Quitting smoking

don't!

Well, I'm not gonna.

hey, been about two months!

― donna rouge, Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:02 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

i "broke edge" when i was in georgia two weeks ago (for some reason i can't resist when it's legal to smoke in a bar) but that's been it since quitting in august

This morning an insurance agent asked me if I smoked, and I said "no," and realized I've been off them for a year and a half. This is pretty much a miracle for me. I loved smoking and did it for twenty-plus years. I have been through some REALLY AWFUL PERSONAL LIFE SHIT since I quit and it hasn't even been a problem, and have gotten drunk innumerable times without goin' "fuck it, I'm drunk, I gotta smoke!"

I just wanted to testify because it felt really great to actually feel, in response to the question "do you smoke?": "of course not"

High fives, duder! High fucking fives. I haven't smoked since February and this breathing thing is a thing I can totally dig.

Abbott let me just tell you that this time next year you are gonna 1) barely remember that you used to smoke and 2) have one of these "fuck yeah, this is way better!" moments when you do remember

High fucking fives!

i wonder if the next questions of the insurance man was: have you smoked in the past..

Haven't had a cigarette since 2008 (or more accurately the wee hours of 2009), but it was the kind of thing I usually only did on weekends, as a "treat," and now I find myself using weed in the same way. Used to be I would smoke weed every couple weeks or so and it didn't really matter if I did or I didn't, but lately I've kind of gotten into a routine where pretty much every weekend, I'll get stoned at home one night and watch The Office and 30 Rock, and it's totally something I look forward to during the week like I looked forward to cigarettes. It's not preventing me from living the rest of my life or anything -- if I have Saturday night plans, I just do it whenever I get home, after my girlfriend falls asleep -- but it still sorta feels like I'm just replacing one vice with another.

Technically I quit last Sunday - I had a cognac cigar at the renaissance festival. On Mother's day I told my mom I was going to quit and diet since she had been on my case about eating unhealthy. So far I am doing just fine without cigarettes. I think a lot of it has to do with having two goals I'm working on at once. Also I had definitely cut down on smoking to the point where I was only smoking one pack or less a week.

i quit more than a year ago. and the cravings haven't vanished. i didn't realise how strong my addiction to nicotine was, i thought i could stop any day with a bit of discipline. what i realised in the meatime is that stopping smoking is a lifetime project. it's not like i don't smoke for a year and then i can have one. it's definite. the first bloody cigarette is the nail in my coffin. why the fuck is this drug so fucking strong. i still can't believe it. btw like john i have smoked for 20 years. but i have started only with 23 or something. it was a very conscious decision to start. and i smoked roll-ups. i only smoked ready-made cigarettes when there was nothing else. they taste like shit but roll-ups are really tasty.

The trick for me is not to really quit. then again I was never a really big smoker (for a long period). I think I smoked about half a pack for roughly ten months. My dad refuses to consider me a smoker (slip: I typed joker first). so anyway yeah I smoke zero to five per day. Usually it's about four. I know that's still smoking (to non-smokers) but I rather enjoy the odd cigarette than quitting altogether (esp with a husband who smokes).

Alex, my dad quit about 15 years ago and still has cravings. He was a MAJOR smoker, as was my mum. She'd get up and have a smoke in the middle of the night. Now she's a fullfledged anti-smoker. (TBH I have yet to smoke in front of'em. Tonight I was outside. she probably noticed but pretended not to see me smoking.)

I just realized that I've made it 5 years last month! It seems insane that it's that far behind me considering how attached to smoking I was during the 10+ years I smoked.

I don't have cravings anymore, but it definitely took more than a year. And not long ago I saw a whole cigarette that had obviously fallen out of someone's pack just sitting there on the curb. It scared me that I had to think twice about it.

My dad quit for a couple of years, I think, and his brother (probably maliciously) left a pack. he was smoking again in no time.

I just realized that I've made it 5 years last month! It seems insane that it's that far behind me considering how attached to smoking I was during the 10+ years I smoked.

― kingkongvsgodzilla,

Me too! Five years ago when we bought this house my wife and said, "Enough is enough." Having someone else going through it made it easier (I had tried to quit a few years earlier but she hadn't - I lasted about two months).

Now if I can drop the thirty-odd pounds I've put on since I quit...

wife and I

hey alex you kick ass for having not smoked for so long! and isn't it nice to have ILX to vent to? (It helps me when I'm cranky baout shit like that.)

absolutely. i love this place. posting away and getting answers by people from all over. one of the coolest things on this planet.

