I'm quitting smoking, who's with me?

Congratulations and stay strong. It’ll be three weeks tomorrow (8/19) fro me. I’m doing the patch and it helps. If you do try the patch remember to take it off at night. I get really weird dreams if I leave it on overnight.

Does it count if I have a 30-day (give-or-take) head start?

Really? Over $14,000 in 136 weeks?

Yeah, Australian dollars. Our smokes are expensive - it was $12.20 for a pack of 20 (and about $15-16 for a pack of 30, which is more usual) when I quit two and a half years ago. Now you can add $3-5 to that.

I’ve been quit for three years minus a two week relapse about a year ago. I too was always able to quit easily, it was staying quit that I had trouble with. The danger zone for me was at about the three month mark, long after the the physical addiction was conquered.

Congratulations! Good luck to you and everyone quitting.

Congrats FinnAgain My quit date was Sept 1, 2002 so I am coming up on 9th anniversary of the best decision of my life! I still have a half pack in my freezer, I guess I should go ahead an throw those away now. While I was actively quitting it comforted me to know that if I really wanted one, ciggies were available. I never did smoke one (knock on wood!) but YMMV. I used the nicotine patches as a means to quit, they made the most sense to me.

I quit January 17 2009. I was a two pack a day smoker and I went cold turkey too. The worst few days are tough but you are already getting to the end of the physical withdrawl period. After that it’s a few weeks more of less hard but still kinda rough times and then slowly but surely one day at a time it gets easier.

For me the key was remembering all the reasons why I wanted to quit when I had a craving.

Congratulations on being a non smoker again! It’s a better life.

It’s getting on for a year since I smoked a cigarette.

I weaned myself off them since I wasn’t able to stop cold turkey. Some people can’t - it’s got nothing to do with willpower or toughness or any of that macho bullshit, it’s just harder for some people than others, and some people - like me - can’t take the sudden change in brain chemistry.

So I weaned myself using nicotine lozenges. I’m still using them, but I’ve cut down on them. At this point I’m happy to stay using a couple of lozenges a day, there’s no hurry to be entirely free of nicotine.

Things that helped me:

  1. As I said above, people are different, nicotine interacts with different people in different ways. People who lecture you about what worked for them as if the same thing will work for everybody are not helpful. Figure out what works for you, and don’t worry about what other people say about it. You’re not them, they’re not you.

  2. Don’t be hard on yourself. If you’re trying to stop and you have one cigarette, or a few, it isn’t the end of the world. It’s not easy for most people, so if you give in to temptation, don’t beat yourself up over it, just keep on trying. It’s not over unless you truly stop trying. A few setbacks along the way are inevitable.

  3. It’s a long-term process. You won’t beat a serious addiction in a couple of weeks. (Yes, some people did: see point one.) For most of us non-supehuman people, it’s going to take quite a while to be free from nicotine addiction. Maybe forever; I think in some cases the 12-steppers are correct about once an addict, always an addict. I haven’t smoked in nearly a year, but I still need a little nicotine to get through the day.

  4. When you do manage to stop, stay stopped. I’m a total nicotine whore, I can’t just have one cigarette. I go out and sometimes I am surrounded by smokers. It’d be easy to have just one, and I’d enjoy heck out of it. So I can’t. I will not start smoking again, no excuses. Which means not even one. Like a recovering alcoholic or drug addict, I cannot afford to start smoking again, and every habit starts (or resumes) with just one puff. I will not take that first puff. At those times, when the temptation is strong, you do need to be tough.

OK, I think those are my most helpful insights. Good luck, and stay strong.

FinnAgain, from how you describe your habit, it sounds like you haven’t been a particularly heavy smoker, so I think you should be able to handle going cold-turkey. Going with willpower only is rough, but the withdrawal experience is motivation not to start again.

That’s how I quit, 3 times. I was never a very heavy smoker, usually not more than half a pack a day, but that was still every day.

