Aww! I love this story. 
Cub, you’re pretty tough keeping those old cigs around.
I actually did not finish my last pack. I got so psyched up about going on the patch and having saturday the 19th as my “quit day” that on Friday night I tried to finish the pack but just couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t quite like the new Ultra Lights.
I have a friend who quit and put her last pack in her car. I think she still keeps it there. I thought maybe I’d be able to keep mine too, so I put it in a drawer in a room I never go in. But, I didn’t trust myself so yesterday evening I sent the remainder of the pack over to my brother’s house (can’t let $4 go to waste!!)
Over 24 hours now and I feel fine. No “symptoms” that I’m aware of yet. I think I might end up sleeping more for a little while just to avoid boredom. But I don’t think anyone’s going to hold that against me.
jayjay, I’m glad to see that you were able to “resume smoking activities as normal” as it were. That’s the thing I mostly worry about with me - although none of my friends smoke. My family does smoke (dad, brother, SIL, cousins) and I see them more than my friends.
But I’m tough. I’ll get through it. Right now I seem to be sitting around all day thinking “I am not smoking. I am not smoking.”
Heh…that’ll happen for a while. It’s like your internal clock is trying to ring the alarm to alert you that “It’s time to smoke!” and it just keeps the idea in your head. I don’t know how many times in the first two weeks that I got up to do something else and automatically started for the back door (we’ve never smoked in the house…our smoking room is the deck). I had to catch myself and realign.
Another vote for ‘Easy Way’ by Allen Carr. Changes your whole state of mind. You’re not quitting, you’re escaping bondage. You’re not giving something up, you are gaining freedoms and all kinds of wonderful, wonderful benefits. Read it. It helps.
When I felt the urge, I would take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, then expel it forcefully. I don’t know why that helped, but it did. I had a friend who quit and would kill the oral urge by taking little sips of water when he felt like a smoke. It gets better and better surprisingly quickly, and the next thing you know, it’s been 20 years.
You’ll need to launder all your clothing and bed linens, towels, etc. I would get rid of any flour or other grains you have open, as they absorb odor. I’d get the carpet cleaned also if you can afford it. Use a good spray carpet/upholstery cleaner for your fabric furniture. Cheap and easy.
Good luck ZipperJJ! I quit smoking this very morning. I’ve stocked up on patches and am wholeheartedly dedicated to ridding my life of the pathetic, irrational desire to waste my hard earned money on those poisonous little coffin nails. In fact, like it or not, you’ve just got yourself a quitting buddy. If ever you feel stressed out and tempted to reach for a cigarette, drop me a PM and I’ll try to talk some sense into you
Speaking of work breaks and smoking, my son quit 3 years ago, and he said he still took his breaks from work, he just went for a walk instead, or rode his bike. The smoking break is also an unwinding pause, a needed thing in a way, so it’s probably better to decide on some activity that would fill the void in a more healthy fashion.
My husband who quit after decades of smoking says that you don’t try to quit, you just decide to quit, and do it.
Couldn’t help but think of these:
The coffee’s all gone and my eyes burn like fire
It’s long past the time when most folks retire
You told me you’d call me but you haven’t yet
And I’m down to my last cigarette.
And…
Then he lights up a cigarette
Thinking back to what the doctor said
At the rate he is going
In a month he will be dead
And so he lights up another
As an old memory comes to his head
And as the sun goes down
He puts out his last cigarette
I’ve no advice to offer; just good luck to you, ZipperJJ.
Stranger
Yep, yep. I read that book (was recommended on this board) and have been a non-smoker for three years now.
Hooray George Kaplin, thanks for sharing that you’re in this too! Please keep us all up to date on how you are doing. For me, just reading all of the “I quit and so can you” posts over and over again is a huuuuuuuuuuuuge help.
I’ve heard about this book from the SDMB for a couple years now, and I meant to purchase it but from what I’ve read about it, it makes you feel like I already feel - ready, excited and relieved to quit. In fact, these patches are kind of pissing me off (my skin is sucky and my body is flabby and they just move all over the place) so I might come off those early too. We’ll see. I’m not paying for the patches myself (long story) so they are not a waste of money for me at least.
I read somewhere that it takes 21 to “cure” an addiction. The folks that make Nicoderm seem to think it takes like 8 weeks. But 8 weeks of patches sure make them more money than 3 weeks 
Chefguy, the little sips of water thing seems to be my best anti-craving method so far. Food and sweets make me want to smoke more. The Pavlovian drooling response to wanting a cigarette so bad seems to be quenched a bit by water.
Yes, the very worst will probably be over by 21 days. But you will probably still get cravings occasionally. I know people who quit decades ago who still get cravings occasionally.
But the important thing to remember is that the first 21 days IS the worst…once you’re past that, the cravings are both occasional and mild.
I smoked for 8 years, and have been quit for 11. don’t miss it a bit, I’m not even bother by other people’s smoke. Good luck, zipper!
Good luck, zipper. You can do it!!!
I smoked for about 25 years, and toward the end I was at 2+ packs a day. It was freaking awful. My parents, my sister, and finally my wife all quit, and egged me into trying Zyban (Wellbutrin) to quit. I took it, figuring there’s no way it would work, shrug. Three weeks later, suddenly the taste of the cigs changed, and they tasted godawful. I went through about a week or so where I’d have a couple of cigs in the morning (bleah!), then chew Nicorette all day, then a couple of cigs before bedtime. One morning I ran out of cigarettes, and I’ve never had another. I still do the Nicotine gum, though, its dreadfully hard to quit. But it won’t kill me, unlike the smokes.
Motivation= Not to die soon
Logic has no place in addiction. We ALL knew cigarettes would kill us. The only people today who don’t know that cigarettes will kill you have lived in a bomb shelter since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Knowing that cigarettes will kill you is one thing. Having that fact break through our addiction is another thing entirely. Your body tries desperately to keep information like that from seeping down into the part of your brain that actually jumps up and screams “Hold on! You’re right! OMG!”
Congrats for quitting! I quit almost five years ago, and you can, too! I went the cold turkey route, and I slept a lot the first couple of days.
After 20 something years of smoking, I quit about 2 months ago. I was hanging out with some smoker friends on Friday night, and thought I’d have a cigarette. I knew it was a mistake, but I didn’t care.
That one cigarette made me violent ill. I had to lie down, cold sweats, super nausea. I couldn’t believe it. I was once Super Smoker! Once I recovered from that, it didn’t bother me at all that everyone else was smoking. Not an ounce of jealousy about it. Just goes to show you how poisonous smoking really is.
I am finally Done Smoking. You can do it too!
Raaaawr…it’s the middle of the work day. Usually by now I’d have had about 5 cigarettes and would be groovin’ on the Dope while I took a few minutes out from coding.
Instead, just groovin’ on the Dope and squeezing my Dwight Schrute Stress Ball, and trying to work.
Also, in a sort of happy turn of events, I managed to drop a glass right inside my office door and it shattered into a million pieces, forcing me to vacuum the entire office (wood floor with a large throw rug). Vacuuming the office was something I meant to do anyway, as it seems to be the smokiest room in the house. So, I got that done. Hurrah!
Is that called serendipidity?