Stop smoking (Allen Carr the easy way my [snip]RANT

This is a rant that took me over an hour to write.
I don't care how you feel about it, all I know is it made me feel better and it gave me something to do.
If I post it in my blog, no one will read it. I know ppl will read it if I post it here, so here ya go.

Feel free to respond if you have any good advice for me, otherwise just carry on......




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I've heard people say it so many times, ex-smokers: "I quit cold turkey 10 years ago!", as if it was so easy that they had the idea to quit smoking and just did it.

At least I was prepared to stop smoking, I started reading about it 3 months ago, looked for a few 'stop smoking buddies' (who I haven't heard from since last night btw, which tells me that they are both still smoking!!) and set the date: the big cliche: I stopped smoking New years eve at midnight.

The Allen Carr method was my favorite and I was so convinced it would work for me, I could see it all in front of me. I would be able to say goodbye to my cigarettes without second thought and be happy about it. I was already happy about it before I smoked that last one. I was to become enlightened about the myths involving smoking and joyful that now I was a non smoker! I was going to cheer that I did not suffer withdrawal symptoms because they where all myths! I should have been smiling all day long and rejoice in the fact that I never need to smoke again in my life.
....
Just like all those people who quit cold turkey and say they never suffered while doing so.

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I smoked my last cigarette 19 hours ago. Even though I do not physically hurt it is becoming harder with the hour and part of me already knows that by this time tomorrow I will be smoking again.

This morning everything was fine. I woke up, had breakfast and was happy that I didn't really felt a need to smoke. After all I made the decision to never smoke again, after 22 years of smoking a pack a day....and it did feel good, it really felt like something I could do and I planned to go for it 100%.
It went well up until around the 15th hour, I haven't thought about anything else but smoking since then. Around the 17th hour I started to feel tension, as if there are hundreds of evil butterflies in my stomach.

I'm really angry. Didn't Allen Carr promised his readers that the withdrawal is all in the mind? Didn't he say it would go with ease, that's why he calls it "the easy way".... didn't all of his million other readers quit the easy way without suffering?
Maybe I'm doing it wrong.....
That's what is written on the last page of the book you see.... if it isn't working for your, your doing it wrong.... so I must be doing something wrong here.

The idea is that every time I start craving a cig I must rejoyce and go " Hooray for me, I'm a none smoker now and I'm soooooooo happy about that!!!!!!!!!!"
seriously?
Can anyone actually do that?
I'm honestly starting to wonder if maybe Allen Carr was a whack job because I'm not hooray-in at all.

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Yesterday, all I wanted was to stop smoking,
right now, all I want is a smoke.

Everyone is trying to give me good advice, and although I know I should appreciate it, all it does right now is irritate the hell out of me.
I don't need to hear from ex smokers who say that they still had the cravings after a whole year. Or about how they still want a cig after every meal while they have stopped smoking months ago.

My husband stopped smoking 4 months ago with the help of medication (champix).
He says he still does not see one benefit of stop smoking, except for the financial side. But besides that, he says he's still waiting for the benefits to come along.
Is that how it is going to be?

Others say that it's only the first 72 hours that are this bad, after that it should start going better.
I don't think I make it through the first 24 hours.....
I feel like such a failure already.... and I wish I hadn't made such a big deal about it. Now everyone is just waiting to see if I succeed or fail.

When exactly did you succeed? After a week? a month? a year? a lifetime?

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So this is withdrawal? The strange pinching feeling I have right now that makes me irritated? What a bitch! I don't even want to know what Heavy Drug withdrawal feels like....... But for cigs, they say it's not getting any worse like this. I never tried to quit smoking before, not in 22 years.

All I know is I should have been happy right now, not as miserable as I feel in reality.
My husband keeps saying 'I'm so proud of you', I hate it, it's pressure... probably won't make it to 48 hours.

Hang in there, GypsK.

You are doing the right thing to quit smoking.

I am rooting for you.

good luck quitting smoking hard thing to do even harder is you do it without the drugs

think I will go have one

Don't give up now.

I am on day 27 without a cigarette. Every day gets better.

reply to post by GypsK


Well OP, you are right it really sucks. I have smoked for 35 years, and I must say, I wish I would have quit when I was ahead.....