I have backslid a few times in ~2 months, but I'm really lucky that I don't get cravings the next day.

I only made it part of the way through the Easyway to Quit Smoking (Carr) mentioned above, but the line that stood out to me is that having a cigarette isn't really relaxing or enjoyable, it's just putting off withdrawal.

Nath, I'm totally in your camp. I'm a zero - three a day smoker, and I feel like that's not too bad for me. I've never been a heavy smoker, and I certainly feel less crappola when I'm not smoking too much.

For those who cannot control it, though - I feel for you. Its got to be really tough.

i went from 15-20 cigs p/day to 1-3 p/day over a year ago, and have maintained that level since. my husband thought that cutting down so drastically during such a huge life change would be a bad idea, but it was actually the best - whole new environment, whole new set of habits and new routine. made it waaaaaaay easier than trying to quit while living in the same house where i could always smoke inside, and going to the same job where i would smoke before, during and after work. and several times - while on vacation - i've gone for as long as 6 days without even thinking about smoking.

next time we move i might try to stop altogether.

Gum didn't work for me (my jaw got sore) and the patch didn't work for me (I need to adjusting my self-medication to the situation).

But I encountered Swedish portion snus from a peer on another forum, and that's worked for the past 8 months. Snus is steam cured mini teabags of oral tobacco left under the front lip with essentially no carcinogens, they're discreet and don't require spitting. Once I got the nicotine dosage under control I slowly, over a month, lost the habit of needing a cigarette between my fingers. Over the next few months I stretched individual portions out to 2+ hours, till I was down to 4-5 a day. I'm presently down to 1 portion a day (and not every day), but plan on keeping tins around for anxiety emergencies, as its far more benign than cigarrettes.

In the US, Camel is marketting a rather foul saccharine (and low-dose) version. Don't judge snus on the Camel product - if your intrigued either as a cessation aid or for harm reduction, get a sampler from northerner.com or swedish-snus.com before you write it off.

wah

this would be a little easier if i didn't need a giant excuse to get out of the office right now

I wonder if taking up knitting will help distract me from my smoking :/

YES it WILL if you are of a singular and obsessive mind like I am.

It worked REALLY WELL for me.

Hahah I was actually remembering you Abb! And then I remembered how you said you couldnt interwebs when you got onto the knitting and I was all "nooooooooooooo"

it appears i am already replacing fags with more caffeine

this will not end well

Hmmm yeah you can't really type & knit @ the same time but if you just want to read intenets then you can hit the page down button right? No biggie!

esoj you could knit too! But it's not nec. You're already not a smoker, right? ESOJ, non-smoker! And vent away if you are pissed the fuck off in a nic fit bcz let me tell you what, those people on the hotlines are some smug, punchable Pollyannas.

I strarted smoking at about 13 or 14 yrs old and smoked until I was 31 or 32, 4 yrs later never smoked anything again. I was a pack a day smoker, if I went out drinking 2 or 3 packs a day :). I quit with the patch and a lot of gum. I still chew a lot of gum, but I never smoked again.

it's not so much that i need something to occupy my hands with, more that i need to replace it with something that i can't combine with smoking. last time i was off em for more than a year, which was helped by cycling (since i can't maintain a sufficient level of fitness for biking while being a smoker) but then i got sick, stopped riding, and got back on the darts.. gah

c'mon dawg u need to clean the bike up and come riding w/ me on sundee

Ya I have the smoke/alcohol diad that's killin me because one wont work without the other so I just end up having both, way too freakin often.

If you quit smoking you can drink a lot & wake up feeling pretty normal & not at all like a barbecue grill that hasn't been cleaned in 2.5 years.

this sundee riding idea is intriguing tho i need to find my helmet

also i currently have the fitness of a 90 year old

wake up feeling pretty normal & not at all like a barbecue grill that hasn't been cleaned in 2.5 years.

Hahahha ohhhh so true :(

I started smoking again after quitting for 7 years. I was in a what-is-the-point-of-everything mood while visiting my 92 year-old father (who still smokes!), bummed one of his cigarettes, and was hooked again. I only smoke at night after dinner because it calms me down after the incredible tension I experience from work. Because of that it's been hard to find something to replace it with. I know that changing my environment worked the last time, but don't have any trips planned for the near future. I think I have to build up my level of disgut with it so I have the motivation. Nicotine is a powerfully addicting drug, but the ritual of smoking itself is just as hard to give up...

i would say a cigarette after dinner is a man's right to choose, but that's just me.

