quitting smoking
 

so im tossing around the idea of trying to give up smoking........AGAIN!
ive tried the patch and the gum and had little succes at all!'
anyone got any ideas on what i can do to kick the habit?

Do I know you? the name sounds so familiar.

Anyways.

I'm going on 6 months now. That six months is after only smoking for just under a year after having quit for about 3 years. The pressures of rock and roll man... they get you everytime.

Anyways. My tried and true method is this.

Wake up.
Smoke yewr first cigs and go about the rest of the day smoking as normal.

Next day
Wake up.
Wait about an hour before smoking the first cig.

Day after that. 2 hours so on and so forth.

If yer a heavy smoke... go in 30 minute intervals at first and then work up to an hour.

After about a week or so, you'll only be lighting up at night. and then, just before bed. and then... and then.. and then


Well hopefully you will have kicked it by then.

I was a smoker for 7 yrs. I quit at twenty two on new years day. Took me three tries to actually quit completly. The only thing that really sticks out as to why I succeded was that " I absolutely , completely wanted to quit" You have to look deep inside yourself and see if your serious about this. Sounds cheessy but all the other times I tried to quit , I new deep down inside that I would eventually go back. I would almost look for an excuse, tragedy, any reason to responed to the question .. " hey, your smoking , I thought you quit?' (then I could responed) Oh fuck. This happened so I had to go back. sob sob sob . Oh, I was a two pack a day'er and good olde cold turkey worked for me. Good luck if you do try , just stay away from snacks, they fucking kill ya around the waist.

I'll quit the day after I die.

World's King = Hardcore pimp daddie with the cig dangling from the lips. Messin' around town on his Italian ride in his shark skin suit.....

man, if there is a heaven, I will be the first in line with a carton of camel non-filters

Anyone here tried to quit dipping? I tried twice, once cold turkey and once with help, but not successful. I need to quit and am waiting to psyche myself up, cuase the third time will be the charm -and the salvation of my lip!

This is going to sound really stupid.

My friend and I quit smoking together. We didn't do the patch, we didn't chew gum, we didn't gradually pare down, we went cold turkey.

We made a deal. Everytime we had the urge to smoke, we resolved to smack ourselves across the face. If we failed ourselves and smoked anyway, we resolved to allow the other to smack us in the face.

I know, I know....this is incredibly stupid, but I'll tell you what...it worked.

We had tried the gum, we tried not smoking as much, we tried the patch and none of it worked. The "Smackdown" Plan was a last resort and neither of us thought it would work.

The first couple of days were the hardest because it takes a long time for the nicotine to leech out of your system, but after that it steadily got better.

By the way....I cheated just once. My roommate smelled the smoke on me when I walked by. He drew back and slapped me hard with his bare hand. His handprint was on my cheek for a long time and it hurt like a son of a bitch.

You people could use OTC supplements to make this much easier.

I know its been said before, but two or three years after you quit, you think smoking is disgusting and wonder how you ever did it. Hang in there!

I have stopped smoking for about 2 months now. I quit cold Turkey after about 8 years. I found that the drugs make it harder to quit, and those whow do quit through the help of drugs are more likely to start back up again. The main reason I was able to quit was the fact I left the military and was no longer around smokers for about 2 weeks. That has helped a lot. I feel that the best way to quit is to do the cold turkey. Also, try to get away from what ever made you start smoking, and other smokers for the first week or so.

Yeah, I had that nasty-assed habit, too. Besides the nicotine, I missed that "feel" of the pinch between my cheek and gum. When I did finally quit, I got wild cravings after about a year, so I went and bought a can. I used it all up and was O.K. for about another year. Bought another can and only used a pinch or two out of that can before it went bad. After my last "wild craving" I bought a can, opened it up and almost gagged from the smell. Couldn't stand the smell anymore and haven't had a craving for it since. That was about 1986.

I agree. I smoked for 30 years but it wasn't until I really wanted to quit that it worked. I've been smoke free for about 4 years now and the difference in how I feel is amazing.

Good luck!

I quit cold turkey once. Next time I am going away up to the cottage for a week or two by myself. I was so damn moody I pissed myself off. My wife won't let me quit cold the next time.

Get a script from your doc. for zyban or wellbutrin (same drug, different name), whichever is covered by your insurance if you have it. You take this stuff for a couple weeks, set your date, and one day you stop smoking. A while later you back off the meds and you are done. It is increadible - the cravings are so small that they are laughable. I know tons of people this worked for, including myself.

seems like that just stretches it out.

Cold turkey is where it at...

You know what's really bad about the patch, is the damn price of it. Smokers just really get screwed in more ways then one.

1) Price of the smokes (mainly tax)
2) Your health
3) People telling you it's bad for you (yes, most of us understand that and a lot of us want to quit)
4) Cost of products to help you quit.

Gota love being a smoker (roll).

Oh, btw if anyone finds a really good way to quit, please let me know ;) I think for me the best thing to do would be to sleep for a month or two.

well i think i did it!
its been almost 5 weeks and im still going strong!
thanx for all the advice!

Man you got it right on the nose. I quit after smoking for about 6 years. It wasn't easy at first though because everyone around me smokes so it's easy to want to join them. I just waited for a time where I was away from them for about 2 weeks to do it. It was hard at first but after the first 3 days it's a lot easier. If you have the cravings real bad, the patch can help ease a lot of them.

I started smoking at around 12 years old.
Sneaking cigarettes here and there, and then full time at about 15.

