Quitting smoking

[FELINEGUITARS]

And financially, you save.

Ready rolled ciggies are about £6 for 20 here in the UK (assuming you are buying here and not buying fake ciggies on the black market which are m,uch more toxic)
If you smoke 20 a day......
£6 per day
£42 per week - (more likely £60 per week if you go out and offer ciggies to friends when you light up)
£2190 a year (based on £6 per day or closer to £3000 if you do the socialising thing above)

OMG - you could buy a nice guitar, amp, or secondhand car with that much money

[AndyR]

And financially, you save.

Ready rolled ciggies are about £6 for 20 here in the UK (assuming you are buying here and not buying fake ciggies on the black market which are m,uch more toxic)
If you smoke 20 a day......
£6 per day
£42 per week - (more likely £60 per week if you go out and offer ciggies to friends when you light up)
£2190 a year (based on £6 per day or closer to £3000 if you do the socialising thing above)

OMG - you could buy a nice guitar, amp, or secondhand car with that much money

Yeah, I smoke roll-ups (out of preference), but I still spend around £18 a week on it.

Strangely though, at least one of my guitars was funded on calculated savings from stopping smoking. However, for me anyway, you can always find money for cigarettes if you want to. So I can't make the financial side work as a motivator - I have known some who managed it though.

The trigger for quitting for me is: I'm not enjoying it, I feel sh1t every morning because I'm smoking too much, it's obviously killing me, and it seems to be controlling me more than I'm comfortable with (ie I end up with a lit fag without having consciously decided to have one), etc...

When all that builds up together and I find myself not even liking the first puff on cigarette, then I know I'm in the right position to stop again.

I think the main thing is not to get too stressed about it. In a relaxed way you can go "I don't need to do this if I don't want to...". We've all got a lot more willpower than we realise if it's backed up by what we want.

[JacksonRR]

OMG - you could buy a nice guitar, amp, or secondhand car with that much money

Yup. A good thing to think about, but should still be far from the priority. I'm spending $40 for a carton(10 packs of 20 cigs) every 6-8 days and yeah that would definitely get me a few nice extras every year or maybe a good base for a vacation fund.

The reason why I'm quitting is because I'm closer to 30 than I am to 20 and I'm afraid of feeling old. Not death, but just feeling run down and lethargic. Most older smokers I know are like this. I've been having lots of "this is your future" moments lately. Combine that with the rotting lung feeling I get every time I take a "good" drag and it's pretty much a done deal. I don't smoke to feel good, I smoke so I don't feel bad. Never mind the cost, the behavior and deteriorating health issue is pure lunacy.

Well, I'm gonna go jam out the cravings.  :)

[Transcend]

I used to spend £7.64 a pack of £20 a day sometimes 2 packs

Then my manager started going abroad every month so i get tobacco off him and it works out about £13 a month.

The reason im stopping is simple.

It really pisses me off having to get up put my shoes on and go down 4 floors have a cig and then come back.

[Philly Q]

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.

That brought back a memory from very early childhood - going to visit my Uncle Jack, who was bedridden with an oxygen tank just like you described.  For a little boy it was quite scary.  I don't know exactly what illness he had, but that's my only memory of him so I guess he must have died soon after.  :(

Hadn't really thought about it before, but maybe that's one of the reasons why I never took up smoking.

Sorry, talking about myself again.  Best of luck with the quitting, smokers.

[Transcend]

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.

That brought back a memory from very early childhood - going to visit my Uncle Jack, who was bedridden with an oxygen tank just like you described.  For a little boy it was quite scary.  I don't know exactly what illness he had, but that's my only memory of him so I guess he must have died soon after.  :(

Hadn't really thought about it before, but maybe that's one of the reasons why I never took up smoking.

Sorry, talking about myself again.  Best of luck with the quitting, smokers.

My grandma also had one of these when i was young but she was a bit daft.

shed sit with her oxygen then take a puff on a cig then go back to the oxygen.

It seemed kind of stupid to me.

She lived a good 13 years doing that though and seemed happy

[Shag101]

Smoked for 17 years, last 5 years was about 2-3 packs a day...

Wife always wanted me to quit.   Finally told her I did and sneaked around for a couple of years.  Stashed packs in amps etc..  Always hung out with friends who smoked  PDT_003 so had that excuse if she smelt it too much...

