When I was 13, I’d been smoking a pack a day for a year and I went successfully went cold turkey (lasted four years). Now I’m 21 and I’ve been trying and failing to quit cold turkey for months.
I’m off to Eckerd right now to pick up some smokeless cigarettes; I invite ex-smokers to share your method of quitting.
Share your reasons, too: I’m not doing it for my health (I have no desire to live a long time, because planning for a short life ensures I use all my time well) but because it limits my options in the picking up chicks field.
I quit once on the patch for a year. Started smoking again due to some personal crisis that I don’t even remember now. (oh, yes i do.)
Recently, I decided to try again. I went all out. I joined a smoke cessation group at work to keep myself accountable. I went to the doctor to go on Zyban/Wellbutrin. I joined quitnet.com and I set my quit day. I got the generic nicotine gum. Then, I quit. For three weeks. Once again foiled by my weak assed self. Another personal crisis…blah blah blah. I’ve been smoking since I was about 15. I’m 33 now. 18 years! Disgusting!!!
The hardest thing for me was thinking about quitting. I obsessed about it. Once I finally quit it was really not that bad. I have to say the gum really seemed to help. I recommend it.
I want to quit for the health reasons mostly. I will quit again soon. I will watch this thread with interest.
Me (to girl at register): “Do you guys have those smokeless cigarette things?”
Girl: “Smokeless cigarettes or nicotine-free?”
Me: “Whichever you have, I guess”
Girl (looking at quit-smoking-product rack behind her: “I don’t think we have either. Just the patch and the gum. They might have them across the street at Winn-Dixie”
Me: “Oh.”
(long pause)
Me: “Um…just give me a pack of Marlboro Milds, then”
I did zyban for a week, quit, took zyban for another week, got sick of the zyban, so I quit that, caught pneumonia but ignored it, figuring I was just chest congested because I was quitting. After two weeks with pnuemonia, I finally went to the doctor. By the time I got better, I was over the worst part, and had lost alot of the interest.
I smoked from age 15 to 42, then quit cold turkey; kept a pack of cigs in my desk drawer because, somehow, it made me feel better that they were there “just in case.” Quit successfully. Took it up again in 1995 (while on a first-time date with my current s.o., who smoked), and was up to two packs a day; when I couldn’t go up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing and shortness of breath, I figured, it’s time to quite (again). Used the nicotine gum (Nicorette), and even then, for the first week or so, I was depressed and teary. Got through it, but I’m still on the nicotine gum. I get the generic stuff at CVS, and it’s not as expensive as the Nicorette. So, I’m still hooked on the nicotine, but at least I’m not killing myself. (Although I’ve gained 10 pounds – smoke or eat, got to do one or the other). I still crave the cigs; my s.o. smokes (he’s one of those people who can smoke just one or two a day and goes outside to do it), and I see the pack sitting there and I AM SO TEMPTED, but my health IS important to me – I want to live as long as possible, so I resist the temptation and just go get another piece of gum. I told my s.o. that if I ever get a terminal illness, I’m going to smoke like a chimney and enjoy my last days.
I smoked from age 14 to 31. Quit cold turkey 4 Jan 2003. I promised I would take a walk around the block everytime I wanted a cig (well at least when I was home). It was a pain to put on all those layers (Jan in Ohio-freakin frigid!), but I did it, evertime I wanted a smoke. It was nice to get out in the air, and gave me some aline time just to think about things. Also, I always had a stash of blow pops around to satisfy the oral fixation. According to Quitnet.com (a nice support website), my statistics are as follows:
Your Quit Date is: 1/4/2003 1:30:00 AM
Time Smoke-Free: 432 days, 16 hours, 55 minutes and 9 seconds
It took me dozens of tries before it finally stuck. I tried the gum and I tried the patch, and nothing worked. Finally one day I smoked my last one, and never got another pack. I did work my way down from the regular filtered to the ultra light filtered, but I know now that this was only a psycological factor and didn’t make a difference in my physical addiction.
I think quitting means that you shift your focus away from cigarettes altogether, which means talking about, writing about, creating and reading threads about smoking is bad. Seriously. If you’re talking about it, it’s gonna make you do it.