In '92 I had a month long stay in the hospital that was partially due to smoking and sleep apnea.
The stay there was what forced me to quit.
After almost a month spent on a bi-pap machine to help oxygenate my blood, and vigorous breathing treatments, my lungs were able to bring in a larger capacity of air that I hadn't had for six or so years.

By the time I was released from the hospital I didn't want anything to do with cigarettes.
Let me tell you, breathing was a real pleasure again. ;)
I could smell things more clearly (sometimes not a good thing) and I didn't get winded so easily.

Every once in a while I wake up from a...nightmare if you will...in a cold sweat, having dreamed I was still smoking and that the process had started all over again.
It's always a relief when I wake up and realize it was a dream, I can tell you.

My mother and both of my siblings and their spouses all smoke.
It's hard to be around.
You can only ask them so many times to stop before they tell you to fuck off. (sometimes literally) ;)

It's been about twelve years since I quit, which I'm kind of proud of, but nicotine is a motherfucker to ditch.
It follows me everywhere I go.

SLIMM, if you can do it cold turkey, more power to you.

Just don't give up trying.

Quitting smoking was easy for me.....I never started :)

/end holier than thou rant

eight years ago I found a way to break the addiction that had me hooked for nearly 30 years-----I had a heart attack. haven't touched tobacco since

I smoked a pack a day for about ten years.

I've now been clean 2 years 6 months 3 weeks 5 days 12 hours and 32 minutes (but who's counting). My mantra has been: six more months and I'll be a non-smoker.

I have a great piece of software that tells me to the minute how long since my last cigarette, how many cigarettes I haven't smoked (14,108), how much money I've saved ($2119,70), and by how much I've prolonged my life (1 month 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours). There were times in the first couple weeks, the ONLY thing keeping me from lighting up was that I'd have to reset those numbers.

Cold turkey is definitely the way to go. Pick a date you're going to quit on, throw away (like tear up and destroy) all the cigs you own before you go to bed the night before, make sure you've got plenty of munchies on hand (carrot sticks are good because they're sort of shaped like cigs, and they're low fat). Also, make sure everybody around you knows you're doing it, so you have permission in advance to be an asshole.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

cut yer fingers off.

I'm starting to think that, that is what it's gonna take for me to get off "the Drag"

heres an idea...acquire a big black spot on your lung. Thats a good way to to be inspired to quit.

/tongueplantedincheek

I don't want to have one of these.

try the Commit lozenges. My buddy and my girlfriend use the Commit product and they say it kicks butt and it works, they do not want to smoke

http://commitlozenge.quit.com/

I smoked for 15 years. All I did was make a choice follow through. Forget all the bullshit excuses and rationalizations. If you want to quit you can quit.

The human brain is much stronger and capable than we think sometimes.

I started taking welbutrine for depression almost a year ago, and about a month after i started taking it i noticed that i was smoking way less than normal. Then i noticed that when i was smoking, i wasn't enjoying the cigs as much as normal, or at all. Then my shrink told me that welbutrine was the exact same chemical formula as zyban, just a different patent. The welbutrine pretty much killed the addiction, which was awesome. The only real trouble i had after that was breaking the habit. Smoking was sort of part of my culture, and it was harder to give up an identifying trait of my self than to get over the nicotine. I still miss smoking and sometimes i'll have a butt while i'm shootin the shit with someone, but it's not the same, kinda gross even, so i don't do that too often.

Go visit some emphyzema patients at your local hospital.

the only thing that will make you quit is putting your mind to it!
everyone will eventualy find a reason good enough to quit!
sure,i could get cancer,even die! lung cancer,throat,gum,lip cancer! i still wanted to smoke! $5 a pack wasnt enough to make me want to stop either!

for me it was a woman! i finally found something that made me want to stop! HER!

ive heard of people quitting when they had their first kid! they wanted to be around to see their kids grow to be adults!

if you want to quit you have to find the reason thats for you!
after that it wont matter what method you use!

The hell with gum, lozenges, etc. Just get a pack of Skoal. It'll help with the cravings, plus it's so inconvenient, messy, and nasty tasting that in most cases you won't want to bother with it.

not true!
 

i actually tried switching to chew and all it did was give me another bad habbit! and its way more addicting than smoking!
in 2 weeks time i went from one or two dips a day to chewing up an entire can of copenhagen!

Re: quitting smoking
 

for me it was simple...

I did the math of how much my smokes cost me each day, each week, each month, and then a total for the year.

When I saw how much it added up to... I quit cold turkey.

Best way to quit is to immediately start exercising when you kick the habit. Each time you start fiending hard, go for a run. It is a great way to stay smoke free and start looking & feeling better at the same time ;)

Jinya made me quit when she agreed to come pick me up.

That was it, though I still want one every time I see or hear about someone having a cigarette.

I quite cold turkey a couple months ago, just chewed on my hand when I had a craving or ate some candy. It wasn't as bad as I expected. But, I started smoking again 5 months later after a relization that I LIKE smoking. I need controlled self destruction in my life.

I'll quit smoking as soon as they start putting out little pills I can swallow that will burn me from the inside out.

I quit 4 years ago. Did it the cold turkey way. Amazingly, I think that my success was based on the real desire to quit. If you don't seriously want to give it up, then any outside influence's would cause you to fail. I smoked the last cigarette in the pack one nite and haven't looked back. In all these years, i don't recall any real desire to start back. Even when around people who are smoking, it hasn't set off a craving.
Good luck and give it time.