OK, its New Years, so I have resolutions. One is to quit smoking. So, how should I do it, because just force of will doesnt seem to work (4th of the month and alreday cheated six times). Anyone here managed to actually quit?
Four days so far. (I’d cheer for myself, but I’m having trouble getting a good, deep breath.)
Mr. K’s Link of the Month:
I made it till about five-thirty p.m. on the second. Since then, I’ve been through nearly four packs of cigarettes.
I went to a site mentioned in one of the MPSIMS threads, www.quitnet.org … online support group, a thing to help you set a quit date, and a printable calendar to help keep you on track, among other things. Go see if it’s for you.
“Wednesday the 15th - Chris made one of her rare good points today.”
Guanolad
I recommend ‘cold turkey.’ Works for me twenty, thirty times a day!
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…
T
I have been off of cigarettes for two years now. My motivation was that my wife was hospitalized twice in six months with bronchitis (sp?)made worse by second hand smoke. Since I stopped smoking, she has not suffered from bronchitis. But, I did use the patch for a little over a month. You can quit, believe me. You will be pretty uncomfortable for a couple of weeks but that will pass. You will probably notice that your friends who smoke will try to keep you smoking. Don’t listen to them, you can do it and it is worth it. I smoked for better than forty years—think of the beer money I burned up.
Crystalguy
Sixteen days now…actually I got an upper respiratory infection the week of Christmas…and it burned my lungs up to smoke…believe me I tried to force that smoke in…then I took a good look at myself and asked what was I doing???..so after 27 years of smoking…I stopped…it’s hard…I still have cravings…decreasing each day…
“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda
Heh, I gave up simply enough when I got divorced. I ended up on Prozac, sleeping pills and beta-blockers - and do you know that all of this meant I could handle the mood swings, depression, and sleeplessness giving up smoking did to me?
Seriously, I wanted to get something out of this bad patch, and I knew what going ‘cold turkey’ was like from previous experience. So when my mental state got to needing all that medication, I was determined to get something else out of it. That was pretty affirming.
Also, I ate an apple every time I wanted a cigarette (have to be careful not to say ‘fag’) and that helped too.
I actually quit for seven YEARS and started smoking again. So maybe it’s not just a matter of addiction, but also of thought patterns.
Quitting was, for me, not all that hard. Oh, it was a bummer, and I got tense and sleepy and occasionnaly freaky. But (hang on a sec while I light up a butt) I on the whole I enjoyed the withdrawal process – as strange as that sounds.
You see, it has been recently documented that smoking relieves depression. New medication such as Zyban and Wellbutrin can substitute for the anti-depressant effect of nicotine. But in the absence of that knowledge, I smoked to make myself feel better. Some people say they smoke “to relax”, but I always smoked to “energize”.
I suspect that many people “self-medicate” themselves with nicotine for various reasons. They may say they “enjoy” the smoke, or like the taste (and frankly, I do), but the bottom line is the buzz.
I quit smoking at a point in my life when things were going fine and I felt super. Oh, yeah, I did go through a process of deprogramming (such as flushing a pack of cigs down the toilet ever day), but I doubt that would have worked if my mood wasn’t right.
I’ve heard it said that nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I don’t know about that. It is certainly more available, and cheaper.
I lapsed back into smoking because it makes me feel better. It will probably kill me in the long term. But on a day-to-day basis, it helps me cope. As such, it is indeed a tempting demon.
If you want to quit, all I can suggest is what I did when I did my seven-year stretch: program yourself to make smoking horrid. Make yourself loathe it. When you go into withdrawal, concentrate on how nice it feels to NOT want a cig every minute when you’re not craving.
Brave words from somebody who went back to the weed. So let me give you one last warning: if you DO quit, don’t ever EVER take another puff. That’s what got me going again. Addiction is insidious, and you are never cured. After seven years of absintence, I had a smoke “just to be sure that I was over it”. Heck, I didn’t enjoy it. But the next day, I bought a pack, and the rest is history.
Call me an idiot and I’ll agree with you. But I hope that some of what I’ve said has been helpful.
Are you educated, erudite and maybe a bit eccentric?
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My Uncle looks like the freaking Penguin from the old “Batman” series, sucking on this plastic stem that delivers nicotine into his mouth. HOWEVER- the drug is the drug, and the other chemical evils associated with actually smoking are gone. He’s addicted. At least he can taste food again, after over 40 years of diminished smell and taste senses. He has zero interest in trying to kick the addiction, and screwing with his mind. He just didn’t want the SMOKE in his life.
Try one of those thingys. It also solves the oral fixation/craving in a way that no patch can. Just a thought from an athsmatic in the family…
Cartooniverse
" If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel. "
AvenueB-dude, get yourself some kind of support group. I did a real world one; some people do an online one. Whatever works for you. It really, really helps to be able to talk to people who are going through the same thing, and who can help you think through “trigger” situations (for me, dinner with mom) and figure out how to handle them before they happen.
