I'm quitting smoking, too.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Inspired by this thread (I'm quitting smoking, who's with me? - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board), about FinnAgain, I thought I’d share my own endeavor in bringing down the smoking population a little bit.

Quitting has been something that I have tossing around for a while, especially since I found out there is some connection between smoking and depression. I have been chronically moderately depressed for the better part of the past decade, and with the work I’ve done with a number of therapists and groups, that has mercifully ended, and I am now slowly doing what I can to keep that from happening again.

Also, despite smoking heavily for the past decade, I absolutely cannot stand the smell, and quite frankly, having to stand outside in the cold, heat, rain, and snow is annoying.

The last day of cigarettes will be this Friday, at probably around six o’clock or so. My theory* is that if I can get through the holidays without smoking, I can do anything without smoking.

*The nonscientific sense, of course.

2

Good luck. (Not sarcastic - good luck for real.) I’m an alcoholic and from what I understand nicotine addiction is even harder to give up. It took my mom an emergency triple-bypass to quit. Even after that it took my dad nearly a year to wean himself off.

Are you really planning to go cold-turkey? I don’t know how well that will work. Are you planning to use a patch or gum or anything?

As a kid (circa 1970s), I never thought anything about my parents smoking. It was only when I was in high school (late 80s) and I went with a friend to get a haircut and the hairdresser picked up a piece of my hair and said “Who smokes?” that I realized the smoking smell is a bad, obvious smell.

To be fair to smokers, although I love love love the whole “no smoking in restaurants” thing, I thought it odd when they made it illegal to smoke in bars. Like, bars are a den of vice to begin with; what’s a little smoking between friends/drunks? It started getting a little weird when some places made it illegal to smoke in parks or movie theater lines (etc.) Now I’m hearing in some places you can’t smoke in a condo/apartment where there are other occupants connected to you (because of the drifting smoke.) What? You can’t smoke in your OWN HOME? Jeez!

3

Wanna quit smoking? Just do what I did! (not really):

I recently had pretty major jaw surgery and was so fucked up the week after that I didn’t even miss smoking. Not even a little bit.

Since that week, I bought some nicotine inhalers, just in case, but have not even used them. I have not really had any cravings. I’m still off work and my surgery was almost a month ago and the only time that I’ve even thought about it was after having had a few drinks - so I busted out the inhaler and one hit of that mother cured me for that night.

So, there’s that.

4

You are doing the right thing. I wish you well in your quest and hope that it goes well for you.

5

I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t remember exactly when I quit since it took me several years. I would quit for months, even years, then I would start again. I had been quit for 2 years when my mom died in January and I immediately started again and smoked for 6 months. Now the smell of it makes me sick but honestly, not a day goes by that I don’t want to smoke. I used Chantix twice and I think that drug finally broke the chemical connection in my brain.

What I’m trying to say is if you’re not 100% successful this time, never quit quitting. There are a few quit-o-meters on the Web to keep track of how many you haven’t smoked, how much money you’ve saved, and how much time you’ve saved. I used the one at silkquit.

6

I love it!

I’m “still quit” myself! Went to the doctor’s today and she asked if she could write “non-smoker” on my chart and I said HELLZ YEAH!!

The #1 best best best thing is not being stinky any more. You know what I mean.

Good job announcing it and good luck! It will be hard but you can do it!

7

I quit in January. It was hard at first, but each day gets easier and easier. I didn’t go cold turkey, I just slowly tapered down until I was smoking 2 a day. This time it worked for me because I think I really truly wanted to be done with it, all the other times I don’t think my heart was really into it, but I felt like I should quit.

To be honest I never thought I would be at the place where I can honestly say I don’t want a cigarette, but I am there and you will be too.

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Stopped by to wish you luck and offer encouragement!

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Good luck with it! Keep us posted. Tell us about the hard times…and the success stories when you decide note to take a cigarette!

-D/a

10

Fantastic! In my experience making the choice to quit is the hardest part.

I really really whole-heartedly recommend The Easy Way to Stop Smoking if you feel like you want some help. I won’t preach at you because people who used the book to quit can be obnoxious, but it worked for me and I believe that if can work for anyone who needs the help like I did.

But enough about that. What have you decided to do to celebrate quitting?

11

Good luck!

I quit about 15 years ago, and don’t miss them at all. I had good results with the patch, it seemed to help me from having the ‘I want to kill you all’ symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Also, I talked myself into being rabidly anti-cigarette, and wrote up a list of why they were my enemy, and used points from it to combat thoughts of how wonderful a smoke would be.

12

Smoking fallacy: Smoking relieves stress.

Smoking fact: Nicotine is a stimulant. The act that relieves your stress level when you smoke is the deep breathing.

It makes quitting a thousand times easier to not only know and remember that, but to practice it throughout the process and even long after. When you start to feel yourself getting stressed and thinking you’re craving a cigarette, even if you have to fake it by putting two fingers up to your lips, take several long, slow, deep breaths, holding them as you would a drag off a cigarette, then slowly blow out with pursed lips.

Shayna; quit date midnight July 3rd, 2002.

Good luck!

13

Best of luck to you.

whyquit.com worked for me, just get past the first bit…I know it doesn’t feel like it but it does get better.