First time was when I was in college, and it was mainly due to peer pressure. Once I returned home and was reunited with all of my bad-influence friends, I quickly fell off the wagon.

The second time lasted only 2 weeks, and I think was motivated by buying a carton of a brand I hadn’t tried before and hated. My memory of that time is hazy, though…I’m sure I went 2 weeks without a cigarette, but I can’t remember why I started again.

Last time was on October 30, 2005. I was down to my last 2 cigarettes and it was time to go out and get more, and I decided instead to see how long I could go without. I still have those last 2 cigarettes.

I kept those last 2 cigarettes with me for months before I finally left them on the shelf for display. It’s been almost 6 years, so I’m sure they would be horrible now. I consider them to be my last two cigarettes, and just never got around to smoking them.

I’ve got a cold right now (damn parents sending their sick children to school, who then sit right in front of me, rassa frassa…) so it’s easy not to smoke, but yah… I can’t be out of the house all that much unfortunately even though Seoul is pretty cheap. And unfortunately having a cig (or three) while walking is part of my ritual. That’s actually part of what convinced me it was about damn time to quit, I’ve been walking home (about 2 miles) from work every day to try to get into shape, taking the stairs, etc… the stairs from the subway station by my school are really long, and they’re a hell of a climb. But I always lit up as soon as I got back into the open air because, ya know, off the subway now so it’s time to smoke. Even though walking up the stairs was supposed to be a way to get into shape and improve my endurance.

It struck me that was about the most retarded thing I could be doing, and that this habit had to go.

Thanks, and congrats to you too. I junked the pack of cigs already (felt damn good) and I’m going to throw out my ash tray, but I do like burning incense so the lighters unfortunately stay. I don’t think I’ll be that tempted though, all in all. If anything, I’m pissed off at myself for being a smoker and I’m using that as motivation now.

Thanks, and yeah, I hope that I can get back to normal in short order. It’s a damn shame to be able to walk up multiple flights of stairs and physically be able to do it because I’ve dropped 20 pounds, but be wheezing because I’m a smoker.

Awesome!
I don’t think that the patch is for me though, or even E-cigs or what have you. I need to just cut that out and tough it out for the next week (or three). Going back to even a soft reliance on nicotine/oral substitutions would, for me personally, be a bit too close to smoking. I think I need to make a clean break.

Absolutely. Join the Doper Legion of Quitters!

Congratulations and yeah… quitting is pretty easy, staying quit seems to be another issue. The craving will be stronger, I’m sure, once I’m over this cold and not horking up blobs of yuck, and especially the first time I go out drinking with my buddies and they all light up. But eh, if it was easy, everybody would do it. :cool:

Thanks, and yeah, Dopers unite.

Thank you very much and congrats to you too. I had to destroy my pack because I know, for me personally, having it around would be that much more of a temptation. If they’re not in my apartment, within arm’s reach, then it’s at least a more conscious decision for me to get dressed and go downstairs to the quickiemart. And I know that once I opened the floodgates, that’d be it. “just one” cigarette would quickly turn into a pack or so a day again.

Thanks, that’s pretty much where I’m at mentally. I miss the ritual aspect of it more than the physical withdrawal, to be honest. And yeah, I’m trying to keep that moment at the top of the subway stairs in my mind as a totemic image.

Congrats to you as well and yeah, your point 4 really rings true to me. I’m reminded of one of Gurdjieff’s stories:

I’m not going on a spree.

Rough fucking day today… dealing with teh dum almost always makes me want to smoke a cigarette to relax, and I just got done having discussions with people who believed that the moon landing is a hoax, the Kennedy assassination wasn’t committed by Oswald, a missile hit the pentagon on 9/11 and not a plane, and Americans are stupid for not believing all of the above and only dispute them because of how brainwashed we are…
I would kill for a cigarette right about now.

I think instead I’m just going to take four benadryls and go to sleep a bit early tonight.

