July 16 will be 4 years quit for me. I am soooo glad I quit. I am so anti-smoking now, I find it so disgusting. Nothing could make me start again. All of you quitters can do it! If you haven’t quit and are reading this thread, do it! Do it now!
You might be able to invoke some state or municipal ordinance that dictates a minimum distance between doors and smoking areas. Were I live, I believe that distance is 100 feet; that is, a public access door may not be within 100 feet of the smoking area. If nothing else, you might see if that smoking area can be moved as policy. The smokers may not like it, but screw 'em. 
In the interest of fighting ignorance: Nicotine patches, gum won’t help smokers quit for good: Study
That said, if it’s working for you, keep working it. 
I quit using PV’s (smokefreE-cigarettes, or e-cigarettes), and they are amazing (as long as you stay away from the overpriced scam crap). Studies: E-Cigarettes Popular, May Be Effective at Helping Smokers Quit
Basically, the program I’m following is to change the behavior before I get off the nicotine. I tried the e-cigarette a few times and paradoxically, it made me want to smoke more. :shrug:
4/11/2012 around 1:00 a.m. was my last cigarette. Cold Turkey and I never have problems with the nicotine addiction, its always finding my hands going through pockets looking for the cigs and lighter. The pause where I would draw on a cigarette, the mental comfort addiction.
Doing good so far, no teeth marks in the furniture or anything like that (yet).
Good for you! The mental part was, at least for me, by far the hardest part to shake but also the easiest to overcome if that makes sense. So you are doing great if that is all you have to deal with . Stick with it, you can totally do it.
I am amazed at the number of ex-smokers who have contributed to this thread, helping each other out, to wit:
Alice The Goon, Chefguy, Cub Mistress, Dano83860, Gleena, jali, jrbor76, Lust4Life, Minnie Luna, NAF1138, MsRobyn, Nunavut Boy, peedin, Qwakkeddup, rat avatar, Rico, Sanity Challenged, Shakester, Shayna, Siam Sam, Teufelblitz, tim duncan, XaMcQ, and ZipperJJ, and I guess myself too, RadicalPi.
I know I’ve said it before, but even more amazing to me is that some of the people on this list are more recent quitters than me. Thanks to all of you.
Today is a bit of a special day for me, in that it was one year ago today* that my depression lifted. It happened rather quickly, I remember, over the course of one day, when someone I trusted, and who seemed to always be in good spirits, made it clear to me that she knew exactly how I felt. That lifted a huge weight off my shoulders almost all at once. Even though the depression has lifted I still have been dealing with my own demons since then, but there is now a spring in my step that wasn’t there before. Looking back on how I was just one year ago brings tears to my eyes because I really can’t believe how different things are now than then.
I bring this up here because as I mentioned long ago, in my OP, I quit smoking to increase the distance between me and depression, and I am proud of myself for succeeding in doing so.
It has also been a bit more than four months since I quit smoking, and most of the time it is a lot easier now than it was before, but I think in some ways it’s harder. I think it’s harder because the cravings and whatnot are not as present as they used to be, and I can go days on end without thinking about smoking, which has kind of made me feel underprepared for the cravings when they come. So, even though the cravings are rarer and probably weaker, I handle them only about as well as I ever have.
There is also a new type of craving that has appeared. Before I knew only the standard three-minute craving and the horrible megainsidious Nicodemon craving, although luckily this last craving has only happened once**. This third craving is a nagging craving, that isn’t very strong, but that I nonetheless just can’t shake for days on end. I might be recalling it incorrectly, but it doesn’t feel like a sequence of cravings but more of a general state of craving that can last for as long as three days.
It happened on the last road trip I took, which was during a road trip to Pasadena for a job interview. It was a pretty hectic time not in the least because I knew that I had just three hours to get back to Santa Barbara to teach my night class after the interview was over. Perhaps that consistent stressor is part of why the craving went on for a while and perhaps not. Also, I recall that road trips were one of those times I used to smoke a lot, stopping every forty-five minutes or so to have two of them. I didn’t really feel anything in the car, though, the long craving only started one I had gotten to the hotel I was staying at.
I could though just be the stress of everything that’s getting to me. I have been going nonstop since that conference on March 20 or so.
