From this thread :
Thank you, don’t ask, for your suggestion and your kind restraint. 
Since you were so nice, I will give the rest of you a chance to have your say without hijacking the other thread.
I’ve been thinking of trying Chantix , actually, as recommended by my family practitioner’s PA.
I quit cold turkey. It was damn hard and it took me a bunch of tries but I did it.
Haven’t smoked in 18 years. Still a great decision.
Well done, my friend. I have made numerous attempts over the years and tried several different methods. None stuck…yet.
More than anything, I’m convinced the psychological addiction is way harder to break than the physical one. But maybe that’s just me. I’m still trying to really want to.
Here is my thread on quitting. I’ve not had one since I quit on Jan 23.
Although I have had bad constipation and unholy, thoroughly offensive gas since quitting too!
Apparently thats normal and should clear up soon.
Of course you should quit!
In just a few minutes I will hit my twenty day mark. I smoked over twenty years. This is the second time I have tried to quit and I have a feeling this time will stick.
I have enjoyed my Silkquit meter (It’s a small free download. I think it’s found on silkquit. org or net) mostly because it shows me just how much money I’ve saved. Over a hundred dollars so far. I am a major cheapskate so it’s nice to see just how much I’m saving. I was in major denial.
I did it cold turkey too, but I used my Allen Carr Easy Way to Stop Smoking book and I really didn’t have too much trouble with cravings. I had a few headaches and I probably gained a few pounds the first week on pretzels and candy canes but I definitely think it’s the pyschological part that’s the hardest. There is so much ritual involved with smoking, or it was for me. I’m having to learn to make new rituals, and some of them don’t satisfy in the way smoking did. So I just have to learn to not be satisfied so much. It’s all in my head anyway.
I really recommend that book.
I made it through my first argument tonight without smoking. I would say it was a major accomplishment but honestly I didn’t even think of smoking. It was hours ago and I’m just now realizing I didn’t even think about grabbing a smoke. That’s a pretty nifty realization!
Anyway enough about me… YES quit!
Thanks for the link! Lots of Chantix people out there. If I can manage to get it, I’m hoping it helps. In the meantime, I’m gonna start psyching myself up for it again.
I don’t like the idea of constipation, but the offensive gas is not a problem. I’m notoriously offensive as a norm. :o
I don’t know why everyone says it’s the psychological stuff–for me, it was the nicotine, plan and simple. It calmed me down and also kept me alert, smoothed out my rough edges without compromising my mental acuity. I honestly think nicotine is the most amazing drug in the world, but people don’t realize how much it affects them because the effects are subtle. You aren’t just feeling crappy because of withdrawing, you are feeling crappy because nicotine makes you feel good and you have to learn a new “normal”. But maybe I am the freak about this: nicotine seems to have worked with my brain chemistry particularly well.
The patch worked a treat for me–I only ever tried to quit once, and the main reason for that is that it was so awful I couldn’t stand the thought of redoing it. At the time I promised myself I could stay on the patch for the rest of my life if I had to, but I was never going to smoke again. I managed to get off the patch on schedule, but knowing I didn’t have to the way I HAD to quit smoking helped.
The biggest suprise to me was that the cravings don’t get ANY less intense with time, they just get further apart. So at first the super-intense cravings are all the time, then every few minutes, every few hours, now I am at every few years, but when they hit, they hit as hard as ever. So you can’t ever really let your guard down. For some reason I didn’t expect that and I felt cheated or something.
Nicotine is powerful stuff… when airborne (i.e., in smoke) it passes through the Blood-Brain Barrier, and activates nicotinic receptors which are all over the central and peripheral nervous system… in turn, this causes stimulation at the neuro-muscular junction, increased heart rate, respiration, etc… The psychological addiction is two-fold, not only adjustment to the physical sensations, but perhaps more powerful is the conditioning and timing of smoking - we become habituated to behavioral patterns that include the reward of the nicotine (not to mention a 5-minute break every 1-2 hours).
