorta stops being a big thing about six months after you stop any substitutes, including non-nicotine gum taking the place of cigarettes, and taking any nicotine (gum, patch etc) while initially helpful, crucial even, pushes the start of that countdown back.
Occasional strong cravings pop up for about 3 years after last nicotine, but increasingly shorter, less intense and further apart. I still occasionally have dreams where I started smoking again, and wake up so sad and devastated at my falling of the wagon that it affects a chunk of my morning.
Some key moments were realizing that it’s not just smoke which stinks, but that nicotine itself has a very distinctive odor, and that it is vile. This was a few months in. Seeing smoking as a really dumb habit, not just intellectually, but viscerally, was very helpful. That was a year or so in . No longer identifying myself as a smoker - a little over a year. Seeing myself as a non-smoker, about 4 years.
The fear of never ever having a cigarette again was very real - the belief that I would always miss it terribly, and what would ever fill the void. It takes years to truly understand that there is no void, cigarettes do nothing for you, they just bring you back to even, and less and less effectively so over time. The fear of never having a cigarette again is as unreasonable as the fear of losing an abusive SO - they give nothing, they only take, and hurt.
Stay strong, it gets better. So, so much better.
I begrudge those motherfuckers at the tobacco companies every goddamned dollar they got from me. They gave me nothing in return, and they took more than just my money. I hope i did no irreparable damage - so far so good, but time will tell. Fuck Joe Camel. Fuck Marlboro Miles and the Marlboro “real men grilling cookbook” and cowboy blankets I would “earn” by smoking enough to kill a small pet outright. Those people are laughing at me, at everyone who ever smoked, and everyone who still does. I cannot understand how anyone with a soul can work for them. Sure, personal responsibility, sure, no gun to my head. But they knew what they made, knew just how to sell it, and are still killing people for profit.
Once you turn 50, and if you’re still smoking, every single fucking ailment you have will be blamed on it.
Just a FYI.
(1) Remember and rehearse every reason smoking is disgusting. Rehearse until you hate the idea of smoking a cigarette.
(2) Invent rewards for yourself, financial or otherwise. “If I don’t smoke for the next three days, I get to treat myself to …” (Even bankruptcy is better than emphysema or lung cancer.)
(3) Friends insist on smoking around you? Find new friends.
I’m a couple of months past 7 years since my last cigarette. I’ve never really been tempted to smoke again, because I know I have no control over my desire for nicotine. One smoke and I’ll be hooked again. So that’s what stops me from being tempted. I want to be a non-smoker more than I ever want to have a cigarette.
I quit upon the birth of my first child, about four years ago. Actually a bit before that, when my wife was pregnant.
I’d quit before, and it stuck for a few years, but then I went back to it. I started smoking in high school, at 17. I smoked until I was (I’m trying to remember accurately) about 37. I quit, but started again at about 42 or 43. Then quit again at 53.
This time seems to be sticking. I used nicotine gum. Unfortunately, I’m still pretty much addicted to nicotine gum, but the gum is (as far as I know) pretty harmless, so it’s an improvement.
I quit when I turned 40, about 10 years back, because 20 years a smoker seemed a pretty good place to draw a line under it, and it was clear that it wasn’t going to get any cheaper. I picked the best time of year for me mentally, which was summer, got rid of all my cigarettes and smoking accoutrements, and quit drinking for as long as it took, which had always made me lapse back in previous attempts. Then it was a matter of gum, patches, and mowing the lawn with a hand mower whenever I got the urge. I cut that grass down to bare earth over summer, but having something in my hands helped enormously when the cravings really bit hard. Probably what told in the end, though, was physically setting aside the $50 I was saving each week and putting it towards a car I’d always wanted: that way, I wasn’t just punishment, there was a tangible reward. After a year I declared myself clean, and I have never touched another cigarette because I know it wouldn’t ever stop at one, and there’s no way I’m putting myself through that misery again.
Lots of great ideas here. Thanks and keep ‘em coming please.
It also helps if your employer has a no smoking policy.
The type of work I do has historically been notorious for smoking given the stress and pace. In fact, if you were a nonsmoker you were considered loony. One of the biggest perks for me was to sneak out and have one just “to take a break” rather than stuffing my face.
The tide has now turned. There are dangling if-you-don’t-smoke carrots abound, especially tied with our insurance.
My coworkers who’ve quit and have therefore taken advantage of those carrots credit the support group which is free to us. You talk with a counselor over the phone once or twice a week. The group supplies you gratis with either patches or gum. If you need additional support there are also groups which Skype or online message boards. It’s worked for most of them.
I could have the record here. I smoked for 9 years (during college and after), and then quit cold turkey in 1959. That’s some 58 years ago. When I did quit, one could by a carton of Camels for $2.50 in St. Louis. Sometimes I amuse myself by estimating how much money quitting has saved over the decades.
I have very little sympathy for those who say they continued to smoke because they didn’t know it was unhealthy until just recently - I quit because of a constant drumbeat of publicity in magazines like “Readers Digest” about the dangers of smoking. They had some very gory articles about it. And that was in the late 1950’s.
Found it very easy to quit when I finally made the decision. Only missed cigarettes for two or three weeks after quitting, and that was a pretty minor craving. I think that a person’s addiction might be gene related - I must have been lucky there.
I smoked a pack and a half for 30 years. I quit five years ago and started vaping. I am down to zero nicotine and vape for the back of the throat hit. I do this at home or where smokers congregate. (You’d be surprised at the absolute vitrol directed at vaping and vapers by some folks.) Since getting a good vape pen (not those cheapie things that look like cigarettes), I haven’t had one cigarette, not even a puff off a friend’s at a bar. Even better, I haven’t wanted one. I am completely content with vaping when I feel an urge or doing nothing at all.