Well, so far I have failed miserably! And I’m putting off re-trying for a couple of days because I need to be clear-headed for the next couple of days (proofreading our new book…).
But I WILL quit, dammit! I may order that book that someone (Stoid?) recommended in the other thread.
Grats to all of you who are doing it though! I will join you!
One month and 5 days.
Day three:
I’m feeling really great! Still coughing…which I am happy with, and still having very strange dreams.
For those that are doing well: keep up the good work!
For those that crumbled a bit: don’t beat yourself up. Think about why you lit up…figure out how you can avoid that the next time you quit. I was pretty sure I could not do this cold turkey (despite Alan Carr) so I am using the patch. I plan on not using the patch starting Friday. I think timing is a huge part of quitting, and making it painless. (Like anyone asked what I thought!)
Good Luck to Everyone!
If anyone’s forgotten how much it sucks to be a smoker yet, I’m coughing up black shit on a regular basis and don’t ever feel like there’s enough oxygen in the world for me to get my share. I coughed until the point of puking last night, and then lit a cigarette because I ‘needed’ one. You don’t want to be me again.
Well, I had my last one at about 4 am on Sunday morning but didn’t throw the rest of the pack away. My mistake. Friends visiting last night, drinks flowing. I held out until about 11:00 but just had to have one. Ended up being two. :rolleyes:
I threw the rest of the pack out this morning. Why did I keep those things?
So I’m back to day one.
Two days, 14 hours, 24 minutes and 23 seconds. 31 cigarettes not smoked, saving $7.14. Life saved: 2 hours, 35 minutes.
Hold me.
Well, I’d been putting off posting in here, because I caved yesterday. Today, though, I’ve been up for a good while, and strangely, I don’t even feel like I want one. Occasionally it’ll sort of flash through my mind: “I’ll smoke a cigarette, then I’ll go to the store,” but then equally quickly I think, “Oh yeah, I don’t smoke anymore.” And besides, when I think about it, I really hate cigarettes. The smell, the taste, etc. For me, at least, it was more of a psycho-motor addiction, the addicition to the mechanics of smoking: having something to do with my hands, something to put in my mouth, etc.
Anyway, I’m a couple days behind y’all, but feeling pretty good.
Oh, so I should have posted this here…
For anyone struggling, for anyone whose fondest wish is to feel about smoking and cigarettes the way you felt about them before you were a smoker, who wants to quit as painlessly as it is probably possible to do so. read this life-saving book .
I stopped smoking after 26 years, 2-3 packs a day. It was 2 years ago September. No patch, no gum, no drugs. Read this book , and it can save your life and your sanity, too. The most important and powerful thing it did for me is change the way I think about smoking, so I wouldn’t be so tortured about it. I didn’t want to be angry, tense, unhappy, feel deprived, miss them, want them, grit my teeth so I could stand going without them, and I really didn’t want to still be missing them 6 months or 5 years later. Thanks to that book, I did not experience any of that. All I experienced was pure relief and happiness that my imprisonment was over. And my entire life changed after that, becoming better on every front.
Read other people’s comments. If you want to be ** free of wanting to smoke ** , get it, read it, trust it, and do it. It works.
Good luck.
stoid
Joyful non-smoker
Life is good.
On Day 3, no problemo here!
Congrats Hastur! I think you will be a complete success.
Astroboy Don’t worry, you can start stopping again. You didn’t fail, you had a temporary set back that you can learn from. Don’t let that be an issue with you.
Same with you **Velvet ** and jackelope you can stop again.
Jorel see that trip to Disney World yet? 
Two days, 20 hours, 6 minutes and 43 seconds. 113 cigarettes not smoked, saving $14.19. Life saved: 9 hours, 25 minutes.
I need to add to my meter how many sunflower seeds I have eaten, sheesh.
Whoo hoooo
Three days, 0 minutes and 40 seconds. 120 cigarettes not smoked, saving $15.00. Life saved: 10 hours, 0 minutes.
Not an issue at all… I screwed up, I know it, I can start again.
