So you REALLY want to quit smoking?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cdd8d38ab28a.jpg[/atsimg]
*not my own picture*

I created this thread to spread some very helpful information in terms of quitting smoking, and due to this thread which I saw on the front page today about Doc Velocities Stroke here
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have posted this idea twice already in other peoples threads however I wanted to give it its own thread so it would be more visible to the ATS crowd.

Cancer is a big issue to me personally and just in general. The county I live in, plus 2 surrounding ones have some of THE highest rates of cancer ANYWHERE in the US. I have lost many family friends and am currently losing my grandfather to this disease, due to tobacco.

My brother is a licensed acupuncturist and herbologist, and unofficially he told me of this cure for smoking.

What we want to do is create a pavlovian response to smoking.
en.wikipedia.org...
this is commonly referred to as classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning (also Pavlovian or respondent conditioning, Pavlovian reinforcement) is a form of associative learning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov.[1] The typical procedure for inducing classical conditioning involves presentations of a neutral stimulus along with a stimulus of some significance. The neutral stimulus could be any event that does not result in an overt behavioral response from the organism under investigation. Pavlov referred to this as a conditioned stimulus (CS). Conversely, presentation of the significant stimulus necessarily evokes an innate, often reflexive, response. Pavlov called these the unconditioned stimulus (US) and unconditioned response (UR), respectively. If the CS and the US are repeatedly paired, eventually the two stimuli become associated and the organism begins to produce a behavioral response to the CS. Pavlov called this the conditioned response (CR).

So we need to equate smoking with something bad in your mind!

heres how to do it-

Take a 8 oz glass of water and 2 cigs. Release all of the tobacco from the cigs into the water to make a tobacco tea. Leave the leaves in the water. Let it sit for 4-5 minutes to create a rich brown tea.

Now heres the tricky part.
You have to gulp down as much of this as possible. atleast 2-3 BIG gulps. This will proceed to make you vomit. By doing this multiple times, your body will begin to associate the idea of vomitting to tobacco. By brother has helped some "helpless cases" who just couldnt quit with the normal methods. This is not something I/we could really "Promote". But if you wish to to try this of your own free will I would suggest it.

The reason this works so well is it creates a subconscious negative response to smoking. When you use gum or patches, you still have the craving associated with nicotene. So your continually fighting this craving consciously. By using this method, it makes it much easier to quit b/c your not fighting against the urges.

And another tip that will GREATLY help you is-
The more "shocking" the event, the greater response your mind will build towards it.
You cant just have one sip, and mentally convince yourself to vomit it up!
you have to go, for lack of a better phrase, "balls to the wall" with it. This is KEY- You have to create a INvoluntary response to the tobacco, not a Voluntary one.
this is something that should be done atleast 4-5 times or until you build a involuntary responce to tobacco, be your own judge!

*disclaimer*- I am not a medical professional, and its is known that vomitting CAN cause damage to the esauphogus. However, we all vomit naturally occasionally, and this is a necessary evil when quitting tobacco. I think vomitting 4-5 times will be less harsh on your throat than continued YEARS of inhaling an extremely hot and dry smoke into a mucus membrane.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5dd53ba9f006.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 5/28/2010 by VonDoomen]

Ok. So I didn't try the whole tobacco tea thing but after
reading the stroke thread and this one I can honestly say
That I have quit smoking. Thanks. If I knew how to s&f I would.

How long have you been clean?

It's really bad for you yes and a bad habit but they are pretty much the worst pictures you can find, the rest on the packets are dead babies, I hate buying a pack though and getting the dead baby lol.

Yeap "dead Baby" threw the hell out of me.........It was purple.........

reply to post by Mr Zeropoint


reminds me of a bill hicks routine-

"was anybody else as excited as I was to see that packs of cigs have different warning labels? Just dont get the ones that say "causes cancer". "Yea, i'll have a carton of low birth weights please"

Bah that top picture is on my packet of cigs right now, and no im not going to stop smoking. After you have looked at it a few times you hardly even remember glancing at it again. Probably stopped a few people which is good. As for your tips, don't think i will be trying it but would be good to hear if someone does and post if it worked.

My my, why is this crap so evil? And thank you for your post. I really mean it.

Well, I would love to quit, been saying it over and over....argh! Somehow my dad quit cigs, and started dranking and was a heavy drinker(not stupid, somehow surprisingly he never smoked once drunk, but anyways we got him to stop drinking a year ago too, and now he quit both and runs 10+ miles a week. o_O

I am lucky if I run 2 miles without trying to breathe thru a freakin straw. -_-

And I am sure my other medical problems aren't helping me quit. Probably the way I see it is "Freakin Bored! time to stick in another in my mouth." Wtf where did this one come from? That how evil -_-

Did quit once for 3 month, 4 year ago but it obviously not quitting if I still smoke.

About a year and a half ago, I kicked the habit.
I had done it once before, after I buried my father who died at 56 with lung cancer. My quttiing didn't stick, it lasted for seven months.