Personally I quit cold turkey many many moons ago, but I still consider myself a smoker. I haven’t had one in nearly 2 decades, and have no desire to pick one up. However, after I choked down 1-2 cigs and got over the nausea, I would likely be smoking a pack-a-day starting tomorrow.
Obviously you should quit.
My mother, who was a hardcore smoker with a bad-assed attitude about the ridiculous concept of “smoker’s rights”, finally used Chantix and it seems to have worked. In fact, she didn’t need it as long as the doctor suggested. She did quit a number of times before and got all cranky, but this went pretty smoothly.
It wasn’t the fact that the grandkids wouldn’t hug her because of the stench that convinced her or that none of us wanted to go to her house or the fact that she was so addicted she’d get up in the middle of a restaurant meal to have a smoke or that cigarette prices are rising rapidly or that her kids love to mention that we never had enough clothes or other things that everyone else had but she had to have her cigarettes. It was the chest pains that made her quit.
I guess there are a lot of reasons to quit.
[Dice]
I been smokin’ 20 years.
My lung feels great.
[/Dice]
I kicked a 30+ year habit at the age of 47, and I would not have been able to do it without Chantix. I’d tried everything else multiple times and always been a basket case within a week, but Chantix made it amazingly easy for me. The only side effect I had was a tiny bit of nausea that lasted for about 10 minutes after taking each dose. The effect was really interesting; I just stopped caring about smoking and preferred to do other things.
I’ve been de-nicotined for 14 months now and I actually enjoy not smoking. I expected that I might be able to tolerate being a nonsmoker, but I genuinely like it. I have no cravings for a smoke at all, not even when I walk past a smoker outside the grocery store. My husband (another ex-smoker) and I just grin at each other as we walk by. (No, not derisively, just happily.)
Yeah, I think you should quit, but it’s not what I think that matters. Like Caricci said, there are a lot of reasons to quit, and yours are going to be unique to you. I watched my father die of smoking-related lung cancer, and it didn’t make me quit. What finally made me do it was the realization that I was a slave to the tobacco companies (and to the government, which in my state has based a large portion of its budget on cigarette taxes). Being an ornery cuss finally worked in my favor.
I finally quit using Chantix. I haven’t had a cig since June, I think. Sometimes, like last night, I just really wish I could have a smoke. Ninety-nine percent of the time I don’t even think about smoking, but yeah I have moments when I still miss it and I imagine that sweet release that comes with that first drag… But I play it out in my mind. I know without a doubt that, just like **phungi ** I’d have to suck down the first two, I wouldn’t actually get the sweet release I desire, and within nanoseconds I’d be back to a pack a day.
Don’t be afraid. I honestly did not find that my life was that much harder to deal with while I was using the Chantix. And it’s no better or worse now that I’m not smoking. If you’re like me, you just will not have the cravings (and I did have really uncomfortable cravings on the patch and cold turkey). You can still take a break from things without cigarettes. You can still breathe deeply and exhale slowly. You can still go outside when you need to for a few minutes. You can still agressively chew gum instead of blowing smoke (ok, maybe that’s just me).
When I have times like last night, I think of my recovering alcoholic/drug addict friends and know that they still have those times when they’re driving home from work and man, wouldn’t a hit be fucking awesome right now? They have learned to cope with those cravings and desires, and I can learn to cope with the desire for a cigarette.
Don’t be afraid. It’s really not as bad as you think it’s going to be. In fact, I bet you have the same reaction to the Chantix as I did, and it’ll be cake! You don’t have anything to loose and a lot to gain.
I’ve posted it elsewhere, but I’m always glad to encourage someone to quit smoking. I quit once only, 16 years ago this May, and have never taken another puff. I used the nicotine gum, which seemed to work for me. Also, I made myself sick smoking so much in my last half hour, from 11:30pm to midnight, midnight being my deadline for quitting smoking. Puff puff puff, 11:40. Puff puff puff, 11:42. Etc. I think I must have looked green come midnight.
I finally dropped a twenty-seven year habit in the summer of 2001, after about the 500th time five-year old Michaela put her hands on my knees and said “Daddy, why do you want to die?”
