Help InertiaZero quit smoking!!

OK. Im ready to quit.

Anyone have advice? Stories? Tips?

I have smoked for 14 years.

I smoke a pack a day. Thats $4.89 a day I spend. I dont have money problems, but thats an insane price to pay for slow suicide. My finace' and I already never smoke in our house, but I can still smell it on our clothes. When I do laundry, it smells like an ashtray.

Plus I could be buying pretty shiny things for myself and others.

So cold turkey? The patch? The pill? Gum? Should I spank myself every time I get a craving? Should I force myself to listen to Beyonce' in an attempt to exorcise the devil out of me?

Any tips on not gaining a crapload of weight after i quit?

What do you guys/gals think?


[edit: Im am also very active. I work out, bike, hike..all of that. Smoking never comes to mind when Im doing these activities. So replacing smoking with exercise wouldnt really work. But I feel horrible after a ten mile bike ride, when i light up. it seems counter-productive. I am also starting to feel more out of breath ever year.]

[edit on 15-2-2010 by InertiaZero]

As of 6pm today if you smoke another cigarette, I"m going to remove all your ATS points and Post Ban you.

Kidding of course.

My wife smoked for 16 years or so, two packs a day, sometimes more.
She got the flu and sick on Taco Bell, tried to smoke and it made her more sick, so she just quit.

I've never smoked, so I don't know what to tell you, but I wish you the best.

Stop and never look back. Ever. As if you never smoked, dont even talk about having quit or having been a smoker.

Use nicotine gum in the first two weeks and then gradually get your nicotine-gum level down to 2 a day, then 1 a day, then none. By that time you`ll have gotten over the whole thing.

Warning: You will feel a whole lot better in life in every respect after a month.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Youre so right!! Half of quitting is forgeting you ever smoked. It's breaking the routine, the habit...as well as the physical addiction.

My mother quit, and she said she felt like a new person after 6 months.

Update?!?!?!?

Crikey! $4.89 for a pack of cigarettes?? I'm moving to where you live because it costs me $17.99 a pack (and they are the cheap ones!!)

I've quit twice, both times cold turkey, both times for 2yrs. The only reason I started up again was stress.

Next time I quit will be cold turkey again and the majority of withdrawals only last (me) 3 days so as long as I lock myself in the house with lots of distractions and no access to the car or money to go buy smokes I'll be right.

Quitting is a personal thing, everyone reacts differently.. good luck with whichever method you choose.

Originally posted by damn_ummmm
Crikey! $4.89 for a pack of cigarettes?? I'm moving to where you live because it costs me $17.99 a pack (and they are the cheap ones!!)

I've quit twice, both times cold turkey, both times for 2yrs. The only reason I started up again was stress.

Next time I quit will be cold turkey again and the majority of withdrawals only last (me) 3 days so as long as I lock myself in the house with lots of distractions and no access to the car or money to go buy smokes I'll be right.

Quitting is a personal thing, everyone reacts differently.. good luck with whichever method you choose.

The patch works well...

Just take it off before you sleep!

I used to say that "quitting smoking isn't hard -- I've done it lots of times."

I once stopped for two years, and then invented a reason to pick it up again.

Don't know if this will help, but here's what finally worked for me. ALL of the following are my perspective, and not an attempt to make blanket statements that apply to everyone.

1. I have to recognize that the physical addiction is difficult, but short-lasting. The psychological addiction is more difficult, as it's elusive and sneaky, and at times I am prone to BSing myself with various snarky internal dialogues that are thinly-disguised justifications to smoke, i.e. "I just want to see how it tastes, now that I haven't smoked for X months" or "Now that I've quit, one every once it a while won't hurt." The last is probably true for me, IF I were able to keep it to just "once in a while". For my addictive personality, that isn't possible. All I'm doing is opening the door back up again.

2. The last time I quit, I started breaking up the behaviors that I associated with smoking: I stopped having a cigarette with coffee, I forced myself to not smoke for two hours after I got up, I forced myself to not smoke when I was driving or even in the car, I waited an increasingly longer time after eating to smoke, and the biggie -- I forced myself to CHOOSE between EITHER drinking alcohol, or smoking, but never both.