We’re all addicted to something so shift your addiction to something thats more harmless to you. Er…(sex)
i just wanted to give this a bump. also, is there anything a friend/relative could have said/done to persuade you to quit? (i have recently learned that an acquaintance has been diagnosed with lung cancer, and *he’s still smoking!). *
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that if you smoke you will just drop dead one day and that will be that. Not. You will suffer for years with labored breathing, and then dragging around an oxygen canister, the chemo, from which you vomit and your hair falls out and you feel like complete shit, and then surgery, and finally unbearable, intractable pain. And the real victims, even after all this is not yourself, but your family and all the people that love you.
AND, as I found out recently, the number one cause of bladder cancer is smoking, and it creates a time bomb which may go off 20 years later. I quit in 1983, but that thought haunts me. My ex-husband recently found out he has bladder cancer. It ruins your life from then on because even if they scrape it out, you worry every day of your life it has come back.
I quit the third time I tried. I kept the cigarettes and told myself that I could have one whenever I chose. One week after I quit, I went over to a friend’s house and smoked about a pack in only 3-4 hours. My chest hurt and I felt naseous and after that every time I wanted one I tried to recall that sickening feeling.
a day went into a week weeks into months, months into years, and now it’s 20 years. Two of my kids smoked because of me and only one has been able to quit and he’s a nurse. It’s a horrible, horrible addiction.
Watch your 2 parents die of lung cancer - both inoperable, which was actually a blessing…
Smoke for another 3 years.
Finally decide “I’d rather be able to breathe” (I used to ski (alpine) - Mr Rose, at 9,000’ MSL, was not pleasant until I got below 4,000’.
Then: use patch (21 mg) for a few weeks, then chain smoke. Damned near died, but I quit 12 years ago, have no cravings, and am allergic to cig smoke, so I doubt I’ll backslide.
Less risky technique: since you don’t care about lifespan, or (presumably) the financial costs: Thing of one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but cannot as long as you smoke (smimming/diving, skydiving, flying, - think of something where your lungs HAVE to be operating efficiently) - then promise yourself that activity as the reward for quitting.
I smoked between 20 and 40 day for 10 years till last June. I had my last cigarette at midnight on a Sunday, and haven’t smoked since. I quit cold turkey - no patches or anything. I chewed a lot of gum for the first couple of weeks, but just the regular stuff, not nicotine. I’d read on NHS website that quitting this way is ultimately easier as while the cravings are worse, they pass more quickly (the physical cravings, that is, there’s no saying how long the psychological ones will last). I was grouchy as hell for the first couple of weeks, and for a good couple of months I couldn’t stop eating and put on a lot of weight. BUT I’ve since lost that, I feel better than I’ve ever done - this winter was the first one I didn’t get horrible chest infections, I’ve started singing (on a semi-pro basis) again for the first time in years and I’ve taken up yoga and started running in the mornings. My reasons for quitting were about as superficial as yours - I didn’t think it was particularly sexy to be wheezing like an old man, and I got sick of my hair always smelling of smoke, but they worked for me. I don’t think I’m likely to start again either, I’ve gone through several crises - my cat getting killed in a road accident; getting dumped at Christmas; my grandad getting rushed to hospital - without even wanting to smoke, and even the smell of it repulses me now. As well as all that, I have so much more money now to fund my other bad habits
Quitting smoking is as much about your state of mind as anything else. If you believe you will fail, then you will. If you believe you’ll be successful, you have a much better chance. It’s easy to say that when you’re not jonesin for a smoke, but that’s life.
In addition to the actual drug there’s an entire ritual that goes along with smoking. The ritual itself makes it damn near impossible to quit. I had been smoking 1 - 2 packs a day, for 10 years or so. I quit cold turkey 4ish years ago, when I got a new job in a new state. As my entire daily ritual had changed, it wasn’t that hard. I don’t recall any cravings, though I must have thought about it at the time.
The key is to stop thinking about wanting a cigarette. If you’re in the same old places doing the same old things that’s going to be tough. Find a new habit. Run, build model cars, learn and practice card tricks - anything that takes some effiort. Then, whenever you find yourself thinking about wanting a cigarette, do whatever your new habit is instead.
The worst part it - no one can do it for you. The drugs and patches and gums won’t do it for you, they just help you believe that you’ll be successful. Success is all about will power. The will power won’t come from a package. Look at the number of people who try to quit with all the available products, and fail anyway. You can quit, but you have to believe you can, and want to, and have the will power to resist the craving. No doubt about it, it’s tough. Good luck.
