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So I've decided to quit smoking...

ErebusBass

ErebusBass

Feb 20, 2008
1,107
110
Madison, WI
#1
and god $^%# if it isn't so much harder than I remembered it being.

My fellow TB'ers: I'm 19 years old and I can already feel myself dying. I've been smoking about a pack a day since I was 14 (~6 years), and I've had asthma since I was three years old. This needs to stop.

I've tried everything in the past; those patches, the gum, lozenges, even a nicotine inhaler, and nothing works. I've decided that cold turkey is the way for me, but I keep getting tripped up.

I have officially decided 100% that I am going to quit, but I just keep getting discouraged.

What worked for you?
 
#3
im gonna try to quit (or at least significantly cut down on) my drinking, no more fifth of rum a night or 18 pack a night, gotta get **** right and rebuild relationships its started to ruin before it gets even more out of control. plus i just lost my liscense due to alcohol so if i don't even try and stop it'll get really bad this last month i'm in country. so good luck to both of us!
 
#6
If I could do it, anyone can!
Two packs a day for 38 years. Started at 11.
I just decided to cut down, I kept cutting down. Eventually I was down to 3 a day.
A that point it became more of a pain in the rear to smoke then not - the physical addiction was pretty much gone. All day I'd think about those three cigs and it just became annoying.

good luck! 4 1/2 years clean!! w00t!!
 
#7
ryco said:
If I could do it, anyone can!
Two packs a day for 38 years. Started at 11.
I just decided to cut down, I kept cutting down. Eventually I was down to 3 a day.
A that point it became more of a pain in the rear to smoke then not - the physical addiction was pretty much gone. All day I'd think about those three cigs and it just became annoying.

good luck! 4 1/2 years clean!! w00t!!
Click to expand...

You started at age 11? Oh my god...
 
#9
JNowiski said:
im gonna try to quit (or at least significantly cut down on) my drinking, no more fifth of rum a night or 18 pack a night, gotta get **** right and rebuild relationships its started to ruin before it gets even more out of control. plus i just lost my liscense due to alcohol so if i don't even try and stop it'll get really bad this last month i'm in country. so good luck to both of us!
Click to expand...

As I recall, you've been drinking for at least a few years like this.

At this point you may have developed a physical dependence on alcohol. If you seriously plan on quitting, you should to consult a doctor.

Today, alcohol withdrawal is often handled in clinics. However, some people may need to be hospitalized for delirium tremens, a potentially fatal, and extreme sign of withdrawal.

Regardless of whether you experience severe withdrawal symptoms or not, a number of treatment options are available - both to make the withdrawal easier for you to tolerate, and to reduce the chances that you will relapse into past drinking habits. Unfortunately, most alcoholics who quit either abstain for the rest of their lives, or relapse. It is very difficult and risky at this point to drink 'socially' or for health - if you want to quit, it needs to be for good.

If you haven't done so recently, you should also see your doctor for a checkup. For example, alcoholics often are deficient in vitamins - not only because alcohol interferes with vitamin absorption, but because alcoholics don't eat much 'good food.' Even light beer at 100 calories x 18 a day = 1800 calories - that doesn't leave much room for fruit, vegetables, etc. Alcoholics are often given supplements in case they are deficient (in particular, B1 (thiamine) to prevent Wernicke's encephalopathy). Then you have your liver, amongst other things. The sooner you change your habits the better your chances are for recovering and living healthy.

Same principle applies for smoking, for which there are also treatments available. But both drinking and smoking require incredible willpower, support, and planning in order to quit.
 
#10
ErebusBass said:
and god $^%# if it isn't so much harder than I remembered it being.

My fellow TB'ers: I'm 19 years old and I can already feel myself dying. I've been smoking about a pack a day since I was 14 (~6 years), and I've had asthma since I was three years old. This needs to stop.

I've tried everything in the past; those patches, the gum, lozenges, even a nicotine inhaler, and nothing works. I've decided that cold turkey is the way for me, but I keep getting tripped up.