I have not had even a puff for 51 weeks, it is easy now, and the freedom you feel is great.

14

Well, I must say I’m off to a rocky start. As I said in my OP, I was planning on quitting yesterday, but I ended up buying another pack. I did throw six of them away though. Hard to get started, really. Please tell me that’s one of the hardest parts.

But now it begins. I suspect that the next few days are going to be awful. It seems a bit anticlimactic though, since all I have to do now is not do something. It’s a bit strange that that can be difficult. But here we go.

Anyway, here is the current blurb from QuitsMokingCounter.com is for sale | HugeDomains

I stopped smoking on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:45:00 UTC.
It has been 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 33 minutes and 27 seconds since I quit.
I have saved $ 0.23 by choosing not to smoke 0 cigarettes.
More importantly, I saved 0 weeks, 0 days 0 hours 8 minutes of my life!

Odd that they put it in UTC, but the time is accurate. Also odd is that I’ve saved myself 8 minutes already. Where are they getting this information from?

Anyway, wish me luck!

Well, a friend of mine was supposed to get me the package that my university gives away for free (and at which I am no longer a student since I graduated, but at which I am currently teaching), but that didn’t pan out. So cold turkey it is. The people on the plane tomorrow may not see my pleasant side.

Will do. My feeling is that talking (or writing about it in this case) will be helpful.

I’ve heard this before. It seems like a good plan. I know that stress is one of those things that makes me want to smoke, more than drinking really, but that may be because the no-smoking-in-bars laws in California have separated that a bit for me.

I may get this book. The Amazon blurb is optimistic, and I’m liking that vibe right now.

To be quite honest, for the moment, I have decided to suspend my rule against sugary beverages. I figure that it’s a net gain for my health. Past that, I don’t really know. What have you (and others) done?

15

It worked for me. I was a two pack a day smoker until 1:25 pm on January 17th 2009. I never looked back. Actually making the choice to just stop is way harder than any withdrawal symptom and, for me at least, the mental hurdles were a lot harder than the physical ones.

16

RadicalPi,

I’ve never been a smoker, so I’ve never been in your shoes. But I’ve known a lot of them. I’ve watched them try to quit. I’ve watched them succeed.

One of my best friends used to be a fairly heavy smoker. I saw him quit three times. The last one stuck. He’s now really into rock climbing and mountain biking, talks about how much healthier he is, how he could never do these hobbies back in the day, and how nasty cigarette smoke is. FWIW, he didn’t use any aids, other than his friends.

Just do it. However you go about it…do it. Do it for half a day. Then realize that you can do the rest of the day. And the next.
-D/a

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It didn’t work for me at all, and I’m curious about what it is that others find so helpful about the easy way. I read the book, and the method seems to be mostly don’t smoke anymore, and here are all the reasons you shouldn’t want to. A lot of the text is repeated throughout the book, so maybe there’s an attempt to plant suggestion, I don’t know. Can you share the details of which parts were particularly helpful?

I’m at the place now where I really want to stop smoking, I never smoke during the work day anymore, so I know how to get through a nic fit successfully. Excuse the pun, but for me the “easy way” seems to be to just have one smoke now and think about quitting later.

To the OP-BRAVO! I hope you don’t mind this little mememe hijack. Once you have successfully quit you’ll have to get used to being an inspiration to others :slight_smile: You certainly have inspired me.

18

I felt exactly the same way when I read it. Just move on. If you stress yourself trying to figure out why there was something in it for so many other people but you didn’t get it, it’ll make you want to smoke. :wink:

Just do it. All you’re afraid of is the withdrawal. Decide you’re going to face it and take it on. Think of it as a dragon you’re slaying. Picture it laying on the ground in a bloody heap at the end of a week and start slashing at it. Good luck to you, too.

19

You know, that’s good advice but I don’t think it’s the withdrawal I’m afraid of actually. I’m a little bit sickened by myself for saying this, but for me the smokes are kind of like a little secret pal. It’s really the idea of never smoking again, I fear that I’ll miss it emotionally more than physically. I’ll have to find actual solutions to my problems rather than just having a smoke and ruminating about them :wink:

The main thing is I don’t want to smell gross anymore, plus I don’t wanna die attached to an oxygen mask or a chemo bag.

20

Yeah. This. I was going to explain why it worked for me, but the thing is it worked for me and nothing will work for everyone. Find what works for you. I had to get past two huge hurdles. Fear and the idea that I was getting anything good out of smoking. The book helped me to get past those. If those aren’t your problems though then it light not help you.

The biggest thing is deciding that you want to not smoke more than you want to smoke. The book gave me all sorts of reasons that resonated with me, but don’t worry about it if it doesn’t work for you that way. Make a list. Figure out why you are smoking. Figure out why you want to stop. Figure out what is keeping you from stopping. Then stop.

Withdrawl isn’t that bad, quitting coffee is physically harder (for me at least).

Cigarettes aren’t your friend. They are that guy you knew from high school who is always borrowing money from you and not paying you back but when you need his help he either doesn’t show up or makes things worse. That isn’t a friend, its a leech. But you know that.

And I am coming off as holier than thou right now, so sorry for that. I’m not food about talking about this without getting a bit…emphatic. Quiting smoking made me a happier person. I want other people to feel that way too.