The time has come and I think I’m ready to quit. I’m not going to quit cold turkey though. I’ve tried that several times and have failed. I want to cut back on how many cigarettes I smoke daily for now and keep cutting back more and more each week until I’m done. Yesterday I started my cut back of 4 cigarettes per day. It may not seem like much now but after a while I won’t be smoking so much each day so that has to count for something and eventually I’ll be smoke free!
I smoke about 1 1/2 packs per day. I figure if I cut out 4 cigarettes the first two weeks and then 4 more the 2nd two weeks so on and so on, I should be smoke free by New Year’s Eve. I don’t want to use the nicorette gum or patches or those inhaler things because it’s too expensive and I can’t afford it. I also feel that if I cut back gradually it will be an easier adjustment for me.
I think what I need now is the moral support from those of you who have quit, are trying to quit, are still smoking, have never smoked at all, etc. Basically, encouragement from everyone. It’s going to be a hard struggle but I know I can do it. It will be better for me and my health and the health of those around me.
Good luck, Rachelle! I hope all goes well. And congratulations for making it this far. You’ve made the decision to quit and now you’re going for it. Good job!
Well, if you cut down to a certain point, say three per day-
all at once you should try cold turkey. It worked for me because the first two weeks were so hard, but after that I fell apart and had a cigarette that someone gave me at a club.
Guess what? It made me sick!
I thought that was a good thing. If you go awhile with nothing, then a cigarette should make you ill.
If you can’t afford aversive therapy, try thinking of a steamy pile of dogshit every time you light. Think of nothing but dogshit. Concentrate on how much the cigarette smells and tastes like dogshit.
The only risk involved here if the therapy doesn’t work is that you will come to love the taste of dogshit instead of disliking cigarettes.
Whoops.
Good luck, anyway. I quit recently and I talked to a lot of people about it. You might think so, but it’s not always as hard as people say. Some formely heavy smokers I have talked to say it wasn’t THAT hard.
You know, quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it dozens of times.
Ha, ha, seriously folks, it’s tough as hell.
The way I always do it (which works, until I cave in after two weeks or so) is:
I take 1 pack of cigarettes, and that’s all I let myself smoke the first day.
Then I take another pack, and split it up for 2 days.
Then another for 3 days, another for 4 days, and so on until I’m down to about a pack a week.
That’s when I usually say to myself, “Self,” I say, Why quit totally? You’re doing great, smoking much less than before. So why not just cut back?"
Within three days I’m up to a pack a day again.
I wish you the best of luck, and if you don’t succeed, it doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.
Here is a plan that worked for me. Don’t limit the number of cigarettes you smoke per day. Instead, keep pushing back the time of your first one for the day. Make a game of it and see how long you can make it. Set goals & rewards (If I make it until 4:00PM smoke free, I’m going to Krispy Kreme on the way home from work). Once you get up to a fairly late hour, you eventually do have to go cold turkey.
One added benefit(?) to this method is that if you wait until after lunch before your first cigarette and smoke it standing up, you get one hell of a headrush.
Good luck Rachelle, I’m behind you all the way (& enjoying the view I might add )
Take it for a couple of weeks until you hit your pre-established “Quit Date.”
Stop smoking on your quit date.
Use gum or toothpicks to deal with oral fixation.
After a couple more weeks, get a Zyban refill.
A month later, you stop taking the Zyban.
Two weeks later, you are cleared of all of the nicotine addiction in your body.
As you can see from my sig file, the above plan worked for me. Let it work for you…
Good luck, and e-mail me if you want encouragement or if you want to eventually send me some of the money you save from quitting!
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, three weeks, six days, 21 hours, 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
5995 cigarettes not smoked, saving $749.39.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 35 minutes.
Why did you start smoking in the first place? I’ve had this conversation with my mom a hundred times. She claims it’s extremely hard to quit smoking(she’s been smoking for 29+ years), but can’t give a concrete answer as to why she started originally.
I really don’t see the attraction to smoking at all, I really find it absolutely disgusting. This may be because I have two parents that constantly smoke, I don’t know.
Also, is it just me, or are more kids smoking these days? It seems like I am the only person of my age group that has chosen not to smoke cigarettes/marijuana. Not to mention drinking, although that’s generally more accepted(why, i don’t know).
)