3. We're often encouraged to make a big fanfare of quitting -- to create a support group, to notify all our friends and family of our desire to quit, to mark a calendar counting down to the grande quit date. I think that works for some, for me it created a systemic failure. When I quit the last time, I didn't even tell my wife. Why? Because all those notified people then are relegated into the role of enforcers or spies, and since they care about you, they are watching for suspicious smokelike activity. Then, you resent them, hide things from them, and sabotage your own goals. Better to just do it, relying upon your own wits and will.

4. I've tried the patch and I think it works for most people. I never could get the @#$% things to stick to my skin. I even duct-taped a couple of them on. I work hard physically and sweat a lot, so perhaps that wouldn't be a problem for you. I think I also abused the patch process by slapping one on before its time.

5. Be very careful of substitutions for smoking. It's not uncommon for people to gain weight or increase other activities which are potentially harmful to their bodies. This outlines another of my internal dialogues -- "you're quitting smoking, so what if you gain a few pounds", which turned into "you gained a few pounds, perhaps that's more dangerous than the smoking. It's been a while since you smoked.... maybe just smoke once in a while........."

6. Quitting smoking felt to me like turning my back on an old friend. I actually felt meloncholy about it. "yeah, me an' cigs, we been through a lot together." blah blah blah. They are not your friends. They are nasty little bundles of addictive substance that make billions of dollars for companies that could give a damn about you or your health. You can and will make new friends of some activity that is beneficial.

7. Initially, try to not take a long-term view of your quitting -- that can lead into #6 above. Quit for today. When you wake up the next day, don't congratulate yourself for yesterday's accomplishment -- it's too soon for back-slapping. Quit for another day, and when you feel the urge strongly, keep quitting for an hour. Sometimes the strong pull eases off. What I think is happening is we're battling our addictive self, and it doesn't want to give up the ship easily. Our brains will help the addictive self with all these bullcrap dialogues because the brain will take the easy way out -- it feels an addictive pull and the quickest way for the dopamine release is to create a situation or idea that justifies it. It might even freak you out as it did me, thinking that I felt like a split personality -- one that wanted to quit, and the other that was fighting it. It will pass.

8. I had to just keep telling myself, "YOU are in control of this body. YOU made the choice, and it's a good one. YOU don't want to die of some stupid self-inflicted disease or condition before your time. YOU are in control, and it's nobody's responsibility but YOURS. DO IT!

9. I gave myself rewards after a time. In my case, that's often tools, or camera equipment, or even small things like new guitar strings.

10. I would intentionally put myself in situations (after I'd quit for a month) where I'd be with smoking friends. Bars are the worst. I didn't do that to test myself, but to reaffirm that I was in control. Yes, I've talked about control a lot. You need to believe that you really are in control.

11. We all have stressful situations that happen to us in life. Grief, in particular and/or harrowing close-calls are the worst. Don't fall for it. If you do fall off the wagon, the game is NOT over. You screwed up. It won't be the first time in your life that you do, nor the last. Keep your guard back up, and eventually it will get easier, much easier. For me the breakpoint was six months. I knew I would never go back again, even if the worst thing I could imagine happened. I now know that I don't want to kill myself. I want to live.

12. An increase in physical activity was useful to me. I used cigarettes to fill blank spaces where nothing was happening, and I associated smoking with peaceful, introspective times......... looking out over the ocean, watching the birds, time for a "peaceful" smoke. Fill the blank spaces with activity. Fill it with STUFF. There's plenty to do. I took up an old activity -- working a heavy bag. Fill time at work with WORK.

13. Forget guilt and self-loathing. It's worthless and only lives if you feed it. You're a good person who has an addiction. Only you can fix it.

14. Don't be disappointed if food doesn't taste better, or air doesn't smell better, or even if you don't have superhuman lungpower right away. That always pissed me off -- people with good intentions would tell me these things would happen, and for me they never did, other than the lungpower. I DID get a lot more lungpower, however it came in small increments that were initially difficult to quantify. You'll look back a year later and realize how much more you can do.