Started to feel bad and thought real hard about it 

Stopped cold turkey (only way imho)

Been smoke free for 6 years

It is not easy.  I still have dreams of me smoking.  To be honest, if my wife and i parted ways...would most definitely start again...

Gum does not work, those fake cigarettes don't work....its all you and whether your ready or not...

My father in law tried those fake cigarettes and he lasted maybe a couple weeks, now he is addicted to both !!

Smokes regular and when dining out...etc...smokes the others....

BTW the fake ones cost him more to keep up than the regular.....its actually funny..he needs to carry regular smokes, fake smokes, a lighter, and charged filters .....

[38thBeatle]

I hope you quitters succeed -the effects upon the body must be devastating but most smokers I know are only too aware of that. If were an intellectual addiction then I think it would be easier for folks to give up. It must be those chemicals that Jon wrote of though my youngest son, who has recently moved here after growing up in Ireland, smokes but only about 3 to 5 a day. He likes the fact that his day stops and he has however long it takes to smoke to contemplate. Asking him to give up his little meditations is harder than lecturing him about the health issues. I have never been a smoker-I tried it at about 13 to look cool but I had no willpower to keep it up and was a total failure.

[MrBump]

My inlaws quit recently - a local NHS Quit Smoking Hypnotism course.

Seemed to work really well for them, although you need to be susceptible to hypnotic trance, which not everyone is.  But if you can get on a free programme, it seems to work.

[WezV]

i dont think its the physical cravings that will be an issue for me - they last about 2 weeks and the worst is  done.  I have got past that stage a few times before

I am worried that using the gum will just prolong that stage, but  its the habitual behaviour that's harder to break and draws me back in so i am trying to replace one habit with another this time before doing the cold turkey bit

[Transcend]

i dont think its the physical cravings that will be an issue for me - they last about 2 weeks and the worst is  done.  I have got past that stage a few times before

I am worried that using the gum will just prolong that stage, but  its the habitual behaviour that's harder to break and draws me back in so i am trying to replace one habit with another this time before doing the cold turkey bit

My biggest problem will be when i go back to work.

As there is nothing at all to do on breaks other than go outside and all the people that are outside are smokers.

And the non smokers who sit in the canteen are the most unsociable & miserable gits i have ever met in my life

[Tellboy]

I was lucky enough to give up smoking about 10 years ago. I have only just realised how expensive cigarettes have become - save some time, just roll up a £5 or £10 note and set fire to it instead of buying a packet of ciggys.

[JacksonRR]

i dont think its the physical cravings that will be an issue for me - they last about 2 weeks and the worst is  done.  I have got past that stage a few times before

I am worried that using the gum will just prolong that stage, but  its the habitual behaviour that's harder to break and draws me back in so i am trying to replace one habit with another this time before doing the cold turkey bit

This is the popular belief among those who actually quit. Cold turkey is the only way to go and the rest is just a cruel and expensive game that extends the horrible process. Giving the nicotine monkey a small portion of what he wants just makes him angrier. What Jonathon had said about switching to roll ups prior to quitting made some sense. There are a lot of chemicals besides nicotine that have their hooks in ya.

This morning's craving is a little easier. I can see this actually happening and I hope Tony and Wez can make the crossover as well. I'm glad we have this thread going. I'm going to look it up in a few months just so I can read my thoughts when I was quitting.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Well done for staying with it - so far
You are right - after a couple of weeks the chemical addiction should be fading.
The habitual addiction is another thing  - especially if the rest of your friends or workmates smoke.

I used to take a fag break with other colleagues when I worked in an office as if you didn't smoke you were expected to stay at your desk - I didn't smoke though - just went and stood outside with a coffee and took a break.

As a teenager I worked in a restaurant kitchen and for non smokers the policy was take a break while you carry on working - meaning grab something to eat on the go while smoker had to go out and take a proper break  - a wholly unsatisfactory and discriminatory policy which I tried to take them to task over.

[plastercaster]

Seeing a lot of my friends taking up smoking since we've started university  :(

I have to admit I often pick up a cig if they're around and I've been drinking, but I'm trying to stop because it always seems to be the way full blown addiction starts; "Just a couple with friends" and before you know it...


Good luck to all trying to stop at present.