Good luck finnagain… I’m about three weeks in myself. Its interesting since i don’t drink alcohol very much… i only smoke at work. But the kids are getting older… and the lies won’t last much longer lol…

Hang in their man… i’m using chewing gum to handle the oral issue…

Thanks. Got through last night without buying a pack, so things are looking a bit better. I’m not really having generalized oral cravings, honestly, as much as I’m having cigarette-in-my-mouth cravings. if that makes sense.

Stopping by to wish you all success! Good luck!

Thanks very much.

In other news IwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigaretteIwantacigarette
… ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

I am not going to buy a pack.

By the way, I wanted to comment on this a bit more thoroughly. If anything, I think it’d be the opposite. That is, anybody able to mostly quit and then just have an occasional cigarette when cravings are intense is a hell of a lot stronger than someone like me, who’d have a total collapse and be back to half a pack a day after the first puff.

You are correct that different things work for different people, but I don’t think that anybody should feel down on themselves for however they have to go about quitting. Making the effort to quit is the important part, not whether you crack your egg on the big end or the little end.

How’s it going?

Remember: the cravings last about 5-7 minutes, and then they pass.

They pass, WHETHER YOU SMOKE OR NOT.

So let them pass without smoking.

I was chanting to myself: the crave is a wave, the crave is a wave… swells, lifts, recedes. Ride it out, man. Let the crave wash through you, admit you want to smoke so badly, don’t deny it, but don’t give in to it, either.

The cravings will diminish daily. Every day without smoking you are stronger and the addiction is weaker. But it’s a wily foe and will try some sneaky little lies. Don’t believe the lies. Stay strong.

You can do it.

Honestly? My fingers feel like they’re sitting useless if they’re not holding a cigarette, I have cravings just to inhale and exhale something dense and pungent, every idiot I deal with makes me wish I had a lighter and a cigarette behind my ear and every moment of boredom bring the thought “hrm, time would pass quicker if I could kill some of it by smoking.”

I also haven’t bought a pack today or smoked another cigarette since I quit.

Thanks very much. :smiley: I think that’s a very, very good point and something I should remember… I am craving a good bit more now that I’m over my cold, but they cravings aren’t constant and I have been riding them out. A mantra would totally help. Geek fu to the rescue?
*
I must not smoke.
Smoking is the self-killer.
Smoking is the slow-death that bring an agonizing end.
I will face my cravings.
I will permit them to pass over me and through me.
And when the cravings have gone past I will turn the inner eye to see their path.
Where the craving has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain*

I think I like yours better :wink:

Fair point. I know people who only smoke when they’re drinking. I can’t imagine doing that - I’m more of the one-smoke-and-I’m-a-slavering-addict-again sort of guy. Everyone’s different.

I had a fairly tough time yesterday, a long afternoon/evening/night seeing many bands at a sort of mini-festival. The three friends I was mostly spending time with are all smokers. Pretty much everyone there was a smoker, it was that kind of crowd. I could have stayed indoors and avoided the smoke, but I wanted to spend time outside chatting with my chain-smoking friends. I also drank quite a lot of beer. I like beer.

My old habit felt really strong, a few times I started to reach for my cigarettes only to remember that I don’t have any. But - I am pleased to say - I did not seriously entertain the idea of bumming a smoke. I could have, quite easily, but I wasn’t really tempted. It would have been nice for a few minutes, then it would have been worse; the whole craving would start all over again and all my hard work over the last year would have been undone.

So yay me, I guess. I’m getting there, I didn’t even hit the nicotine lozenges very hard, no more than 4 during the entire day. Most days it’s 2 or 3. So I am slowly but surely reducing my nicotine intake. I’ll get there. It’s a long term process for me, and understanding that has been very helpful. It’ll take a while yet to be entirely free of nicotine, but I’m OK with that.

I should have taken note of the last cigarette I smoked, I’m not even sure what month it was last year, September, October, maybe even November. I’m really not sure. Getting on for a year ago, anyway.