I have officially decided 100% that I am going to quit, but I just keep getting discouraged.

What worked for you?
Click to expand...

I recently quit and it was well documented here on TB. I got a lot of support from the community. I was about a day into it when I created the thread; but after the show of support I was determined to not let my family and my "e" friends down. We are here for you.

I quit cold turkey and what I found was I smoked a lot when I was bored. To keep myself occupied...I started doing exercises and yoga (with some help from a Wii Fit). Walks helped...The tax hike on smokes (the hand-rolling tobacco hike has doubled the price) is highway robbery and that helped as well.

I also came to a lot of realizations after I quit. A lot of the reason I started smoking in the first place was to be a "rebel". Unfortunately that image is manufactured by a very small group of very large corporations. I figured out that I wasn't rebelling against anyone. I was in all actuality giving filthy rich guys even more money to kill myself. I coined it "corporate assisted slow suicide".

Unless you are growing, curing and smoking your own tobacco...you are buying into a very large and deviant corporation, and as someone who prides himself in trying to give my money to the little guy...that just didn't jive with me.

Aside from the pleurisy that will heal soon, I can breathe better....I can smell things that I hadn't smelled in a long time, food tastes better, I feel better about myself, I'm less irritable; meaning I don't get angry when customers trample on my cigarette break. I am certainly happy to no longer be a slave to a substance.

It isn't easy, but as I said we are here for you. If you fall of the wagon, pick yourself up and hop right back on it.
 
#11
when i smoked, quitting resulted in a cold-type thing, and all kinds of phlegm, and i felt i couldnt breath as well. those are the only noticeable physical withdrawal effects i have noticed.

answer: its in your head, buddy. sorry, but you have to get past the physical stuff, and get into exercise, or something aerobic, where you are progressing, but know that cigarettes would set you back. after four weeks, you probably wont care anymore. that seems to be the magic number.

you can also try to get friends to police you, but i have found that to be zero percent effective.

i also find that having cash (as opposed to atm card) on hand is more of a temptation.

over the years, i have quit smoking cigarettes, m*th, cr*ck, and hero*n, all of which i left behind at different dates. it will suck and its in your head, so it will be with you, but you still need to ignore it, or beat it down as much as possible. you know you dont want to. dont. its all in your head.
 
#13
ryco said:
Great advice here! Don't waste energy beating yourself up if you have a minor relapse - just get back on your program. No drama.
Click to expand...

What really helped me was refusing to buy packs of cigarettes. If I bought a pack I'd feel obligated to smoke the whole pack. Perhaps that was justification...but either way falling off the wagon meant smoking the whole pack. The only time I relapsed was at a social gathering...around many smokers around 3 weeks after I initially quit. I was drunk and bummed one smoke. After getting through half of the smoke the spins kicked in. Bumming one cigarette meant that I was wasting a $8 pack of cigs (American Spirit Blues are what I smoked).

Set up little goals for yourself. Try to make it one day and be proud of yourself....then make it two days...once you get on about a week or so you'll realize that if you relapse...a lot of hard work had gone down the drain.

I had a hard time at work because I always looked forward to smoke breaks. When a break time would come around I'd leave the line (I was a cook) and go sit outside with my line mate and he'd smoke and I wouldn't. It was testing for sure...but putting myself through that proved to me that I didn't need to smoke at work.

I get cravings and it has been almost 2 months. It's a lot easier to deal with the cravings. They pass quickly.
 
#14
One of the best ways to stop an addiction like Nicotine, is to think scientifically about it; such as how it effects you and why it is addicting and such. It may sound silly, but I've found the best way out of anything is to think it to death, and then your brain becomes sick of it.
 
#15
it helped my dad to replace the cigarette with something else. for the physical sensation, he used mints. for the boredom/habit part, he used a tooth pick.

he managed to stay off for a while before falling back on skoal. either way, he was completely nicotine free for a while, and those methods helped him get over it.

hope that helps. be strong. might want to get a friend who is willing to be a complete dick about it to coach you along. ive done that for a few people with decent results.
 