I used the patch, and I know that some people have had good results with Zyban. Again, whatever works for you. If your doctor is supportive of your effort (mine wasn’t; I have a new one now), talk to them about it.
Best of luck! Let us know how you do.
Correction - nicotine withdrawal causes depression; although if you start out depressed nicotine will probably help a bit, the main thing is that smoking will make you a lot more depressed when you are in withdrawal than you would have ever been if you had never smoked. (And when does withdrawal start? 24 hours after smoking stops? 2 hours? 30 minutes?) Get an anti-depressant - why punish yourself?
I’ve never smoked but I did quit caffeine a few years back. There’s a thread in MPSIMS where I discussed this a little bit more but:
- Make a list of one or more reasons to quit that you can actually feel.
- spend some time hating the cigarrettes for the reasons that you have listed.
- After you quit, enjoy the advantages of not smoking - find new ones in addition to the ones on your list.
…in a state so nonintuitive it can only be called weird…
I quit 20 years ago using nicorette gum. It really worked for me…however it is rather hard on your jaw and teeth and you are still getting the nicotine but just substitute regular gum after about 6 weeks.
I quit the first time when I had a bad cold. Lasted about a year. Had one, then two, then…back to two packs a day.
Quit again several years later and this time it stuck. That was about 26 years ago.
Cold turkey both times.
It can be done, but it isn’t easy by any means.
First, you have to accept that it is hard to quit and that it is going to continue to be hard–you will have occasional cravings for ciggarettes the rest of your life. it is nothing you can’t deal with, but don’t go into quiting thinking that after a rough couple weeks it will be smooth sailing. Prepare yourself for a continous battle. It will get better, but more slowly than it ought to, and you will have days when the desire for a ciggarette comes out of no where and takes you by the throat and it is almost more than you can bear. Be prepared for these–if they suprise you you will give in.
Second tip: You know you are going to have to quit eventually, so after the first three weeks or so, tell yourself that you don’t want to “waste” all the suffering you have already undergone; I’ve quit for a year now, and I know that if I were to start smoking today the me that sat in the shower sobbing for a ciggarette would travel thru time just to kick my ass for making all that meaningless.
Another thing–brag to everyone you know that you are quiting–you boss, distant relatives, the mailman, your waitress. Then, if you start smoking again all these people will know what a weak minded spineless wimp you are. Fear of being seen as such really does help.
You have to make it a clean break: Throw out all your ashtrays, (give the cool ones to friends who still smoke) get rid of your lighters, etc. When you find odd ciggarrettes stashed places, immediatly, before you can think about it, shread them up and throw them away. Make sure they are unsmokable, or they will sing to you froom the trashcan.
The patch worked wonders for me. I would recomend you try it and stay on it for as long as you need. Be prepared, however–when the patch comes off you go into nicotine withdrawl again and it is harsh. If, at that point you feel you just can’t stand it, go back on the patch, not back on ciggarettes.
Finally, remember that lung cancer does not just kill old geezers. I have watched two people die of it, rather horribly, in the last year. They were 47 and 49–and I realized that I wanted to live long enough to see my retirement.
Thanks to everyone. I am going on the patch. I’ll let you all know what happens.
This wasn’t my experience, I came off the patch and was fine. Then again, I did start smoking again six months later 
Wish me luck, I’m doing the cold turkey thing again.
whatever you do, do not go to china.
i had quit for a while before i went. and china got me started again.
pow. CHEAP cigarettes, smoking allowed everywhere, and people offering them to you left and right are hard things to fight.
what is essential is invisible to the eye -the fox
All of the above is good advice. The biggest thing I foun was that you have to have a reason to quit, you have to really want to do it.
My reason was to try to get my 18 year old daughter to quit, so far I’m the only one who has.
Make you plans, if you use the patch buy a pack a couple of weeks before you plan to quit, and read the instructions.
There is help at www.silkquit.org
I just made it past a year now, and once in a while I do get cravings, but more than anything else, it just smells nasty to me now. After stopping smoking, and cutting down caffeine, I don’t use as many Tums as I did, either.
Look below to see the benefits of quitting, and remember that smokes have gone up in price since I quit, too!
One year, six days, 9 hours, 1 minute and 56 seconds. 12998 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,754.75. Life saved: 6 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 10 minutes.
I smoked for 10 years until this past Thanksgiving, when my fiancee and I quit together. We both went on Wellbutrin twice a day. We’ve been smoke free ever since. Yes, we have the occasional cravings, but it hasn’t been too bad, to be honest.
I expected quitting to be a major pain. But honestly, it hasn’t been too bad. You can do it.
“I never lie, but I don’t always say what I’m thinking.”
ENC Heel