Good to hear that you got through a rough day… I’d reiterate what I said above about how my going cold turkey is the least macho thing since pink skirts.
Part of the reason that I have to just cut it out is that so, so, so very many things serve as triggers or ritualistic behaviors for me. Finish a meal? Smoke. Go for a walk? Smoke. Have a break between classes? Smoke. Frustrated? Smoke. Angry? Smoke. Bored? Smoke. Hungry and not eating yet? Yep smoke. Being around people who are smoking, going out drinking, or being around people who are smoking while I’m drinking might just be too much for me right now, to be honest, so I’m staying away from that sort of thing at present.
This has been a very rough week for me, especially the last few days once my cold has gone away. But in about six hours it’ll be a full week since I smoked my last cigarette. I’m hoping that next week will be a tiny bit easier than this one.
*I quit using the method taught by Gillian Riley. Basically it is all about accepting your cravings and dealing with them. I was carrying a pack of cigarettes around for weeks, drinking with smokers, going out to cigarette breaks at work without smoking and believe it or not the whole experience was fun.
The trick is that, by not denying yourself a cigarette you can use her little mantra:
I feel like a cigarette.
I could have one if I wanted to.
If I light one up I’ll be a smoker again
So I can choose that or accept the desire and enjoy these benefits - (in my case health, money, influence on kids)
The method she uses makes you feel like a winner rather than a loser fighting a more powerful opponent.
“Hrm, time would pass quicker if I could kill some of it by smoking,” reminds me of a particular epiphany while I was giving up. Waiting at the train station an announcement came that the train was late. My instantaneous reaction was to think of lighting up a cigarette to “pass the time.” It made me laugh out loud with the realization that smoking isn’t really an activity - like playing chess or shooting hoops or practicing guitar.
I’m glad if that worked for you, it wouldn’t work for me. My brain would rationalize how it was okay to have just one, or how it didn’t make me a smoker since ontologically what do we truly mean when we say “a smoker”, or how okay it made me a smoker but I could just quit again, or whatever. Then I’d buy another pack the next day once I chainsmoked the first pack.
I also don’t feel like I’m a loser fighting a more powerful opponent. I’m a past master at grim determination and being a stubborn motherfucker when necessary. I understand and accept that cigarette smoking is hell of an addiction, one so powerful that all others are judged against it, including heroin. I accept and bow to the fact that it’s a beast, and it’s got a hold on me. But if anything I feel like a winner for simply being able to fight it, and I keep telling myself that I’m enough of a badass to beat it.
Each to their own, of course, but carrying around a pack of smokes, bumming one off friends but not buying my own pack, etc… it just wouldn’t work for me. I have to disallow myself even the possibility. Or perhaps I should say “I have to deny myself especially the possibility.”
Well, it’s Addict Logic, of course
My most common (and favorite!) bit of my own Addict Logic is that whenever I was trying to cut back or quit, or whatever, I convinced myself that I had to finish the entire pack by the end of that night (even if I’d just opened it a few hours previously) because, after all, I was trying to quit/cut back/, and if I was all out of cigarettes then, by gum, I’d be one solid step closer to quitting/cutting back!
Thank you very much. I’m now at about 1 week plus 12 hours
I don’t like the mindless snacking that I’ve started, but I can try to cut back and that and I can walk that off, unlike cancer.
Yeah that will happen. When I quit dipping, six months ago after 13 years, I went nuts on sunflower seeds enough so that I made my jaw raw for a week. After that I just replaced my addiction with exercise and that is working well. Good luck and congrats on reaching the one week mark.
Thanks much… and I miss sunflower seeds. They were cheap as dirt back in the states but I can’t find whole, in-seed, sunflower seeds anywhere. I may try a foreign food specialty store somewhere, because that sounds like a much better snacking option than chips or what have you.
Feeling :smug: tonight, to be honest. Went out to dinner and drinks with some buddies from work and everybody in the restaurant was smoking… I did not bum a cig though and my throat actually felt sore from sitting in the room with all the smoke. Still having cravings every few minutes during the day, but I think I’m over the hump.
I replaced cigarettes with Diet Coke for about a year. I didn’t realize I had done it either until it was pointed out to me because soda was provided free by my office so I was in no way keeping track of how many Diet Cokes I was drinking. Still it was better than smoking and I have since cut WAY back.
Congrats on getting over the hump. That first realization that it’s not only ok to not smoke in a setting where you would normally smoke but that you don’t actually want to is pretty sweet.