I won a $150 bet with two co-workers a few years ago… the bet? Who could stop smoking the longest. I won (1 month… don’t know why I started again! Foolish!). So I know I can do it!
And I will… in a couple of days. After this next orgy of work is over, and I can afford to be spacey for a few days.
Grats to all of you who are doing it! I envy you; you’ve already gotten past the worst part!
Is anyone else’s heart rate plummeting? For years, my normal resting heart rate has been about 78. Now, after one day, it’s plunged to about 54 (9 x 6 = 54, right?).
I recall the last time I had any success quitting. After one day, my blood pressure, usually in the “normal” range, had fallen to something ridiculously (dangerosly?) low. I’m thinking it was like 80 over 50 or something, but don’t recall specifically. I just remember checking it and being astonished.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
I haven’t checked my heart rate or blod pressure, but mine are probably still high since I’m using the nicotene gum.
I have noticed that I was coughing up a lot more lung butter the first day but now it seems to have leveled off. Things smell stronger, which usually means worse. My smoking friends’ breath smells like fecal matter now. When I woke up this morning I didn’t feel like the smoke fairy wiped her ass on my tongue. It was nice.
I gotta get to bed tonight without bumming a smoke from my roommate. I know that by having that one smoke a night I’m just keeping my addiction alive.
I am more emotional but not incredibly so. I can deal with the negative emotions of my job without having to run away to smoke. Or so I tell myself.
I stayed out of this thread for a while, mainly because I now consider myself a non-smoker. Have gone without the evil weed since May 1, and am totally craving free (just the occasional twinge, which is easily ignored). Have been since a week after quitting.
So now I’ve scanned through this, not as it was happening, but after the fact, like it was a short story, or a historical document.
And I smile, because after three days, you people are realizing that you can do it and you are doing it and you’re feeling the benefits already, and the cravings are really not as bad as you thought they’d be. A lot of it is changing habits, finding different things for your hands to do, and appreciating your strength, resolve, the good feelings you’re giving yourselves.
techchick, I read your post about your fears for your health, and I felt sad. I wanted to tell you not to worry, it doesn’t do any good anyway, just plow ahead and stick to your resolve. Now I see you celebrating your triumph, and I know you’re never going back. I can feel the joy in your posts now. I celebrate with you. And I’ve never met you, and I’m not hitting on you, but I love you. You’re one helluva person.
You are all wonderful people. Now that you’ve broken the chains, you’ll see how strong you will remain. And you’ll wonder why you ever started smoking and why you didn’t quit sooner.
You’ll do this. I did. We will be smoke-free together.
That was me. And it does help. I find it very cool that even nonsmoking strangers are proud of people who try to quit. I also think that the more you say it the more you reinforce it in your own psyche. It just makes you feel so great to say things like, “nonsmoking section, please.” 
Different things work for different people. Some people find the book to be useless. Others swear by it. Still others do various combinations of things. What matters is that you are not smoking. Be very careful about going off the patch at this early stage (I’m an ex-patcher, so you see my loyalty showing; I have no stock in the company). The patch is designed to be used as a weaning method, and like going off medications for other things (antibiotics/antipsychotics) before you have taken them for a full course or too abruptly. . . you are playing a dangerous game. If it is easier with the patch, why change methods?
Smoking cessation being unbearably difficult makes for good “poor me” stories and excuses to go back to smoking. It doesn’t always have to be that way (however, I realize that sometimes it just is). Do whatever works for you. One way is not better than any other way. Smoking cessation is the goal . . . any which way you can.
Yes, people will quit in their own time. But some people tend to put it off to the point where it is psychologically more difficult than it would have been if they just gave it a good shot, no matter what the circumstances. People can rationalize a great many things. I’m thinking that a good time to quit may be exactly the time when things seem really sucky. It is a way to reclaim some power in your life. There are so many things we have no control over; putting a cigarette in our mouths, consciously lighting and smoking it, is one of the things we absolutely have control over.