Right now I cannot taste anything or smell anything due to my years of smoking. As far as tasting goes, all I can distinguish is sweet, bitter, sour etc etc....other than those senses I have left, eating has become a chore where I only eat one meal a day and that is just to stay alive.........

Just so you know, it creeped up on me so slow, that one day I realized it was all gone.

I wouldn't wish this on anyone, and just wanted to throw that out there for ya.......I hope you can be stronger than me!

reply to post by GypsK


Sorry to say it man but there is no easy way to give up an addiction.

Originally posted by QMask
Hang in there, GypsK.

You are doing the right thing to quit smoking.

I am rooting for you.

Thanks QMask.....
I know it's the right thing for oh so many reasons,
also seems like the impossible thing right now.

Originally posted by freedomSlave
good luck quitting smoking hard thing to do even harder is you do it without the drugs

think I will go have one

Nope, I don't do drugs, medication, alcohol, etc.... cigs are my only sin :p

I truely hope one day I can say to you ' I pity you for smoking'.....sorry, I know that really sounds like a terrible thing to say coming from someone like me. But it would mean I succeeded.
Right now I only pity myself....

also maybe try carrying around a pen or pencil hold it like a cigarette sub consciously we have grown used to the idea of playing with that cigarette with our fingers . as there are many habits that we have developed from smoking. dealing with the nicotine is more of enough of a shock might help to play a little trick on the mind with the pen in hand . When I quit for a year that is what I did and walked around with a cigarette just to have it to fumble with . Sadly I enjoy smoking so started back up again .

reply to post by GypsK


Well I hope you beat it too best of luck to you . Also respect for doing it with out drug

Originally posted by TFCJay
Don't give up now.

I am on day 27 without a cigarette. Every day gets better.

May I ask what method of quiting you use?
pls dont say 'cold turkey'

reply to post by seeker1963


I'm sorry to hear your suffering because of the cigs but you know as well as i do that scare tactics don't help people quit smoking, if they did no one would smoke anymore.... You wouldn't smoke anymore

One thing though:
Should I succeed, then anyone can do it.

Originally posted by GypsK

Others say that it's only the first 72 hours that are this bad, after that it should start going better.
I don't think I make it through the first 24 hours.....
I feel like such a failure already.... and I wish I hadn't made such a big deal about it. Now everyone is just waiting to see if I succeed or fail.

Yep, the first 72 hours is bad, thats when you start to notice how things taste, I did this a few years ago, and made it to that mark... and if I hadn't when bowling with friends that do smoke, I would have been able to make it...but I didn't. Good luck...

Originally posted by freedomSlave
also maybe try carrying around a pen or pencil hold it like a cigarette sub consciously we have grown used to the idea of playing with that cigarette with our fingers . as there are many habits that we have developed from smoking. dealing with the nicotine is more of enough of a shock might help to play a little trick on the mind with the pen in hand . When I quit for a year that is what I did and walked around with a cigarette just to have it to fumble with . Sadly I enjoy smoking so started back up again .

Yup,
sitting here with a straw between my fingers and it does seem to help a bit although it doesn't really 'do' anything at all....

Withdrawal is a blanket name given to the effects of any removal of addictive consumables from your life. It is different for every person depending on their body and brain chemistry, other dietary and lifestyle factors and general tolerance levels. All of these things can vary day by day, so a person who quits cold turkey one day and "experiences no withdrawals" could do the same thing a year later and be in agonising pain.

You are rather fortunate, you are experiencing "psychological" (misleading name, it's just as chemical based as physical) withdrawal, if you're not in pain then you have an advantage in your battle against addiction.

"Willpower" isn't a human construct - it's a real thing and is the result of your subconscious making decisions about your life. It's why you enjoy doing things you like, and hate doing things you don't. Willpower isn't the mystical "just say you don't want to smoke and you won't want to smoke" thing a lot of people make out, it is your brain processing information and deciding that it wants you to stop.

