Quitting smoking

[JacksonRR]

Done a 12 year stretch of 1-2 packs a day and decided I'm through with them. Been giving it some serious thought these last few months and now I'm taking action. I'm on day 2 of zero nicotine. Woke up the most awful sinking hole feeling in the middle of my chest. This is absolutely horrible. Every other thought is about smoking. Have any of you gents put em down for good?

[Transcend]

i quit for about 6 months a couple of year back the first few weeks are hell but after that i found it no problem.

Until that birthday night out when i had just one cigar to celebrate....

im currently 9 hours smoke free since i decided to quit this morning

i just keep drinking coffee as a replacement

[asianaxeman]

get the nicorette gum, really helps, for a bit anyway...:D

[nfe]

I pick them up and put them down as I see fit. I've never really struggled I have to say, but I've never been a consistently heavy smoker, I smoke five to ten most days then can smoke fifty one day if I'm drinking and two the next, none the day after than and then twenty the one after that depending on what I'm up to and if I'm skint I just don't smoke at all.

I appreciate that's not helpful. Most mates that have packed it in succesfully just tried to keep themselves busy, I think.

EDIT: Also, I only smoke rollies with no filters. I wonder if that has any impact on how I never seem to get addicted.

[Transcend]

get the nicorette gum, really helps, for a bit anyway...:D

Until you walk past someone that is smoking then realise the gum is useless

[JacksonRR]

Alright then Tony. You quit smoking over there and I'll quit over here.  :drink:

I still wanna punch everyone in the face. Christ is this no fun, haha.

[Transcend]

Alright then Tony. You quit smoking over there and I'll quit over here.  :drink:

I still wanna punch everyone in the face. Christ is this no fun, haha.

Yup it sucks.

I chose the worst possible time for it too. Its my birthday on friday and im going out!

[WezV]

i am cutting down after realising i have doubled what i smoke in the last 6 months.  down quite easily from 10 to 3 a day in the last week... ok,  i was never  a heavy smoker

the gum is helping for cutting out the superfluous cigs but those last few will be hard

[Sancho]

I've never smoked, but my wife did when I met her.
She decided to quit and basically stopped cold turkey. Hasn't touched a cigarette since making the decision, even if she regularly feels like having a smoke.
How hard can it be?

[WezV]

well i did that a few years ago, it lasted a year without a single cigarette - but there were the odd nights out with mates who smoke and  i slowly slipped back into it.  so i think it pays to try a different approach this time

[AndyR]

Good luck guys.

I'm not in the mood for stopping at the moment, but the only times I've successfully quit is when I actually wanted to. Stopping because I thought I ought to, or because someone else thought I ought to and I agreed, etc, etc, have never worked for me. All the various aids to quit are just that - aids. The actual thing is willpower (and, for me, not wanting something other myself having control over me). You'll be very lucky to sustain that willpower if you don't really believe in the original decision to stop.

When I've really wanted to stop, it wasn't painless but it was a lot easier than I was expecting. When I've tried to stop because I thought I should, it was agony and I always failed.

I think the slipping back into it 12 months later or whatever is because I forget about the original motivation to stop and can't re-awaken it.

Funnily enough, I think that if the hefty "social-pariah" attitude and then resulting legislation hadn't arisen in the UK over the last few years then I'd actually be smoking a lot less at the moment, might even gone through another "quitting" stint.

The only advice I can give is that I'd recommend keeping your "quitting" as quiet as possible -less pressure if you haven't got well-meaning non-smokers asking you how you're doing all the time (others seem to cope with it, but it always p1sses me off :lol:)

[Philly Q]

The only advice I can give is that I'd recommend keeping your "quitting" as quiet as possible -less pressure if you haven't got well-meaning non-smokers asking you how you're doing all the time (others seem to cope with it, but it always p1sses me off :lol:)

Just wondering.... how's the quitting going guys?  :P

[AndyR]

:lol: class...

[FELINEGUITARS]

Quitting smoking is really difficult from what I understand.

It really must be as so many women continue to smoke whilst knowing cigarettes cause more damage to skin than almost anything else short of excessive suntanning - they will spend absolute fortunes on skin cream whilst still toking on the old death sticks - flipping mad!

Part of the trouble is all the other chemicals that are loaded into ready made cigarettes - for no reason as far as I can tell other than to increase the addiction

Even silly stuff like the sugar content of the paper on the cigarettes is all there to add to the experience and make it harder to quit - and certainly the list of chemicals in there should by all rights scare most sane people to death.

I have friends who object to some of the cr@p that is in ready made ciggies - stuff like salt peta, formaldehyde and cyanide (yes freaking cyanide), so they weaned themselves onto roll your own a long while back, and even then they cut down by rolling smaller and smaller cigarettes.

This was often a good idea - firstly as roll-ups were cheaper, and more importantly as they weaned themselves off the addictive "other chemicals" whilst still getting a nicotine fix.
Then after a few months it would make the chemical withdrawal of quitting easier if they gave up the rollups as they were only giving up the lesser chemical of nicotine.

Some would switch to gum, patches or inhalators as a halfway step before totally weaning themselves off it for good.
Some would feel a bit weird drawing on a plastic nicotine inhalator but it is way better than some of the other long term alternatives if you dont give up.

I have had some personal experiences with people who have paid a high price for their ciggies......

I lost my stepfather to smoking related cancer when I was 10 and that hurt....
When I was a teenager I had a job where I used to deliver big oxygen cylinders (like huge scuba tanks) to patients with emphysema or other related illnesses. These poor folks were pretty much housebound and couldn't move more than 10 feet from this oxygen tank - connected by a plastic tube. Their lives were hardly worth living  so it seemed to me at the time.
I was friends with a piano teacher who developed throat cancer  and had to have a tracheotomy (like the guy on South Park with the voice box).
One of my closest friends wife is now house bound and forced to be connected to an "oxygen scrubbing machine" - not unlike those patients I delivered Oxygen to as a teenager.

Blimey - just writing all this makes me realise how strongly I feel about this subject
Why tobacco is still legal is beyond me.....I am all for freedom of choice etc but it really doesn't serve anyone well does it

[Jonny]

You could always get e-cigarettes. You can get them in various different concentrations of nicotine solution and it's atomiser powered, and some can even be charged via USB. Additionally they don't stick, it's much like hooka plus you can smoke it inside.

You can ween yourself off it as such if you go for a concentration and slowly lower the amount. They have 'plain' solutions as well, which has no nicotine at all. So if you still want that stick to hold between your hand, you still can without nicotine or tar going into you.

And financially, you save. I don't know how much, but you do. And it does work.

I'm not affiliated by the way, LOL