15. Back to #3 above........... that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep up with folks here and elsewhere. You will enjoy positive reinforcement from those that care about you, just don't make that the basis of your quitting. You deserve the positive reinforcement and kudos -- you'll have done something that is very difficult, but probably not more difficult than many other things you've accomplished that you might take for granted.

Sorry for the verbose post. I'm not a quitting expert nor an addiction know-it-all. This is what worked for me, and I had to really delve into my quirky psychology to git-'er'done. You're probably a lot more balanced and normal than I am....... but do be mindful of the internal dialogues. That isn't you, that's the addiction. Addiction bad. Kill it.

Good skill! Best to you....... you'll thank yourself, and you'll be glad.

p.s. please, after you've quit? Don't be a royal pain-in-the-ass to your friends and family that still smoke. If you can quit in a way in which people ask you "did you quit smoking?" then that will leave an opening for them to ask how, IF they want to know.

I had to crush my desires to help others, and yes, cigarette smoke stinks like crap to me now, and I smell it on other people and their clothes and their cars and even their pets sometimes, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make a big show of "coughing". Whatever point that is supposed to make, it doesn't work. If someone asks how you did it, you can tell them.

#16

See yourself as a person who doesn't smoke. See yourself having fun, and enjoying and leaving the e-vile de-a-mon behind. Far behind.

Any minute now, I'm going to be telling you how to "be the dancing banana".

Okay, I'm really through now.

[edit on 24/2/10 by argentus]

Well this is going to be a hypocritical post, but I recommend buying about 3 or 4 packs, chain some them all until you feel physically sick and then go cold-turkey.

It's breaking the habit, smoking becomes associated with so many things, eating a meal, logging on, getting off work, sitting down, it's a pain to quit. But quit you must! Think of the environment!

Smoked for 10 years. Quit for 5.
Smoked again for 1.5 and just recently quit again 3 months ago.

This time, I won't look back. Its a terrible habit.
And it feeds the machine.


My trick? Filling the void with other, more productive-less destructive, things.

Playing xbox, or my guitar, or just trying to keep my mind off it. Period.
Lots of arguement and tempers flared, but I made it.
The first time was the hardest.


If you can make it 2 weeks, it's all in your head after that.
After the first 48 hours, the nicotine is completely flushed from your body and then its just a psychological thing.

Will-power. Once you quit, stick to it. Realize what damage you are doing when you do smoke, and once you quit, you realize how bad they smell.

Lungs were never intended to inhale smoke chronically.
Be it smoke from a fire, cigarette or other means.

Update!!!

Sorry, but this took longer to accomplish than I thought.

The last time I quit, I did cold turkey. I thought my fiance' was going to leave me. I thought I was probably fired, and I think I cried a little. So i broke down and got some cigarettes.

That was after 5 hours.


This time, I got the patch. I quit on the first of this month, so Ive made it four days so far. But I dont even want one. I dont miss the habit.

I shampooed the seats in my Jeep. I washed all of my clothes to get the smells out today. I started getting my sense of smell back...and jesus...no amount of body wash or smelly-good stuff couldve made me smell good when I smoked. God, my jackets were the worst.

GO ME!!

I quit in 2002 after many, many years of smoking.

I tried and failed to quit about a zillion times before, and I have no idea at all why it finally "stuck" that time. I did use the nicotine chewing gum and it worked for me, but previously to that, I had tried the same method and failed due to cheating.

I want to quit as well now, I didn’t want to but now I have someone very special in my life and it got me to thinking I want to be with her as long as I can now.
So I am thinking maybe try the nicotine inhaler.
I wish you luck I don’t know you but I believe you can do it

reply to post by silent thunder


Funny, you feel like a child when you feel like you should cheat.

" No one will know that I smoked...."

"My friend will not even notice I took one..."

" I can smoke it outside and hide....."

reply to post by BlackMustang


Thats so AWESOME!! You can do it!!

My fiance wanted to stop as well. So we did it as a couple, on the same day. I smoked more, so it was harder for me.

However, when you date someone that doesnt smoke......


Good Luck!!

[edit: YOU have to want it. You cant do it for anyone else but yourself. Dont make it as empty as doing it for someone else. Do it for YOU]





[edit on 4-3-2010 by InertiaZero]