If you have been pressured or coerced in to stopping smoking, you won't have the will to do so and will probably "fail" - which I put in quotation marks because you've only failed your conscious decisions, not your deepest desires. If one day you woke up and said "oh man, I don't want to do this anymore" then your subconscious has made a decision to stop. The decision has to be based on pure desire, not "I have to stop because" or "I would like to stop because" but simply "I can't be bothered any more."

That's why some people have it easy, and you don't.

The difference between you quitting and those people quitting is the difficulty of the journey. In a year's time, which person would you rather be? The one who stopped with no problems at all and coasted through it with no resistance and no test, or the one who struggled at every turn and constantly fought with herself to get through?

Also, your husband is inadvertently undermining your efforts to quit by bringing it up. Tell him to stop talking about it, even to tell you how well you're doing if you want to increase your chance of success.

Ok, First if all brilliant you fir trying second get up and go and do something to keep you busy, paint the house, clean carpets anything that keeps you and your hands busy. The first day is the worse but keep one thing in mind its been shown that quiting fags is harder than coming of heroin so ease up in yourself.
I found the hardest times were the first day, third day then the third week. It took me 2 goes to come off champix deffinately being the best way to do it. Good luck n get off the blooming computer and keep busy, busy, busy.
P.s I decorated whole house when I was stopping lol.

As with any addiction cold turkey the killer and the reason most people fail .
The best way to quit I know of and indorsed by people I know who have quit in the last year is to cut back over a period of weeks , if you smoke 20 a day halve it to ten for a few weeks then halve it again untill your body is used to less and less nicotine .... then stop .

Good luck with your journey and the path you take , I too am giving up

try this, depending on cost where you are but it will work:

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by GypsK

Originally posted by TFCJay
Don't give up now.

I am on day 27 without a cigarette. Every day gets better.

May I ask what method of quiting you use?
pls dont say 'cold turkey'

Champix.

I did not want to use any meds to quit smoking but I tried so many other options and nothing worked. Zyban, the patch, nicorette, cold turkey, electronic cigarette. Nothing. I think something that motivates me the most this time is my 6 year old son say "Please don't smoke daddy!" I would like to be very clear on one important fact: I NEVER once smoked in my house, in my car nor in the camper nor anywhere near my family.

So, I do not drink whatsoever, I was never into drugs, and I have been cigarette free for 27 days... since today is the beginning of a new year my resolution is to cut out all junk food. Not that junk food ever was an issue before, but since I stopped smoking I am eating anything and everything I can get my hands onto.

I'm quitting for new years too, but I didn't finish my pack before midnight. So now I have like 7 more to smoke because I don't have the will power to throw away perfectly good cigarettes.

I read Carr's Easy Way too. It's crap. Its all marketing and snake oil. Fact is we're trying to get off one of the most addictive drugs there is. There is no "Easy Way".

But here's the facts: if we don't quit now we are going to die from lung cancer. No way around it. Have you ever watched someone die from lung cancer? Yes we all die someday, but I do not want to go out like that.

You can't keep looking fore something that is going to make this easier. The decision is ours not to buy that next pack of smokes. That's all we have to do, just DONT buy any. Realize its an extra step in your day to go to the store and buy the stupid things.

I'm to the point now where I'm embarrassed asking the clerk at the store for Marbs. I even feel like I'm letting down the clerk by coming in and buying them.

Please just keep trying. Don't end up another shell of a human being languishing in a hospital bed for years while your family watches you slowly die from something you caused yourself.

I quit using tobacco products and ceased all nicotine intake for six years and yes, I quit cold turkey. Quiting was very difficult the first year but I felt much better. Craving would be very intense at times and after the first year, cravings became less intense and fewer in number but I always had a memory for the tobbacco products. I substituted the smoking reflex by eating cinnamin hard candies until I was sick of them. During cravings I would always tell myself, "I don't smoke.', until the cravings went away. It is always helpful to do something else instead of smoking. There is always something else to do.

Of course, I ate more in that six years, gained about 35 pounds and felt miserably overwieght. After the six years, I finished college studies and eventually started using the electronic cigarettes and lost the wieght. Nicotine causes fat to be released in the blood then from there excreted from the body. By the way, electronic cigarettes don't seem as bad as tobacco cigarettes but they are very addictive.