Anyone else quit smoking?

I quit my two pack a day habit cold turkey about ten years ago, give or take.

It helped to have incentive: a woman I was very interested in was not only a non-smoker, she was also allergic to smoke.

Still is, too. I wound up marrying her.

 

hahaahaha

LMAO!

 

I wish my dad would quit smoking... if he keeps going the way he's going with it, he wont even make my wedding ... (when/if i get married)

 

I too am attempting to quit. As I type this I have a piece of licorice (sp?) hanging from my mouth like a cigerette.
I am trying a different approach. I am allowing myself 3 cigerettes a day. It seems to be working. I started on Saturday, and havent gone over my limit. I wait until I have an unbearable craving, then I allow myself to smoke half of a cigerette. I put it out and save the half for the next uncontrollable craving. Yes, I save the half smoked cigerette, and then smoke that for the next craving. This way I know I havent gone over my limit for the day.

We will see if this works. It is amazing how absent minded I am right now. I am putting things in strange places and not remembering that I put them there, very strange.

 

I quit damn near 4 years ago after smoking for 10 years (and I'm only going to be 28 this year - started at 14 and was at a pack a day by 16 or 17, Marlboro Reds [at the time] and a friend with a fake ID ...)

First things first: Sure, I cheated every once in awhile, I'm not perfect. To this day I'll want, and may indeed have, a smoke if I'm out getting plastered, but hell, that only actually happens a couple times a year. Casual drinks over dinner? no problem, no smoke craving. Just when I'm way-hay-sted.

Secondly, I assessed where all the smoking was coming from. Easily 80% of the time it was while driving. Well, as luck would have it, in early 2001 I was buying a new car. So I decided ahead of time, not to smoke in the car. It helped a LOT that the new car had all kinds of buttons and gadgets (stereo controls on the steering wheel, that sort of thing) to keep my hands occupied. With that 80% basically eliminated, weaning off the rest of the smokes was not very hard.

I'm not saying buy a new car, but find out where your weakness lies and try to cater specifically to it however possible; it'll make the whole experience easier if you can get tough on the biggest chunk first.

Also of note: I don't think I was ever heavily addicted to the nicotine itself, I was more a smoker for the something-to-do-with-my-hands factor. I never could stomach a smoke right after a big meal or first thing in the morning, for example, like many smokers do.

Good luck Jive!

 

The same to you Jive, even though you are a Bears fan.
Hopefully next year at this time we can be celebrating our 1 year smoke free anniversaries with the new basses we bought with the money we saved.

 

It's all downhill after the first week without cigarettes.

It helped me to go on walks or runs and see how much better I could do after I had stopped smoking. It also helped me to make myself disgusted with cigarettes--reading about all the nasty chemicals inside them helps a lot

 

i never made it my goal to quit... usually stop for some time... longest was 1 year... i might stop again soon:/ smoking is bad... no idea why i do it... maybe because it goes well with beer:/

Good luck buddy...

 

Hi,

My wife and I both quit smoking on Dec 31 2004.

You have several solutions to prevent from tentation :

- each time you feel the need of a cigarette, drink some aerated water (not sure of my translation, sorry), this helps much
- you may take chewing gums with nicotine inside
- ultimate solution if all this is not enough : there are cigarettes with no tobacco inside, only plants. They may help you too.

But don't give up your resolution !

After 4 days without smoking, my breathe is already much better.

Cheers,
JL

 

Get a good case of the 'flu. I smoked up until then, and found that once I got better, the smokes suddenly tasted disgusting. That was almost exactly a year ago, haven't smoked since. (well I did try one a while back when I was half-cut, but it was so foul I stubbed it right out.)

 

The hardest part I had was disassociation. I used to do everything with a cigarette and when I had decided to quit but before I actually did, I thought; "How the hell am I going to do anything??" I ALWAYS smoked with EVERYTHING I did.. reading, writing, playing, watching T.V., driving, mowing the yard, you name it...

It was rough at first but that's the "habit" that you have to break. Seriously, after two weeks it wasn't a problem anymore.

 

I smoked a pack or 2 daily from the mid 80s... quit and came back for many reasons since that time.

Nov 2001 I was mentally ready to quit *for me* and did it cold turkey.

I'm a non-smoker

 

OK, i'm no longer ignoring you!



congrats!!

 

I tried quitting cold turkey. I tried accupuncture. I tried menthol cigarettes. What finally worked was being admitted to intensive care with respiratory illness related to surgery I had three weeks earlier. I vividly recall lying in bed in ICU wearing an oxygen mask and having a doctor stand beside me asking me if I smoked. I said yes and he just shook his head from side to side.

That scared me so much that I walked out of that hospital and quit for good. In 1983. I still have a couple of cigars during the year, but I will never start up again.

Take a trip through the hospital and have a chat with a doctor. We all know it's bad for us, but seeing it face to face is a very loud wake up call.

Good luck. It is not an easy thing to do at all.

 

I had smoked for 30 years and quit cold turkey in '96. My doctor told me I was showing the beginning signs of emphysema and so even though I had 2 cartons at home and a full pack in my pocket, I stopped (I think he may have been fooling me, but it worked). Since I had smoked for so ling, the "one week" and yo're fine bit wasn't true. It was several weeks. But I'm glad I did it and I have no desire to smoke cigarettes again. Good luck with your resolution and don't give in - you'll be better off but maybe a bit fatter. BTW, I chewed gum to help me and I chewed it so vigorously that my jaw would get real tired and I had trouble eating my food. Because of this, I initially lost weight - no problem, I just put it on later.