Poll For Those Of You Who Have Quit Smoking

In My Humble Opinion
61

I am trying to help myself by asking others how they cope:

  1. Were you a heavy (1 pack cigs or more a day) smoker?

  2. How long has it been since you quit?

  3. What caused you to quit?

  4. Do you still crave tobacco and smoking?

  5. If you do still crave, how often do you think about it?

  6. If you do still crave, what helps you get over it?

  7. Do you feel that you may someday fall off the wagon?

  8. No–during finals in college I could get up to a pack a day. I also never rolled out of bed and had a cigarette. I deliberately put artificial restrictions on my habit to make quitting easier. I started smoking after lunch usually. I found this did help me quit in the long run.

  9. 20 years

  10. Cost and desire to quit. (I said I’d quit when cigs went to a buck a pack–they did and I did. This was 1986).

  11. sometimes I still want to–it’s not a craving. I was rail thin when I smoked and I’d like to be rail thin again… I don’t crave the stench or the lack of lung power.

  12. does not apply

  13. does not apply

  14. Dunno. I did try to smoke (my brand) once in a bar about 10 years ago–but my throat closed up and I started to cough horribly, as if I’d never smoked in my life. My whole body rejected the smoke. So, I guess not.

62

  1. Were you a heavy (1 pack cigs or more a day) smoker?
    Yes, a little over a pack a day

  2. How long has it been since you quit?
    2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 20 hours ago

  3. What caused you to quit?
    Everything about it. I was starting to smoke more and more and craving them even more; I was wheezing a lot and I just couldn’t afford them anymore.

  4. Do you still crave tobacco and smoking?
    Yes, and I had a little crash a few days ago. I smoked two cigarettes. I promptly threw up and spent the rest of the night dog sick. I haven’t had a craving since.

  5. If you do still crave, how often do you think about it?
    No more than I keep catching myself thinking “time for coffee and a…oh wait I don’t smoke anymore.” I really hadn’t had any cravings before my stumble. I don’t know what got into me.

  6. If you do still crave, what helps you get over it?
    It’s not so much the physical cravings as it is learning to do something else without replacing cigarettes with another bad habit. I know I’ve gained a few pounds from snacking in the past two months.
    I guess what’s helped me the most is that Silkquit meter. I feel good seeing how much time I’ve added to my life but I LOVE watching my money savings grow. I can’t believe I’ve already saved four hundred dollars. That’s a fortune to someone like me and I don’t know how I ever found the money for smokes in the first place!

  7. Do you feel that you may someday fall off the wagon?
    I might since I know I slipped once already, but I’m not going to give this up even if I do. Someone told me I need to start over my quit meter the other day but I think not. I still quit 2 months ago, even with this slip.
    Besides if it makes me as sick as it did the other day I don’t think I ever want to smoke again. I also noticed it felt weird in my mouth…the filter felt too fat and the taste was like ashtray. I never thought of a cigarette tasting like an ashtray before.
    Besides I have so much energy! How can I give all that up again for an old unhealthy habit?

63

Former pipe smoker here, who also wants to play

  1. Were you a heavy (1 pack cigs or more a day) smoker?
    Smoked for 20 years. When I quit, i was up to a pack of pipe tobacco a day, sometimes a bit more.

  2. How long has it been since you quit?
    19 years

  3. What caused you to quit?
    My son, who was then six, asked me to quit smoking, no doubt due to information he’d picked up in anti-smoking campaigns at school or on the tube

  4. Do you still crave tobacco and smoking?
    No. But for a year or so, I would occasionally dream about it, and I still enjoy the occasional whiff when i pass someone who’s smoking, but it does not even faintly tempt me anymore.

  5. If you do still crave, how often do you think about it?
    N/A

  6. If you do still crave, what helps you get over it?
    N/A

  7. Do you feel that you may someday fall off the wagon?
    Not in the slightest

Let me add a bit of information about when i did quit. I mentioned it to a co-worker who demanded that I bring him all my pipes and tobacco and we threw them into a dumpster. And it was just before we were going on a vacation. I chomped Juicyfruit for a few days, and when we got home, all the pipes were gone, and i never did start up again. About a year later, i did smoke one cigar when my brother’s son was born. He turns 18 in August.