And there has been something keeping me up at night a lot recently, whether it’s the ex-girlfriend stuff I mentioned (although by now most of that has died down) or the undeserved parking tickets I got that they recently raised the price of or my department’s possible inability to let me work for them next academic year (which means that it becomes all the more essential that I did well in Pasadena) or my getting dizzy and woozy in yoga (which had never happened before) or my physician telling me I probably have diabetes (which it turns out I don’t) or the lack of free time I have had for about a month now preparing for all this other stuff.
So, it could just be that the stress is getting to me, but I’ve been feeling pretty weak these past two weeks or so. I hope it will pass, and I know that smoking won’t help any of these problems, but still at times I want to give up and go back to not caring about things. That seems easier, and smoking is a large part of not caring about things for me. I don’t think that I am going to throw in the towel, I do think that I am going to stay quit, but I have to say that there is an appeal to the easier days of yore.
Also, I have been bothered by the University of California’s decision to ban smoking on campus starting near January 1, 2014. I guess I am of two minds about it. First, college was when I started to smoke, and so, making it a pain in the ass to do may have helped keep me of cigarettes until then, but all the same, I think it’s an unnecessarily draconian decision. I don’t know why this is bothering me, since it shouldn’t affect me, but I think I have a degree of empathy for those who go through all the hoops of where you can and can’t smoke nowadays. I think I’d support banning the sale of cigarettes in the entire country more than just banning it from UC campuses.
Overall, I guess I’m in an odd place, proud of what I’ve done (more than a third of a year and putting depression as far away form me as I can) and scared that I won’t have the strength to continue to do so (even though it’s one of my highest priorities).*** My hope I guess is that because I have not caved to the long nagging craving, it will go away, and I won’t have to deal with it anymore. But we will see.
Here is the current counter:
I stopped smoking on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:45:00 GMT.
It has been 17 weeks, 5 days, 20 hours, 3 minutes and 38 seconds since I quit.
I have saved $ 1235.88 by choosing not to smoke 4119 cigarettes.
More importantly, I saved 4 weeks, 3 days 11 hours 15 minutes of my life!
*April 20, 2011, a date I remember because it is also Hitler’s birthday. And now I’ve godwinized my own thread.
** But I remember it like it was yesterday.
*** This is why I’m writing this now instead working on my remorse article.
That’s awesome! I, too, struggled with the habits and behaviors until I found some better ones. I have sparkly-clean pots and pans because I don’t go out for a cigarette while dinner’s in the oven, and now that I have sparkly-clean pots and pans, I take my Zune into the kitchen with me and listen to the radio or to music as I cook and clean. I even dance a little. 
One thing I have problems with now is the nagging smoker’s cough. Chewing gum helps keep my mouth and throat moist, but I still have the cough. Any suggestions?
Drink a lot of water?
RadPi, I think know the craving you are talking about. I still get those on occasion though with me it isn’t usually cigarettes but pipe and cigar smoking that calls to me. I don’t have any advice but I figure you should know that you aren’t alone in getting those. Hang tough, this too shall pass.
It is helpful to know I’m not alone. One day at a time. Most days are easy but some are harder.
Still not smoking, was puttering in the shed today and caught myself “patting” aka Looking for my cigarettes. That is the stuff I gotta watch for, but any packs I had laying around have been all cleaned up and tossed out.
The wife’s are still there though she is trying to keep them out of the way for me.
Hopefully she takes a chance and quits while the opportunity is there.
Congratulations on making it this far. It should be a bit over a month for you by now. This is when it starts to get easier, so don’t give up now. Best of luck to all the other quitters, too. I hope none of you are lighting things on fire and sticking them in your mouth.
As for me, it has now been a smidge more than five months since I’ve quit smoking. It’s really hard to believe that I’m within striking distance of six months, which is half a year, which is a really long fucking time. A sense of pride emerges. Past that, this month has been a lot easier than the one before. The new kind of craving has mostly disappeared. In fact, it stopped once I had gotten back form Pasadena. I think it’s a travel thing, now. Overall, life has generally just not been as stressful.
My primary fear now is fearing that I will cave when I am drinking with friends. I don’t usually go out that much, maybe once a month or so, so it’s not a situation that I get into that often, and I guess I’m still not comfortable with it. It’s not that I have cravings when I’m drinking because for the most part I don’t, but rather that I will get drunk enough that I will think that smoking is a good idea.
