Yesterday I gave up smoking - Help and support needed

Hey guys

As the title suggests I gave up yesterday. Smoked for 13 years very heavily.

Having successfully quit before for two years I know I can do this but the last four attempts have ended in failure.

Any coping mechanisms? Ideas? Tricks that ex smokers here have to keep smoke free, really want to beat it this time.

I am so fed up being wheezy and feeling like crap.

a reply to: fusiondoe

Good for you.

Wanting to quit is the first step. Just think of the $$$ you will save and how much better you will feel.

I've heard that exercising when you have the urge can help. I know it isn't always practical but if you can try taking a walk after a meal.

Staying busy will help.

I wish you the best of luck. Mind over matter.

originally posted by: fusiondoe
Having successfully quit before for two years I know I can do this but the last four attempts have ended in failure.

First of all, it'll be easier this time.

All you have to remember is that the cravings will pass ... and the time between cravings will expand ... and their strength will diminish.

All you have to do ... is give it time.

Just like quitting anything, it's one day at a time.

Good for you !! Keep celery sticks or carrot wicks around to eat . Don't eat a lot of crap food ...and change your habits. Smoking is based in habits. Like having a cigarette in the morning when driving, or after you eat....do something different like a walk or eating a celery stick.

I quit a month ago. Changing my routine is the absolute hardest thing. I don't necessarily crave the cigarette as much as I crave the routine. My quite time in the morning out on my front porch, my after meal cig, coming home from a long day of work and unwinding with a cig, those types of things.

It is strange how much the monster will try to climb up in your mind and say just one more. You can go sit outside and enjoy it just this one last time. You have to beat the monster back though. GOOD LUCK to you.

originally posted by: fusiondoe
Hey guys

As the title suggests I gave up yesterday. Smoked for 13 years very heavily.

Having successfully quit before for two years I know I can do this but the last four attempts have ended in failure.

Any coping mechanisms? Ideas? Tricks that ex smokers here have to keep smoke free, really want to beat it this time.

I am so fed up being wheezy and feeling like crap.

Well done, I just quit yesterday as well, its hard to fight the cravings but man you will be better off as they pass.

Its like this you are going to have to quit one day, it is pointless waiting till you are sick,then go to the doctor and have him tell you , that you need to quit.

No matter what you will have to quit so its just stupid to keep smoking knowing that.

Good luck I wish you all the best, my advice is fill your time in with something else, you cannot quit a habit its not possible what you can do however, is replace that bad habit with a good habit, like sport or something .

If you drink caffeinated beverages or methyl containing foods like corn, you will need to get some more niacin in your body to help detox the methyl. Same with alcohol, niacin can detox methyl, cigarettes containe nicotine which is similar to the plant version of niacin or nicotinic acid. Orange juice contains decent amounts of nicotinic acid.

a reply to: fusiondoe

I was able to quit cold turkey in five minutes when I found out I have Lung Cancer. I wrote about it here. I hope that will help you find some determination. Congrats on your decision to try and best of luck.

No tricks that I can think of. You are either done with it or you aren't.

When I quite it was for health reasons, and I was just tired of it. Smoked my usual pack and a half on Sunday night and threw the rest of a pack out as well as crushed and threw out 2 new packs.

I guess one thing that helped was focusing everyday on how much better I felt from the last.

Quit about 7 years ago. I started smoking cigars a few years back (always did, on and off) but it's much more of a hobby than the relative enslavement that was cigarette smoking.

when I stopped, I just walked to my neighbor's house and gave her what was left of my carton and haven't touched another since. That was 7 yrs ago, after 18 yrs of smoking.

a reply to: MisterSpock

you can try the amino acid L-glutamine...it helps with the nerves and the withdrawl....it also works when stopping alcohol.....google search for L-glutamine and stopping smoking for the recommended dosage....good luck to you!!

Hang tough you can do it! I did my Father did our Family all did!!!

exercise, any kind of exercise, it won`t diminish your urge to smoke but it will clean your lungs and if you do ever smoke again it will feel 10 times worse than when you quit.

it might seem hard to quit after 13 years but it really does get more difficult to quit the longer you smoke. I`ve been smoking for 45 years and all my recent attempts to quit have been complete failures.
I`ve faced the fact that I`ll probably never be able to quit after so long so about 5 years ago I started buying natural tobacco and rolling my own instead of buying commercially made cigarettes.

I can say for sure that the natural tobacco I buy has a lot less nicotine and added chemicals than the store bought commercial cigarettes so that's a good start at quitting for me.

