25 Year Smoker Ready To Quit! Support thread!

I quit cold turkey a while back after smoking for 12-13 years in the military mostly. I quit for a year before that once. I am having little withdrawls.

The best thing to do is stay away from smokers you smoked with. It is a social thing and not only was it how I started but also how I continued and fell of the bandwagon once or twice years ago. If you have to stay with people who smoke don't go outside with them when they smoke and don't talk about it... when they go and you really want one go surf the net on lung cancer or something. Use deterrents as often as you can.... stay busy because you will have a lot of energy now and more free time to use it (and money!). For example learn to cook better foods and learn different exercise methods. Rack up your visa on a new bike or somehting to reward yourself with because face it your smokes in a year cost more than that bike.

You can read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near and Fantastic Voyage/Transcend and I promise you it will have a profound effect on the ease of your desire to smoke. Most people think "eh we're gonna die anyway.." They don't realize technologies are coming onto the horizon that will allow us to lengthen our lifespans by a long long time. The longer you stay alive the longer you will be able to stay alive... lol... plus those books will give you a warm fuzzy in general and are very informative about your health and all sorts of stuff. :-)

If you have a craving give it six minutes. It'll pass. Make up a mantra. Mine was/is "I was a smoker now I'm not." But I hardly had to use it because it really was easier than I thought (stay away from smoking friends! that's the hardest part). Just stay busy. Reward yourself however you can because smoking addiction is just brain chemistry and so is rewarding yourself. Just make it a productive reward lol...

Good luck. You can do it if you want to and if you fail it's your fault. Stick it to the man and quit. lol

Good luck! I've been smokeing for a year and a half now and I feel im getting closer to the day im going to just wake up and quit, although this thread is enspiring me just to start today . I wish you luck and support you 100%.

I have exp quitting Heroin and later also tobacco.

There is one movie i must recomend you to watch (if you have not already seen it) it is "what a bleep do we know- down the rabbit hole) This movie is good for many reasons, but in one part you will learn how your brain and chemichals will work to make you fail. This is very very useful later when you struggle because you will KNOW what is happening and you can fight it a little bit easier..or if you give up you will know why.
Also look at Joe Dispenza´s site and find the movies on the net..buy or download at tpb.
"Many of you will remember Dr. Joe Dispenza from the What The Bleep movie with his fireside explanation of what is happening in your brain.
www.consciousmedianetwork.com...

I smoked for 10 years and quit about 5 or 6 years ago. The thing that worked best for me was to examine the urge, when it came. Think through the entire process, analyze where the need was coming from and what I would actually get from smoking a cigarette - the immediate satisfaction, the delayed ton of guilt, and the eventual hole in the throat from cancer.

If you can get through about 75 sec. of craving, the craving begins to ebb.

Also, doing some kind of highly cardio-styled exercise is a huge longterm help. I do MMA almost every day and love it...suffice it to say that it would be impossible to train and spar while smoking.

Good luck, we're all pulling for you!

As a smoker myself I wish you the best of luck.
I have quit and caved in a few times.

The problem is staying away from ciggies, I have stopped for a year or so before and still managed to find my way back to the cigs, usually because of stress and remembering the false sense of comfort the cigs brought me.

You have to just put yourself into a mental capacity of how sick they make you or how worse things can become.
Everytime I am poorly I tell myself it is the cigs to try to associate everything bad into them to put me off for good.
I am still trying to quit again, I always regret it everytime I spark up after being able to stay of them for months.

One of the main things to break is not the addiction to nicotine as that leaves your body in 48 hours, the craving for nicotine is not as hard as breaking the actual habit.
If you have gotten used to smoking at specific times, especially like after a meal as I do then that's quite difficult to get out of.

One method you could use is a replacement, maybe a glass of lovely ice cold fresh orange juice, sip it slowly to make it your new habit, plus its healthy.
If you are outside somewhere its not exactly easy to grab a glass of OJ so maybe carry raisins as they can be bought in little boxes and again healthy.

One thing I can say is how clear minded I seem to be when I don't smoke and when I do smoke everything around me seems somehow a little bit out of focus or surreal.

Oh damn it, why am I such a hypocrite, telling you when I am right now thinking of a smoke.
OK I have been smoking for 15 years (with my on off moments) and will make you a deal.
I will stop too, yep the best thing is to jump in at the deep end so I will keep my eye on this thread and post updates of how I am doing and what I do to replace the urges.
Keep this as a diary and I will post my progress too, maybe a little healthy competition to see who can get to certain milestones without sparking up will help the progress (I used to do this with a friend of mine and it worked).

Maybe the other chimneys around this place would like to jump on board too.

