Chantrix/Champix

I've been smoking cigarettes for over 40 years. I've quit in the past - during my two pregnancies and the last time I quit it was for over 3 years. I've been back smoking for 5 years now and find myself smoking more now than the pack a day I've smoked pretty much all my life. I've been trying to quit again and have tried the nicotine patches and lozenges to no effect. For some reason, where they worked for me in the past, now I don't feel any effect at all from them.

I just got a prescription for Champix (Chantrix in the US). I've been reading some horror stories online as well as some success stories.

Was wondering if anyone here has gone for this option and if so, what your experience was.

Would also be interested in hearing stories about how others have managed to quit or, if you're still smoking, any frustrations with the quitting process.

 

Years ago I got asthmatic bronchitis. That did it for me. Don't think that is available by prescription, though.

Good luck.

 

My daughter just picked up a prescription for it yesterday. She didn't start yet, but will let you know when she does. Just think positive and before you go to sleep, tell yourself the dreams will be colorful and happy. Well that's what I told my daughter to do. Let me know how it works for you and really, I hope it works for you and my daughter.

 

Chantix? If you're talking about that one, the hospitals I've worked in used to get it for their employees that wanted to quit. However, they stopped be user of the warnings about increasing suicidal ideation and some pretty harsh manic side effects. But, that's like anything. So, as long as you're aware that that an happen and you have someone that can tell you of you start acting crazy, then go for it. Some people have had good luck. My mom's friend required some intervention, but she's wacky to begin with.

 

Give it a try.
It's beneficial for many people.
Some people get serious side effects, the majority don't. As long as you're aware of what to watch out for, you will know if/when you need to stop taking it.

 

Hi

I smoked for thirty years. Max = one and a half pack of 20 per day.

Three main things I did

1: Plan the 'stopping' for about nine months before. Dealt with most of the predictable 'head' stuff first.

2: Planning but not letting myself stop did what's known as 'building response potential'. In everyday terms, I was teasing myself, dangling 'stopping' in front of myself, whilst dealing with the head stuff, until my system aligned and was champing at the bit to stop, in a context of decreasing resistance.

3: Logging resting pulse rate and change of pulse due to having a cigarette, also logging time for pulse to lower to resting rate. That was a tangible way to quantify the 'body' stuff. Noticing my breathing was not going to help ... I was able to have varying experiences of breathing for many reasons. General stamina was going to need the experience of NOT smoking in order to make a useful recent-history-based comparison and contrast. I'd started when I was fifteen, and so much of my health was different back there then. Therefore logging pulse rate, effect of cigarette and 'recovery' time was the only 'precise' physical measurement available to me. It grounded me .. and freaked me out bigtime. There's nothing like laying in bed, measuring 55 bpm, having one puff of first cigarette of the day, and shooting to 112 bpm. Then taking about 50 minutes before getting back to about 60 bmp. "So what's the problem with that?" I'd have no answer BUT, it slammed it plain and clear on MY doorstep that I was doing Big Measurable Things to my body. It was a valid quantification of impact, even if I couldn't do more than guess what the significance of that impact actually was.

Those three were sufficient to make me REALLY stop when I stopped. By the time I did stop, there was hardly anything left to keep me going with the habit. Plus my close observation with a "It's Ok ... carry on smoking, we're not stopping yet" was an additional disruptor to the habit. "Carry on doing it ... we're just taking notes and being intensely curious as to your motivation etc". There was no way my 'smoking habit' knew how to prevent or even to object to my taking notes and being intensely curious. But the smoking habit depended on the habit of 'sleepfulness'. I was not addicted to 'sleepfulness', only to smoking, so replacing sleepfulness with wakefulness was easy, BUT the smoking 'suffered', to my glee.

After actually 'quitting', the only 'clean up' routines needed were to take special notice when I entered "Special" contexts. Contexts which had not been entered DURING the overall 'stopping' phase. For example, the head-work and the stopping and the, I suppose I'd call it 'nicotine withdrawal' phase lasted about 18 months. BUT all this was happening WITHIN a two year sabbatical from playing guitar. When I returned to playing the guitar after I had stopped smoking and had stopped even feeling the want/need to smoke, I SUDDENLY had all the automatic 'reaching for a cigarette' feelings, along with a 'need' for a cigarette AS IF I had never stopped. My 'Guitar Trance' was bonded to 'Smoking'. It did not take long to deconstruct that, because it was just the memory links and anchors that needed to be redirected. But at the time, it was wildly interesting ..... I was even able to 'forget' that I had gotten over the nicotine addiction.

Absent all the head stuff, the nicotine addiction was no more difficult than a bit of will-power. It's amazing how the inner memories of the nicotine hits were able to add extra power to the real nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

With the benefit of hindsight, I reckon that if I HAD started smoking again, I'd never have been able to get fully back into the swing, because I'd destroyed the habits 'support system'.



My present experience of smoking is that I am glad I stopped. I LOVE the smell of others' cigarettes, pipes and cigars. I have a puff or two of a cigarette every two years of so, I totally love it. I also notice my pulse zap into racing and that slightly swimmy dizzy feeling and re-confirm I'm glad I've stopped. I have no hesitation in altering my pace in the street to get downwind of someone who is smoking something good. Lovely Cavendish or aromatic tobacco, or Balkan Sobranie .....awww .. or Sullivan Powell Turkish. Feck! The memories. These are the memories of one who used to smoke, and I LOVE those memories BUT I am no longer that person. How shall I put it ... back there then I WAS a smoker. And I thank him for giving me the experience of ecstasy, and also for stopping so I am alive and healthy enough to tell this tale with happy lungs. But I ... who am I? I AM the one who USED TO Smoke. That shift at the level of identity means I'm not going back there. I'm happy to let the sources of my nostalgia remain in the past.

Eh, Joniemack ... IF this is good enough as a perspective, for you to decide what, if anything I've said is useful, then great. But if you want to hammer at me a bit for more detail or amplification, go ahead ........ the only interest I've got is that you and I both should share many years, in various developing states of health and dignity.

Take care

 

First of all good luck. Youre better than me. I smoke right at a pack a day mostly at work cause my SO is allergic to the smoke.
I know 3 people that have tried it. One of them it worked for, the other two went fucking nuts in the head until they quit and it got out od their system. Whatever you decide to do, good luck.

 

I'm at the end of day 5. Still feeling the urge to smoke though I will say that it's not quite as urgent an urge as I'm used to. I think some of my smoking is now down to triggers. I still have 8 days until my cut-off date and aren't yet at my max dosage so we'll see. I really want to get to that point where I don't crave a cigarette or at least am able to say no to it. It's tough.

 

Good for you Joniemack. When I quit I was told by a pharmacist that the physiological nicotine addiction is broken after just a few days but the psychological/habitual part takes much longer to break. So true. Have you dreamt that you were smoking yet? That totally messed me up. I woke in the morning wondering if I actually had.

 

Well done!

 

Keep it up, Joniemack! I am rooting for you all the way!

 

Hi, again. Just occured to me to add:

"It's tough" ?
You're tough.