Nicotine gum. Or vaping, which is just smoking but without the smoke and tar. By using both of those tools, I've not smoked in 4 years. Driving was hard as far as cravings, at first, as it was my habit to smoke while stuck in traffic. Nicotine gum helped that and also I got some audiobooks of different novels and listened to those while driving.

Good job! Congrats on this new start! I know you can do it!

a reply to: Tardacus

I started smoking at aged 8 and like you 40 + years later ,still smoke like a chimney i had 3 heart attacks in April and any sensible person would have quit there and then but not me now i smoke more and the cannabis use has gone through the roof of late .

Roll on death seems to be my motto of late as no matter how long i have tried to stop as soon as i get the smell of smoke away i go again , i have quit quitting -lol i smoke roll ups as well but could not smoke a cigarette they taste horrible imho

funny tee-shirt i saw last week

I am not a alcoholic they go to meetings , I am a drunk

Cold turkey. Don't be tempted by nicotine patches and all that.

My wife gave up on the day she discovered she was pregnant. I gave up soon after her, on the basis that if she could then so could I.

I quit three days ago - day two was hellish. Struggled to focus. Tight chest. Stomach cramps. And an odd sensation for a while like the oxygen in the blood wasn't getting to my hands arms or feet (which was rather odd). Feeling better today (so far).

I've smoked for twenty two years - have quit before, but it's never stuck. Determined to make it happen this time - in my 40's now with a young child. When my older children were small I was in my 20's and could still run around with them despite my being a smoker. Don't think I could manage this time - I want to be healthy for him.

One good thing has come out of it - my older children are both staunch anti- smoking.

I hope your quest goes well - keep the determination. It's good to know there is someone else going through this the same time as me.

originally posted by: fusiondoe
Hey guys

As the title suggests I gave up yesterday. Smoked for 13 years very heavily.

Having successfully quit before for two years I know I can do this but the last four attempts have ended in failure.

Any coping mechanisms? Ideas? Tricks that ex smokers here have to keep smoke free, really want to beat it this time.

I am so fed up being wheezy and feeling like crap.

I've been a smoker off and on for a big part of my life. I have stopped for years, only to take it up again later, until I get sick of being a coughing slave, then quit again.

I have used Zyban - an anti depressant that turned out to make people stop smoking as a side effect.
It worked great! But I ended up having a severe allergic reaction to it. So - something to try if you aren't allergic.

I have done Chantix (twice) - Both times, it worked really well. In both of these cases, you continue smoking for a while at first. In both cases, I simply stopped before the planned date to stop, of my own accord.

But with Chantix, there are serious risks. There is a high suicide rate. I believed I would spot signs of depression coming on and alert my doctor if any started. But it was like getting hit by lightning! No progressive slip. I woke up one morning, calm and clear headed, convinced I have done everything I wanted to achieve in life and it is time to check out.
My friends alerted my husband, who called my doctor.

I had felt I no longer needed the Chantix, and had stopped ubruptly. It is important to cut down the dosage slowly before stopping. A risk to take seriously.

A couple years later, I started smoking again. Smoked for about nine months, in a period of stress, and decided I wanted to stop.

It has been 15 days.

This time, no drugs. I simply read a book. I had heard many people say it worked for them. My brother, a heavy smoker for most of his life, stopped completely years ago after reading this book.
I know it sounds crazy- a book. Damn, I even sound like I'm on a infomercial.

I read it in two or three days, and when I finished, I just quit. Haven't smoked since, and most importantly? I have not been anxious or irritable, I have had no sense of suffering. I have been around people smoking and I have had a few drinks with friends, without caving in. (this is France, lots of smokers everywhere, less social condemnation, easy to fall off the wagon- lots of skinny women who will not hesitate to suggest you smoke rather than get fat...)

The book is Allen Carrs Easy way to stop smoking. Google it! He just offers different ways of looking at it, that really make all the difference.

I am not a supporter of vapes or any other sort of replacement therapy, like gum, patches, etc. in which you keep getting nicotine. None of those have ever gotten me free of nicotine addiction.

Like I said, it has only been 15 days, but I swear to you, I feel great and am not suffering at all.

a reply to: fusiondoe

Smoking is tough - talk about instant gratification.

1) The patch for physical support and 2) fake herbal cigs for physical support with the hand/mouth habit for a couple of weeks to months (they are awful and you will get sick of them in time.

Good Luck....