One thing I should point out is that it is easier to have made the last cigarette you smoked your last than the one you call your last.
However as you wish we shall make it Friday the 10th and did you have a time in mind or is the last cig the night of the 9th before bed and dont smoke at all on the 10th or last cig on the night of the 10th before bed and dont smoke at all on the 11th?

Greetings mate and best of luck!

I quit for a year... and to be honest, it wasnt all that bad!

I got onto the patch for about two weeks, and decided after 2 weeks, that was enough of the patch as well!

One thing I noticed after a while... I would be sitting there, and 5-6 hours would go by and I hadn't even thought of a cigarette.

It would always put a smile on myself when that would happen but...

Sadly, I fell back into it.

A trip to Vegas got me back into it!!!

Seriously man, best of luck!!! You can do it!

I'll be right behind you soon

I've done this before, and THE BEST thing you could do, is to NOT tell anybody that you're going to quit smoking. I know that sounds strange, but trust me, if people don't know, it'll be MUCH easier on you. When people find out, they will either:

a.) tempt you

b.) joke about it, which will make you want one.

c.) be a total ass about things, and wreck your confidence going in (ie. "you can't quit, why should you try/I've heard you say that before", etc)


If you have buddies who smoke, and they ask to go out and have a smoke with you, just make up a lie that you just had one, and you're good right now. Trust me, telling people makes it harder. Coming here, and getting advice isn't a bad thing, but just the people you see in your day-to-day.

Good luck man!

reply to post by Greenize


I am not a smoker and never smoked cigarettes . It does not make sense to me why people will pay ridiculous amount of money to destroy themselves and the people around them.

My father died at 60 because of Lung Cancer (I was 20)he was smoking since he was 12 ...and this Smoke habit took him away and left me and my mom with a mark for the rest of our lives. If you would only know and see how t is to die because you smoked ...I am sorry I did not record the 3 months of horror that will make you change your mind and never put a cigarette in the mouth for the rest of your life.

I do not know if you have familly or not all I can say is that The Will Power is so much stronger that thinking "Giving up Cigarettes is so hard" ...IS JUST CRAZY AND PRIMITIVE ...all you have to do is wake up inside in your own head and realize that life is so much more then a pack of cigarettes a day ....wake up for your self and people around you ...You may not die from smoking but you will always be VICTORIOUS..... think of this every day ...you will succeed

All the Best

Good luck! It is not an easy thing to do for many people. I managed to do it and I feel so much better for it. There are some sound suggestions here to try and make the transition a little easier. One thing that helped me was changing up the routine of daily life (in addition to using the patch). Schedule a time in the day where you will go for a walk or go to a library... something you don't normally do on any given day. I saw someone suggested taking a vacation which is also a great way to shake up the ordinary routine if it is feasible for you. Another think you can do is gain the support of friends and family (especially if they are ex-smokers).

I grew up around smokers and spent at least 12 years of my life doing it and now that I have been off of the cigs for over 3 years now, I can tell you that cigarette smoke really does stink and I can't even think of how in the heck I got hooked on them in the first place! You are in my prayers!

~Peace

I quit nearly a year now, not been easy, but i persevered . i did quit before for over 2 years, but then was tempted back to smoke just the odd one ,then it just crept back in ,that was about 25 years ago.

This is a tip for those with a weaker willpower who cannot stop but seriously wish to cut down drastically and save some money.

nicotine is a powerful addictive drug, we smoke a cig to satisfy the craving , when you light up its only the first 2 or3 puffs taken then the craving is satisfied, so carry a pair of scissors with you ,and cut the end off, when you next have your craving ,relight the butt ,it will taste bad, but again the 2 or 3 puffs will satisfy, cut off the end, you will find if you persevere and not cheat you will cut down a lot.

a lot of us now are smoke free, you can do it, we all went down the same road you are going down, YOU CAN DO IT.

I can tell you from experience that it is very possible to quit smoking. I did it last year and never went back. How did I do it? Well you need to set your mind with the right mentality and get rid of all the myths out there that people have about smoking and quitting smoking. You see all the tobacco companies don’t want you to quit so they purposely get myths out there to make it harder on you to quit. For example the first myth, "It is hard to quit smoking" It is not hard to quit smoking. The supposedly nicotine withdrawal syndrome does not exist. Its all in the mind. Another myth, “People smoke to relax” Really? So why do people smoke when they need to focus? That is kind of contradicting don’t you think? The thing is that you have to seriously and I mean seriously think about this question? Why do you smoke? You might say; To relax. It tastes good after a meal. It helps me keep focused. But the truth is that there is only one reason why you and everybody else smokes: YOU ARE ADDICTED TO NICOTINE!!! Yes that is it. That is why nicotine patches don’t work. Or the gum. It would be like giving just a little bit of heroin to a recovering heroin addict. Once you realize that you are a nicotine addict, it becomes easy to quit. I recommend you read a book called “The Easy Way To Stop Smoking” by Allen Carr. I know the title sounds tacky but trust me, his method works and you never crave a cigarette ever again. Well good luck and I hope hearing from you on your progress!!!