Was it easy? NO. Part of the problem with a pipe smoker quitting is that we enjoy all the fussing with our hands around the pipe: Getting out the pipe, getting out the tobacco, packing it just right, lighting it, maybe tamping again and relighting. And when not smoking, we could be cleaning the pipe with a pipe cleaner or reaming the bowl, or polishing the briar. Endless tactile fun.

But at some point, your hands get busy with the rest of life (A computer keyboard will keep them hopping) and the desire fades and fades into eventual nothing. At least that was my experience.

Good luck. Your doctor and your family will thank you.

64
  1. Yes
  2. A couple years
  3. I have young kids - I’d like to live long enough to see them grown and have families of their own.
  4. No, I don’t really crave tobacco. Sometimes when I drink I do, though.
  5. I think about smoking a couple times a week.
  6. The longer I stay quit, the cravings become less frequent and shorter in duration.
  7. I fall off the wagon several times a year, and don’t worry too much about it. I get a little ashamed coming home smelling like cigarettes but my wonderful missus never hassells me about it. I know - you’re going to say if I still smoke - even occassionally - I haven’t really quit, and maybe you’re right. I’d say about six times a year I’ll got out and drink beers and smoke a a couple cigarettes. But to be honest this works for me and I’ve been able to stay under that addiction theshold (which is key).

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65

  1. Two-pack a day, Newports. Occasional one-pack a day clove smoker.

  2. 8 years and a few months.

  3. I was sick of being held in thrall by a plant; I wanted to assert self-control.

  4. No, oddly enough. I do still occasionally dream that I’m smoking, and in my dream I’m aghast at myself-- “why the hell am I doing this?!”

  5. I’ll discuss this and 6 in regards to the short while that I did still crave. Probably every few hours, when it was my usual “smoke time.” Breaks and lunches at work, upon waking up, after sex, after a meal.

  6. Understanding that smoking that cigarette was equivalent to me having no self-control. Smoking a cigarette was an admission that I was weak, and couldn’t keep a promise to myself, etc. Also knowing that I was injuring my pets if I smoked around them; the smoke gets in their fur/feathers, and when they preen, they basically injest poison. Not cool.

  7. No. By the time I quit, I was really fed up with smoking. Better health, better tasting food, better smells. I can be around smokers without wanting to also light up.

66
  1. Were you a heavy (1 pack cigs or more a day) smoker?
  2. How long has it been since you quit?
  3. What caused you to quit?
  4. Do you still crave tobacco and smoking?
  5. If you do still crave, how often do you think about it?
  6. If you do still crave, what helps you get over it?
  7. Do you feel that you may someday fall off the wagon?
  8. No - maybe 1/2 to 3/4 pack/day, for 8 years
  9. 7 years
  10. Always had wanted to…was getting married and my wife to-be, while she had not pressured me to quit, never really liked it. Would have had to eventually, anyway(personally did not want to be a smoker if had kids from a health (theirs) and “set an example” perspective
    4/5. Not really - maybe on the occassional cool damp day with a good beer buzz (see #7)
  11. The “crave” is more like a distant longing, not really a crave, more like a memory of why I enjoyed cigarettes and started smoking in the first place
  12. No…but I have smoked on very rare occasions since I quit. I would not recommend that to anyone as others I know fell off the wagon thinking they could do the same and not get hooked again.

My strategy to quit: started weening down to the least amount I could stand (mine was 4 cigs per day - one after each meal and before bed). Kept at that level for a few weeks (helped establish that I could exert some self-control), then stopped. When the cravings got too bad substituted - had a few non-nicotine herbal cigarettes to satisy the habit (these are gross, BTW), then started chewing/sucking on straws. Prayed a lot for help as well :slight_smile: The first week was very bad, the second not too bad, and after that it really went away.