If you do a search you will find lots of quit smoking threads. Lots. I only registered to reply to a how to quit thread.
I quit using a book by an English woman, Gillian Riley, called How to Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped for Good. She recommends things that are the opposite of other quitting techniques but from my previous experience with addicts I’m sure she is correct.
Following her advice when I quit, I
told no-one of my plans not even my family,
carried a full packet of cigarettes and my lighter,
went outside to the smoking area at work for “smoke breaks” with the smokers,
went out drinking as often as before,
watched TV with my cigarettes and an ashtray beside me,
used no aids - patches, gums etc,
played with cigarettes to encourage cravings.
I was successful very quickly and had no problems at all, in fact the process was almost “fun” due to the sense of mastery I felt. I lost weight while giving up (due to other unrelated problems I have put on weight since).
My dad had a heart attack. The nurse asked if me and my sister smoked, and when we said yes, she gave a sigh and didn’t say anything.
A few months later I quit cold turkey. I was looking at my pack of cigarettes, and told my husband-to-be “This is my last pack of cigarettes.” I quit the next day, enjoyed my last cigarette, and wrote down in my notebook:
I quit smoking October 20th, 10:00 PM, 1998
A couple of weeks later, when the people at my work were smoking in my face and I was dangerously close to bumming cigarettes off them, I got on the internet and found a bulletin board of people who wanted to quit smoking. I told them I had not smoked for two weeks and they were so full of envy that it made me feel that the piddling two weeks actually meant something. It gave me the confidence to go for two months, then a year, and now six years (almost).
I smoked for seven years. I have almost been smoke-free for as long as I smoked :eek:
I really think the bulletin board helped a lot, but I have very good willpower too. I think I could have done it without the bulletin board. It would have been harder, I’m sure. But when I say I’m going to quit something, I generally do.
I smoked a pack a day for 9 years and tried to quit two times. My first attempt was poorly planned – I tried to quit cold turkey right after moving to a new city and starting grad school. I lasted one torturous week without cigarettes. I was so anxious and stressed that I could barely focus on my studies. And I ate like crazy.
The second time I quit, I used Zyban. For me, this drug was the key. I wasn’t even thinking seriously about quitting at the time. I only got the prescription filled because I was quitting my job and would be losing my drug benefits. I took the pills for nine days and on June 9th 2000 I just stopped smoking. Never had any cravings and never picked up another cigarette. And, because I wasn’t trying to fight off any cravings, I didn’t feel the need to snack (although I did gain around 5 lbs over the next year or so which I understand is due to the slight slowing of my metabolism without nicotine).
I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but for me taking Zyban was like turning off a switch in my head and it made my quit effortless. I was a little nervous about what would happen after I stopped taking the pills, but I had no problems when I did (I stopped about one month after my quit date).
I had my last cigarette on Jan. 25, 2003. I decided to quit the previous December, but couldn’t just up and do it like so many seem to be able to. I had to talk myself into it, and wean myself off smoking gradually. I started smoking when I was about 13, and I was 41. You do the math. And I was a pretty heavy smoker most of that time (2-21/2 packs a day).
I went on the Commit lozenges for a while, then tried the gum because it was cheaper. I went off the gum and everything in June of last year, but went back to the gum briefly in December because the cravings were so bad I was tempted to smoke again. Oh, and I’ve gained a little over 10 lbs. which is driving me nuts. I’ve been exercising regularly (walking, swimming, biking) and vigorously, to get the weight off, to no avail.
Why did I quit? My dad died from lung cancer, for one thing. Plus, I took a 20% pay cut (!) to keep a client, so had to cut my personal budget. Saved myself about 1200 bux last year, from all accounts.
At first, I quit smoking at work for a month. I could smoke as much as I wanted to when I was at home. I couldn’t, however, have a single smoke at work.
When I lost the need to smoke at work, I took a week off. I got a bottle of Jack, and I made sure there weren’t any smokes in the house. For the first three days, whenever I felt the need to go to the store to get smokes, I did a shot of Jack. The need to go to the store was soon replaced by the need to take a nap.
There were urges after that, but I never wanted to live through those three days again.
It sounds like a bunch of crap, but the JDM does attack the environmental cues associated with smoking. That’s something all those patch things don’t address.