I quit very slowly... and I can tell you this. Nicotine does not care for a schedule. As in, 2 a day for 3 weeks, then 1 a day for 3 weeks, then 1 every 2 days for weeks.... That routine just did not work for me. What I ended up doing was torture myself and go as long as I possibly could without one, substituting my addiction with nothing but air. I watched videos of people dying of cancer and scared myself half to death also (that helped the most). I've been a few months now without a cigarette. I get no cravings, cigarettes smell terrible to me now... Makes me want to vomit. I feel so... clean now... Overall, I feel 1000% better no exaggeration whatsoever. I'm so glad I did it

I went to the BODIES exhibit a while back.

They had lungs in exhibit.

One pair was of normal lungs, and the other of a smokers lungs.

The smokers lungs were those who smoked 1 pack a day, for his whole life.

COMPLETELY BLACK, and a bit "deformed".

Other lungs were normal color and what looked like to be healthy, for someone who doesn't know much about anatomy.

Now, if having black lungs isn't a sign of something being very unhealthy for you, I don't know what is.

There was also a glass box next to the lungs asking for people to drop their cigarettes in if they pledge to quit smoking after seeing that...filled up pretty quickly.

For those who want to see what I saw, click this...easy stomachs might get a punch!

www.maricopa.gov...

JAMA Nov. 23/30, 1984-Vol. 252, No. 20
A Piece Of My Mind


Preparation
My teachers in medical school were responsible people who realized that students often have difficulty in dealing with the issues of death and dying. Thus, we had to read several papers and books on the subject and we all attended discussion groups. In these groups we talked a great deal about death. We discussed terminal illness, euthanasia, how we experienced death in our own families, and even how we felt about our own eventual death. These groups met weekly for a whole semester, and when all this scholarly work was done, we had a simple pass-fail essay examination. At the time it all seemed quite sensible and the course left us with that satisfying feeling of having reasonably mastered another subject. A year later, I met Mr. G.
He was a typical veteran, a middle-aged bachelor with no known family. He had come in very short of breath with almost constant hemoptysis-a legacy of 30 years of smoking. There was little we could do for him, since he had been through the whole gamut of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Yet, as usual, the tumor in his lung continued to grow. He spent the first two days in the hospital sitting up in bed gasping for air, coughing up bits of blood-tinged sputum. We all tried to comfort him as much as possible and he was always very appreciative. But he knew the end was coming soon and sometimes during a coughing fit, he would choke badly and I could see terror in his eyes. I stopped by his room as often as I could to check on him and ask how he was doing. He would breathlessly reply "Not good" and shake his head.
On the third day of hospitalization a nurse burst into the chart-room yelling for us to come quickly because Mr. G. was in trouble. We ran to his bed and found him sitting up with a wash basin in his lap already half full of dark, slithery clots. He was struggling terribly-drowning in his own blood. His face was deep purple and his eyes bulged out in stark terror. As the bleeding became worse, so did the struggle. There was less and less of real breathing but more awful choking. Violently he would attempt to take a breath only to have it cut short by choking and coughing. Great quantities of blood bubbled out through his mouth and nose, ran down his chin, and dribbled into his lap. He then would cough explosively, splattering us with blood. The sound was horrifying, like someone screaming under water. Meanwhile, the nurse and I were trying to help as best we could. I tried to keep the oxygen mask close yet emptied of blood. She tried to help him clear the bigger pieces from his mouth and throat. The intern was frantically working the phone trying to get some help. But it was hopeless; the blood just kept coming and the scene became more macabre. A beard of stringy blood clots swung heavily from the man's chin and nose. Between coughing spells he rocked back and forth, gasping "Oh please, oh please."
Suddenly it was quiet; it must have been a big clot. His mouth was open and his chest was heaving but no air was moving. He looked at each of us in turn, pleading with his eyes. We pounded him on the back but nothing helped. Still, he kept straining desperately to breathe, opening and closing his mouth like some strange, soundless imitation of a fish. During what seemed like an eternity he silently struggled. Finally his eyelids began to sag and we gently eased him back on the bed. He continued to make feeble respiratory attempts as he turned bluish grey. Then he had a seizure and lay there, twitching and quivering with the bed making little squeaks as if to keep time. It was a long time before that too finally stopped.
No one moved. The nurse looked stupidly blank, covered with blood. The intern was still holding the phone, weeping. I thought about my class on death and dying. They hadn't considered a terrified, helpless old man dying a horrible, gory, painful death. The books, the papers, the discussion groups-all seemed irrelevant and far away. But close at hand was fear, sadness, and futility.