#16
Yes, toothpicks and skoal got me off of cigarettes. I chewed the skoal for 6-9 months. That habit was so disgusting, it was relatively easy to quit.
I chewed toothpicks longer actually. At first, the toothpicks gave me something to do with all the nervous energy, I practically had slivers in my mouth. It was good, I think, to have a hand-to-mouth thing that wasn't also addictive. After a year, I was symptom free. That was in 1995-6, I smoked as much as 3-4 packs a day in '95.
I smoked a pack and a half over a weekend, with my cousin when he stayed with me in 2007, but that was all. I just dropped it that time and had my cousin smoke outside for the several months he would be around. After that, I have had not a problem.
The key thing to me was qutting because "I wanted to." Not because it was bad for my health, smelled bad, was too expensive or was anti-social. All good reasons to quit! But, I just didn't want to have to go everywhere with my psychological "life support system" anymore.
Good luck to all of you who still struggle with it. I feel free! Be decisive and strong.
RD
 
#17
Ericman197 said:
As I recall, you've been drinking for at least a few years like this.

At this point you may have developed a physical dependence on alcohol. If you seriously plan on quitting, you should to consult a doctor.

Today, alcohol withdrawal is often handled in clinics. However, some people may need to be hospitalized for delirium tremens, a potentially fatal, and extreme sign of withdrawal.

Regardless of whether you experience severe withdrawal symptoms or not, a number of treatment options are available - both to make the withdrawal easier for you to tolerate, and to reduce the chances that you will relapse into past drinking habits. Unfortunately, most alcoholics who quit either abstain for the rest of their lives, or relapse. It is very difficult and risky at this point to drink 'socially' or for health - if you want to quit, it needs to be for good.

If you haven't done so recently, you should also see your doctor for a checkup. For example, alcoholics often are deficient in vitamins - not only because alcohol interferes with vitamin absorption, but because alcoholics don't eat much 'good food.' Even light beer at 100 calories x 18 a day = 1800 calories - that doesn't leave much room for fruit, vegetables, etc. Alcoholics are often given supplements in case they are deficient (in particular, B1 (thiamine) to prevent Wernicke's encephalopathy). Then you have your liver, amongst other things. The sooner you change your habits the better your chances are for recovering and living healthy.

Same principle applies for smoking, for which there are also treatments available. But both drinking and smoking require incredible willpower, support, and planning in order to quit.
Click to expand...

yeah i know. i had to do an alcohol assessment the other day at some clinic so i could get my limited liscense, dude heard i was going back to iraq not too long from now and didn't even really look over anything. idk if i'll be able to do it, alot of stuff been going on and it all just makes me want to have a drink. hopefully there won't be booze where i'm at in iraq like last time.
 
#18
warwick.hoy said:
The only time I relapsed was at a social gathering...around many smokers around 3 weeks after I initially quit. I was drunk and bummed one smoke.
Click to expand...
When I quit smoking, I quit ALL my favorite vices. Decided to stop drinking and other soft recreations for a year, to help support my efforts to quit tobacco. When imbibing in these activities was when cigarette usage went way up. Actually didn't drink or **** for nearly two years. I know a lot of ppl who can smoke ONLY when they're drinking -- but don't trust myself enough to try this. Seems like a slippery slope. YMMV

The other times I really enjoyed smoking was after meals - but ya can't sop eating. Just had to gut it out

Set up little goals for yourself. Try to make it one day and be proud of yourself....then make it two days...once you get on about a week or so you'll realize that if you relapse...a lot of hard work had gone down the drain.
Click to expand...
This seems very sensible.

Also still get cravings every once in awhile, but they pass quickly.
Two side notes: now it looks weird to me when I see ppl smoking!
When smokers sit next to me, they really do smell like ashtrays.
 

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