Then I went back to smoking, for several more years.
I was never a heavy smoker, half pack to a pack a day.
(Usually half pack.)
But I'm pushing forty now and I was starting to notice that my lungs were sticky in the morning, getting the cough, the typical signs. So I decided to quit.

I farted around for a while, cheating, bumming, you know how it goes. Then I decided, this was stupid and either I was a smoker or not. There is no try, there is only do or do not do. As yoda says...

So I quit and, as impossible as it sounds, I haven't touched a smoke since. What's the trick? Prepare yourself for misery. I just said to myself, "Self, this is gonna suck and not in the good Las Vegas kind of way... The only thing you have to do is never touch a cigarette again, no matter what. Even if it's in the ashtray, lit and you're alone with it, and no one would ever know if you had just one tiny drag. DO NOT TOUCH THAT SMOKE."

I know, I know, it sounds stupid, but that's all I did. No matter what, no matter if I was crapping my pants and hanging from the ceiling, I didn't touch a smoke.

Resign yourself to the fact that you are likely to be a very miserable non smoker, possibly forever.
And you will find that it doesn't take forever before your cravings are very rare indeed.
I still have them, maybe every few months now, (1.5 yr non smoker) but they last about as long as it takes for me to tell myself, "Self, there is no such thing as having one smoke. Once it's okay to have one, it's ok to have two and then your a smoker. Having a smoke now is just stupid. You've got this beat."

The only other tip I have (because I used it,) was deep breathing. Stressed at work, kids make you made, really want a smoke? Close your eyes, two or three deep breaths, go do something else. (DON'T EAT! Drink water if you need to do something, get a sucker, chew some gum.)

Good luck! Hope you feel as good as I do! Quitter!!

[edit on 4-6-2010 by briantaylor]

reply to post by TheUltimateEnd


you should think about giving my method a try.

the reason it works so well, is that creates an involuntarynegative reaction to tobacco, where as every other method forces to consciously quit. And thats why its so easy using my method.

reply to post by Solomons


I guess i didnt post this important little fact.

but this is how I quit smoking. the smell and EVEN THE THOUGHT of tobacco gives me an involuntary gag response. I had to do this method 3 times before it really kicked in!

reply to post by VonDoomen


I guess I'm lucky in the way of will. I can quit at the drop of a hat. I'm currently a non smoker and will most likely stay that way now. Havn't smoked in over 4 yrs. After quiting 3 times before. I just get sick of doing that to myself and quit. Don't even understand what is so hard about it.
Maybe it's the degree of how bad you want something, but it is puzzling to me.

I would be very careful doing this. You are basically creating nicotine poison.

Sixty milligrams of nicotine, the amount in about five cigarettes or half a cigar, has the potential to kill an adult who is not a smoker[1] if all of the nicotine were absorbed. This figure is ~120mg in chronic cigarette smokers, smoking an average of 20 non-light cigarettes delivering ~1.7mg of nicotine each daily. One cigarette's-worth of nicotine is enough to make a toddler severely ill. In some cases children have become poisoned by topical medicinal creams which contain nicotine.

Source

So, if you try this method, be very careful.

Ok this is a ramble.................You know what gets me is that the Government for 60 odd years were making good taxes on smoker's even promoting it.............Now it a health problem they retreat...WHO did the PROMOTION THEY DID "It's good for the health plus taxes (BIG BUCKS)

www.dailymail.co.uk...

reply to post by VonDoomen


Smoking is a mental not physical habit as they claim it is.

Whatever method works best for you to quit smoking then by all means do it. It was one of the better things I ever done and I have not smoked in 16 years. That was after smoking for 20 years. After getting up to 3 1/2 packs a day it was time. But the key to any method is you must want to stop.

reply to post by VonDoomen


Oh man! as if there's not enough doom & gloom.
I can't look.

reply to post by VonDoomen


Well when i stopped it didn't take more than a few weeks for the smell of cigarette smoke/nicotine to become repulsive, couldn't imagine how anyone could be within 10 feet of me if they were smelling what i was after that. I can quite easily get past the physical addiction of smoking, it's the mental habit of smoking that always pulls me back. I smoke far too much for my age though, in my 20's and smoke over 40 a day.

[edit on 4-6-2010 by Solomons]

Well there's been a few threads on this recently. Yes, I want to quit smoking and dipping. But do I really want to?

I read a few posts. I liked some, especially randyvs' post. I understand that there is a will to do whatever you want or dream to do.

I WANT to quit.

I think there is a conspiracy to this, seriously.

Have you ever smoked natural tobacco or chewed natural tobacco? I have. I wasn't addicted to it. I just enjoyed it actually but not addicted to it.

What I think is this....

The tobacco companies added chemicals to make YOU addicted. That's the conspiracy. There I said it. They want maximum profit.

It's not the tobacco you need to wean yourself from. It's the (expletive) chemicals. That what you have to wean yourself from, not the tobacco.

I WANT TO QUIT THOSE CHEMICALS.

Gah!

Can you please put a (Warning: Graphic!) in the title?

I just about lost my dinner.




I don't smoke, and frankly I'm really glad I never picked up the habit. I know people who are slaves to nicotine. It is not pretty.