Yah I only smoke in the evenings after work too. Smoke and a wine and simpsons. Which too often turns into a few more, heh heh.

yes that's the problem. I can't seem to make it even one night without smoking. Last time that happened was two weeks ago when I was visiting my one year old god daughter overnight in Napa

the ritual of smoking itself is just as hard to give up...

this is very OTM... I don't particularly like the buzz of nicotine but having an excuse to go outside or smoking after a big dinner or something is very nice

after 7 years? i know i will be hooked again if i smoke another fag. actually i am hooked right now as i crave a cigarette like crazy. one year without nicotine. today was hard as i did some exercise in the early morning, outside it was very sunny and i worked from 7 to half 7. we have deadlines and stuff. has anyone else smoked roll-ups and has got the impression that they seem more addictive than normal cigarettes? i have had a sore throat for over a year now. will it ever become normal again?

I just recalled a good solution - become violently ill and bedridden for more than one day. This happened to me about twelve years ago and I ended up not smoking for two whole years. It happened again and I have had only two cigarettes all day.

Hey so I haven't smoked since Sunday because flu and I haven't not smoked this long since I started like seven years ago.

I'm pretty much completely well now, but I have an intermittent productive cough and I'm wondering if this is a quitting thing or a flu thing.

(PS got some snus around cuz I've got a friend who's a total snus stan so I'm not really doing much withdrawal at the moment)

wow has it only been six weeks

feels like months

^should point out that i have had 2 cigs in this time, and tbh i don't know why i had either..

i have had 15 months without a fag now. and i am still struggling. my throat burns. the only thing that keeps me from not starting again is all the effort i have put in quitting. while smoking i did not realise how strong my addiction was. now i do.

My heavy-smoker ex just had his tonsils out and hasnt smoked for 2 weeks as a result... be interesting to see if that sticks.

been on the patch for a week. boredom is the enemy of quitting. been sitting here all morning wishing i could smoke.

yeah, but you are just changing the nicotine delivery system, so when you switch it isn't really much of an accomplishment. Overcoming your nicotine addiction - that takes work.

During my second stopping period I used patches. One day I felt really bad, had a complete inability to concentrate. My vision was going crazy and was hyper anxious, ready to murder anybody who even said good morning to me. Then I realised I'd forgotten to put the patch on that morning.

xp agreed.. I guess it's more of a harm reduction thing. And I've known people who actually quit smoking, but then went on to vape for many many years, which is still a harmful addiction

Allen Carr didn't work for me. It worked at first, but then I got stressed and bought a pack. Then my brain wrote a subroutine to deal with Allen Carr: it started imagining that every cigarette was my last. "oooh yeah, this is the last one of these disgusting things," I'd think, stubbing it out. Then I'd run a half-pack under water. Then I'd buy a new pack an hour later. It was nuts.

The best thing about reading Allen Carr tho was learning about how the actual nicotine cravings pass after three days. This is absolutely true. Day four no cigs feels magical. From then on it's just mental discipline, ime

Don't vape it's so stupid and bad. I'm glad my bf vapes instead of smokes but I'm gonna press him into trying The Lazy Method himself, he's pretty lazy too so it might work

oooh yeah, this is the last one of these disgusting things

When I was still working in San Francisco, I used to periodically find packs sitting on park benches, with one cigarette missing. I'd bring 'em to the band practice studio, they were usually American Spirit or something fancy like that

I think Carr was actively bad for me, I think he kept me waiting for some kind of joyous smoke free nirvana state that never came

actual nicotine cravings pass after three days. This is absolutely true. Day four no cigs feels magical. From then on it's just mental discipline, ime

Deep agreement here. As I said more than ten years ago... getting the nicotine out of my system was a huge hurdle. After that it was mostly dealing with the thousands of mental triggers that told me it was time to have a cigarette. After at least a year of that struggle, it came down to fighting against a certain nostalgia, a golden-hued sense that, once, long ago, I had a beautiful relationship with cigarettes, and they were waiting for me to come back and hug them. That faded out after about a decade.

Being a nurse didn't stop her. Volunteering for the Cancer Society didn't stop her. My dad dying of esophageal cancer didn't stop her. Her own lymphoma didn't stop her.
What finally stopped my mom from smoking after nearly 70 years was the ever-increasing price of a pack.