Manda Jo is right about the continuing cravings, though.
Grats to everyone who has quit and stayed-quit! I admire all of you.
I quit smoking during the pregnancies of both my children and :smack: myself for taking it back up shortly thereafter. It’s like phungi and others said, once you partake in the first and second cigarette, it’s all downhill from there. Both times, I quit cold-turkey but I had a very good reason to (and the first time smoking actually made me sick). The few times since then I’ve tried to go cold-turkey, panic sets in – sometimes even before the last cigarette is done. It’s TOTALLY mental. I can go a few hours without a cigarette at times, and other times, it makes really, really cranky. I detect a little bit of a worry in SO’s eye when I mention that I’m thinking of quitting again. I can be such a beast.
I read the Allen Carr book. Maybe it’s just me but the only thing I got out of it was the urge to hunt him down and smack him upside the head repeatedly. Maybe I was just being bull-headed because I hadn’t had a cigarette while reading it.
I’ve also tried hypnotherapy. I felt really good after the session and was given a tape of it to replay whenever I had the urge. I think I listened to it once before losing it (on purpose maybe?). Somehow, the tape did nothing for me.
I’ve registered at Stop Smoking websites and the people there bored me.
The PA got me thinking, though. I went in due to fluid in my ear canals that just wouldn’t clear out after a really bad cold. My sinuses have been completely fucked up for about 4 months now and I’m miserable just about 24 hours a day. I cough up the most heinous things and, for the first time in my life, I get regular nose bleeds. My Kleenex habit is becoming about as expensive as my cigarette habit and I fear being anywhere without a tissue.
The PA said, “You wouldn’t be here right now if you weren’t smoking.” Then he handed me a Chantix packet. I’m really getting sick of having defective sinuses (they always feel full and I have a perpetual low-grade sinus headache). Sometimes, I wish I could just stick my head in a vice and be done with the constant, nagging discomfort.
Plus, I’m now distinctly aware of how I smell because there’s a guy that comes in to my office everyday reeking of cigarettes. He’s only there for a few minutes, but it’s enough to make me gag and wish him out of there ASAP. I haven’t missed the irony of that one. I’m sure my non-smoking coworkers can smell him (and me) from a mile away and everyone’s still smelling until a few minutes after he’s left the building. Ewww!
For anyone that’s still reading this, this is actually helping. Part of the psyching up process for me is verbalizing (to someone) all the nasty shit I hate about smoking. Right now, I’m doing my best to forget all the tired, old justifications for smoking that I usually make.
I’m still not looking forward to it, but to stop trying to want to quit would just be too dumb.
Oh, cool, my friend did that. She went out in the backyard, sat on a chair and chain-smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. She threw up more than once, but kept going until she was done. She successfully quit several years ago. I’ve only seen her have a cigarette once recently, but she only made it about two puffs in before she was gagging and threw it out.
I shudder.
Ugh. I know this pain. My daughter asks me, “Why do you keep doing something you know is bad? Can you tell me one good thing about smoking?”
Yeah. They all sound pretty lame when you’re saying it to your nine-year-old kid.
I grew up breathing my father’s 3 pack-a-day smoke (he worked at home, too). I smoked for ten years, myself.
A year ago, despite no family history of it, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Did you know that passive smoking and smoking are significant risk factors for BC? I didn’t.
Please, for your children’s sake, if not for your own, decide to stop forever. From the very first moment you truly decide, you will be an ex-smoker! When you get tempted, remember that you’re an ex-smoker, so those urges you might have don’t apply to you anymore. Once you’ve truly decided, it’s not as hard as you think. Set the example for them that you want them to emulate.
My parents were both heavy smokers. 3 packs of Camels every day or more. My dad made it all the way to 53 before his lungs were useless. He had 1/2 of one removed and his ability to function never came back. Horrible death. Barely knew his grandchildren.
My mother had emphysema . She just grew weaker and less physically able to function ,year after year. They both had huge regrets. They felt guilty for making my brother and me suck in smoke for years.