The consequence of this is that I’m just very wary and nervous in these drinking situations, and I really don’t like that since the point of a drink or two is to relax. I’m not entirely sure of the best way to handle the situation. Well, it seems that heading into the lion’s den, as it were, with preparation and commitment is the best way, but that also strikes me as the best way to fail. Advice on what to do would be most appreciated.
Past that, the major thing on my plate is Proposition 29, which would raise the cigarette tax in California by one dollar. And like with the tobacco-free UC campus initiative that I mentioned last month, I have divided sympathies here. I know that raising the price of cigarettes will push some people over the edge to quitting, but I also know that raising the price of cigarettes just sucks. So, I’m not sure how to vote. I guess I see it as me voting with my new “peer group,” the nonsmokers or me voting with my old one, the smokers.
As I write this, though, I wonder if it’s me not letting go, in a sense, or me living in the past, or something like that. So, maybe what I feel is sympathy for the smokers, but also fear that I may rebecome one and so, I want to make that be as cheap as possible. I don’t know, but now I think I’m going to vote to raise the tax, precisely because it will get some people to quit, and that’s a net gain. But I might still change my mind.
On the whole, I am pretty content with myself this month. It’s been a long run, and I feel more confident now that (the drinking thing notwithstanding) I can do this.
Here is the current counter, still using GMT:
I stopped smoking on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:45:00 GMT.
It has been 22 weeks, 1 days, 4 hours, 19 minutes and 50 seconds since I quit.
I have saved $ 1536.29 by choosing not to smoke 5120 cigarettes.
More importantly, I saved 5 weeks, 4 days 2 hours 50 minutes of my life!
Congratulations. I can tell you that it does not bother me to be around people smoking. I prefer not to be around them, but it has nothing to do with cravings. I just don’t want their smell on me. Hopefully it will be the same with you. Bars and restaurants in Thailand are supposedly smoke-free now, but the ones that can pay the police enough are able to flout the law. But it really doesn’t bother me much to be in those venues either.
I say you should vote to raise the tax. I’d make it $100 a pack if I could, $1000 even. I’d outlaw tobacco outright is what I’d actually do if I had the power.
I know what you mean, Sam. I really really really don’t like being around smokers because the smell of smoke makes me somewhat woozy. I’ve asked Airman, who is still smoking, to close the front door when he goes outside.
I’m also completely off nicotine. The patches irritated my skin pretty badly, so I just figured it would be better to suck it up and just stop using them than it would be to chew up my skin. I chose an appropriate week to detox, if you catch my drift, and no one was the wiser. (Let’s just say that being a woman has its advantages :D)
I have been quit for 2 Months, 1 Week, 2 Days, 6 hours, 36 minutes and 28 seconds (70 days).
I have saved $342.58 by not smoking 1,054 cigarettes.
I have saved 3 Days, 15 hours and 50 minutes of my life.
My Quit Date: 3/12/2012 12:00 AM
Good work, RadicalPi. I’m still not smoking, and I weaned myself off the lozenges back in January or so. I’ve been entirely nicotine-free since then.
I’m still getting the occasional “a smoke would be perfect right now” cravings, but I’ve managed to resist even when I’ve had a few drinks, when there are smokers all around me who’d give me a smoke if I asked, and even in stressful situations.
Mostly I don’t even really want a cigarette, I just want the comfort that a smoke can give. If smoking wasn’t pleasurable, no-one would ever take it up. But it’s not so pleasurable that it’s worth the huge downside.
Still quit, still not getting thread updates. Squirrels must be on a smoke break.
So here I am, over the month marker, 4/11 to 5/21. I haven’t caught myself looking for my cigs for awhile now. Still getting those wistful moments where I would like one, it doesn’t last long now anymore.
Congrats to all.
I still get those wistful moments (few and far between) going on three and a half years later. (Quit on 07/01/09). It’s not really a craving, I don’t get the heart-racing sort of needneedneed that I used to get, but more of a ‘gee, I wish I could, cause it’d be nice’ sort of thing.
Meh.
I know it’s not an actual craving because the logistics of it all stop me - go to the store, buy a pack, buy a lighter, come back to my ‘perfect spot’…nah. Nevermind that.
Great work, all you quitters!
Worth mentioning: This past weekend marked 20 years smoke-free for me. Stick with it, guys!