Hugh F. Johnston
Madison, Wis.

The above was given to me years ago, maybe it will help.

reply to post by Greenize


hey, glad to hear you're trying. I know how hard it can be, I've quit a number of times.

Some things that may help, for what it's worth:

Most people I know, myself included, would have no problem going into the gym for a few months to knock off 40 lbs if that's what they gained from successfully quitting smoking. meaning, if you have to gnaw on candy bars and jerky to kick your habit, forgive yourself, move on and bon apetit.

Your worst enemy will be yourself, you even mentioned, is the ingrained habits that are the hardest.. that smoke when you wake up, after a meal, etc. these are mostly things for when your mind wanders, so one thing that helped with me was to change some of those habits via replacement. It killed two birds with one stone. Just don't pick something that involves sitting on your butt. reading a book wont work since you're likely to wanna light up unconciously. take a walk, mow the lawn, crack a beer, make a thing of wiping down teh furniture or something in a room after a meal or for soem of those big trigger points. after 2 weeks, they start to become the new habit and in the process, you're either more fit for walking, more mellow for having a contunual evening buzz, or have a really clean house.

Dose up on vitamin A & D and some green tea, it'll help with the withdrawl as well as pull some of the excess crap out of your system.

take an expectorant becuase you _will_ be coughing up the lining of your lungs after a few days once they start clearing out.

reply to post by Greenize


It's fantastic that you are doing this! I'm wishing you the best!

It's been like 3-4 months since I quitted smoking - and I'm feeling great!- don't want to go back at intoxicating myself.

Great journey ahead!



[edit on 9/7/09 by plutoxgirl]

Very Good for you.

I managed to quit after 15 years of smoking a pack and a half a day. I found that many of the stop smoking aids did not work for me. Ziban and others like it gave me chest pains, while the patches gave me a rash.

What finally did it.... I started looking at them cancer sticks like they were rolled up ten-dollar bills. I did that for about 2 weeks, then on Feb 20, 2009 I just upped and quit.
Now whenever I see someone else smoking I just think of all the money they are wasting.

To me it seems that a person has to find the right method and motivator for quitting.
I smoked roughly 45 packs a month at $12.30
Thats $553.50 a month
$6,642 a year
To me ... that was a lot of money to waste on a slow death.

So Greenize, I greatly encourage you to do this...
and YOU can do it.

It's been 51 days now since my husband and I quit smoking. We still go into the casinos and play the slots. I was playing a Monopoly Slot when an elderly lady sat next to me smoking a Virginia Slim cigarette. Her smoke came right in my face. The strangest thing happened! I did not Crave a cigarette, but I felt like I was going to THROW-UP! I had to get away from her. Now we play in the no-smoking section of the casino.

I'm cooking healthy foods now too. I actually found a restaurant which doesn't use MSG'S! That stuff will kill ya too!

Just wanted to wish you the best of luck with this!

I quit 4 years ago.

I was very disappointed in myself at the time. 26 years old and out of breath running up a flight of stairs. One Sunday in June of '05 I had one of those incidents where I was feeling like I couldn't breath after walking up the stairs from a garage and the thought came to me that I'm 26, not 86. If I'm feeling like this now, what will I feel like in 20 years? How will I breathe? What about the massive pounding I feel in my chest?

I guess it was a combination of freaking myself out, and just having had enough. I tossed the pack I had on me and never bought another one.

Was quitting hard? Yeah psychologically moreso than physically. The physical withdrawals are measured in days. The psychological ones are far longer. Make no mistake, it is a struggle. Personally, I chewed a lot of gum, straws, pens, whatever. But I made it.

The only thing you need to worry about is falling back into it. I am absolutely petrified of having a smoke now. As far as I've come with beating that addiction I still worry that if I were to even have a puff now I'd immediately get back into it.

So my advice, do it, lean on friends and family for support, expect some difficulties but keep in mind that the benefits are a million times greater. I understand what people are saying about not becoming an anti-smoking crusader... but for your own self you must. You can not allow a "slip up" for yourself or you'll be back at square one. There is no "oh it's just one cigarette with friends." That doesn't exist.

Do it and don't look back.

It's been 4 years for me. I can run up the stairs now.