I know I’m not the Queen of the Ex-Smokers, and really I am not as cocky as I am sounding. In the scheme of things, I have only been quit for a short time [smoked 28 years about 2 packs a day; 1 year 1 month no smoking]. I still worry that I will be tempted to “just smoke one,” which is most often deadly (hah) to any ex-smoker. Believe me, I do not fancy* having to go through the quitting process all over again, so that in itself keeps me from just trying one. Please know that if I appear to come on strong it is because this is such a big deal to me. I hopped the fence out of Lurkdom to participate in techchick68’s first thread about smoking.
I’m new at the virtual hug thing, but I’ll give it a try: {{eunoia}}
Good luck everyone.
*See what this thread is doing to me?!?! I have never before used the word fancy in a sentence, written or spoken, unless in combination with the noun pants or the elusive schmancy . . .
techchick68 , it is common for different people to have very different withdrawal symptoms, ranging from extreme to mild, or almost non-existent. This can even vary from one quit to another with the same person. Also, I noticed you mentioned your ADD, my husband also has ADD and quit smoking, it happened that the medication he was on for ADD helped his quit. You may or may not be experiencing this, you didn’t say if you are on medication, but the stop-smoking drug marketed as Zyban is the same thing as Welbutrin, which I know some ADD sufferers take. Either way, it sounds like you are well on your way! I had an easier time than a friend of mine too, everyone is different.
As far as needing less sleep, that is not in your head, it is absolutely true that smokers need, on average, an hour more sleep than non-smokers (in literature my Dr. gave me, I will try to find an on-line link). I also used to need 9 or more hours, now I am chipper with 7-8, and much more of a morning person!
Hey everyone, you are doing so great! It’s funny what you discover about yourself and your body when you quit smoking. I went on a long hike in the hills recently and was amazed how easy it was! The coughing up stuff has long stopped, my allergies are better, my teeth are whiter.
A side note, I don’t want to discourage anyone, but it is also possible to discover health problems when you quit smoking that were hidden before. A co-worker discovered she had asthma after she quit…turns out that cigarettes have a chemical in them that opens up your bronchial tubes, just like an inhaler…smoking actually “helped” her temporarily breathe as it made it more difficult over time. This chemical enables the nicotine to get to your blood faster, giving you that rush…scary, huh? If anyone is experiencing symptoms that make them nervous, visit a doctor and get checked out (the bonus is you won’t get lectured anymore:) )
Lecture over, I am so excited for you all and for fun, will dig out my quit meter and share my stats…here it is:
Five months, four days, 3 hours, 54 minutes and 45 seconds. 3143 cigarettes not smoked, saving $612.77. Life saved: 1 week, 3 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes.
Non-smoker checking in to say YOU GUYS ROCK!!
I had a few puffs off a smoke late last night, it made me feel very sick.
I’m going out clubbing tonight, we’ll see what happens.
Well it’s been almost 5 days now. I hate to say this, I really do, but I think I have just sailed through this. I’m told (by a doctor, once) that the physical part of the addiction is broken after 72 hours, and after that it’s purely psychological. If true, the worst is over.
The thing is, there have been very few symptoms. Not at all like the last time. The last time I quit, I told my cow-orkers at the time, “If you ever see me smoking again, I will just die of lung cancer, because I am NOT ever quitting again.” Quitting, that time, tore me apart. I was a basket case. I essentially lost the ability to perform my job for several weeks.
This time, there have been no major cravings. The desire to smoke, sure. Nothing I can’t handle so far. Minor digestive upsets - nothing much. A bit of “heartburn”/ indigestion. When I start to feel a bit anxious, I take a brisk walk. It’s amazing how walking fast is now a pleasure. Formerly it was torture.
I think it’s easier this time around because I only smoked for 5-6 months, after having been quit for almost 2 years. I guess the addiction didn’t take a really firm grip during that short period. Lucky me.
(Of course, this could wind up being temptation to smoke again, just for a short period, because it will be easy to quit again. I need to not go there. Oops… it seems I just went there. Let’s all collectively put this out of our minds.)
I have to say the existence of this thread is a strong motivator. If I fall and smoke again, I won’t want to report it back here. Techchick, I’m so glad things are going well for you. Thank you, thank you a million times for starting this thread!