Thanks, I wish I could replace it with diet coke, but that’s about 2 bucks per two liter here, and the way I drink it, that’s a 14 dollar a week habit. Not extreme, but a bit excessive. I’ve actually explored the concept of herbal shishah, zero nicotine, zero tobacco, zero tar. I think I may order some and a hookah to test it out.
Also, I added a dose of :smug: tonight. Out drinking with buddies and on my third Long Island Ice Tea, I happened to mention that I’d been quit for a week and one day. One guy immediately said “but what if I offered one to you?” I replied “go ahead”. Not only did he offer me one from his pack, he passed the open pack under my nose and informed me of how delicious they were. I said, politely “thank you very much, but I’d rather not.”
Fuck you nicotine, fuck you tobacco, fuck you cigarettes, fuck you sideways with an enraged porcupine on meth. Fuck you. I win.
I’ve had one slip in just over 2 1/2 years, but I don’t think it counts!
I got smashing drunk (almost accidentally - seldom drinker at the time plus champagne plus empty stomach plus hot outside). Totally wrote myself off. During this time, I apparently had a couple of drags off of my friend’s ciggie - she was as smashed as me.
I don’t remember it.
I did remember it (apparently) long enough to come home and tell my husband about it (whilst apparently amusingly asking him to please find my brain and give it back), but the next morning, while shaking, sweating and dry heaving, I had no memory of it. I found out when he told me off for it. It has been confirmed by others at the party.
I really have zero memory, it didn’t bring on any stronger cravings that I was having (this was about 2 months in) and I have never done it again - either smoke or write myself off so comprehensively.
Gratz to you Finn! You do win. Don’t get smug, though.
And right now that feeling is helping me a bit more than the “oh my god why oh why can’t I just have a few puffs oh holy shit they would be so good and then i would stop I promise” mantra that’s going through my head.
By now, the actual physical part should be over. Dealing with the mental part is, alas, more difficult and lasts longer.
When I have that mental wanting for a smoke, I tend to think of those idylic smoking moments - you know, like sitting on the dock at the cottage watching the sun go down and having a smoke at the end of a perfect day, cold drink in hand and feet dangling in the water, that sort of thing. My trick: deliberately replace that image in my mind with the more common reality: having a smoke ankle-deep in slush outside my building, huddled like a leper beyond the doorway, throat sore with oncomming cold while I suck down my drug in a miserable, unpleasant display of needy addiction … then, like magic, I don’t want a smoke anymore.
That’s a very good bit of advice. Perhaps I should hold onto the mental image of smoking, when my throat already hurt, but having to smoke each cig down to the filter because, well, might as well.
Two weeks, one day. Better to avoid getting myself a hookah with herbal, non-tobacco, non-nicotine shisha I think, too close to old bad habits and too easy to rationalize my way back in. Still having mental cravings but they’re almost gone when I’m on my own, even bored. They’re a bit stronger when I’m around people who’re puffing away, but I can deal. I always have my smug bastarddom to fall back on when pressed, after all.
Nice! It sounds like you are liking being a non smoker. That’s important. Has your sense of taste improved yet? I remember it was around the 2 week mark that I started to taste food better, but I was a heavier smoker than you I think.
Yay for being free of the stinkin’ habit! You don’t have to pay for those cancer sticks any more. You don’t need to find matches, or lighters, or ashtrays any more. Yay for being able to inhale deeply, cough free. Congrats on your new found freedom.
Congrats!!!
I’m sure I can speak for the rest of the gathered Dopers here when I say that we can offer you encouragement and moral support (and maybe even advice, asked or unasked for ) should you need it.
Best of luck, just keep on keeping on.
(P.S. Awesome Discworld book)
Actually, I fucking hate it. I love smoking, it’s soothing, I enjoy the taste, and it’s something that’s become part of my routine recently. I love smoking. But I love being a smug bastard even more than I love smoking, and right now I’m using that to get me through the period until I can learn to love being a non-smoker, and reminding myself that smoking is an addiction, and addiction is dependance, and dependance is weakness, and a stone cold smug badass shouldn’t deliberately cultivate weakness.
(this is my counter to Addict Logic, it seems to be working so far)
Truth be told I’m not sure, since my allergies have been driving me batty and my nose has been stuffed the last week or so. I’ll report back though when I get my senses of taste/smell back.
Thanks - and I agree with you on alot of what you said.
I miss it but not enough to start again.
Hate the idea of the adiction rather than the smoking - but no going back now - £160 a month better off by my calculations - 3 months off smoking and I could get an Ipad or 6 months off and get a run-a-round bike (miss the bikes :mad: )
