Quitting Smoking?

congratulations. that's the first step. you're hopeless until you start truly believing this.

when i quit, every time i had a craving i took a huge, deep, meditative breath or two. it sounds corny, but it started to work.

then i started jogging.

not if you never quit chewing it.

That is the key to the Allen Carr method, which worked for me, even if it was a delayed reaction. People who give up smoking see themselves as deprived, rather than seeing themselves as being free of a debilitating, expensive, anti-social habit. When I finally gave up smoking (after nearly 15 years as a smoker), I just stopped. I was, to be honest, ashamed of myself for continuing to smoke as long as I did, and I just started to think of it as a stupid habit. So I quit. And it was hard, and I put on a lot of weight, but all in all I feel a lot better and I never had any desire to start again.

Oh Nathalie. I shake my head sadly, and patronisingly.

It is weird, though, after five years off the gaspers, to get this unbelievable craving out of nowhere in a stressful situation and realise that you're gumming for a fag. It's kind of funny.

I have had the odd occasion where i've craved a fag but i now find the smell pretty horrible. There is one major bummer in that i've put a shitload of weight on since i quit, i'm aiming to shift that in the new year.

hahaha, Markelby to thread. Or not.

For reference of badly-argued theories about why pubs shouldn't smoke in pubs.

Two things did it for me:
1) No longer thinking of myself as "a smoker." It was part of my identity, and once I self-identified as a "non-smoker" it was easier to stay away from cigs.

2) A smoking buddy said knowingly, "You'll be back." Yeah, I'm petty like that.

Benefits: being able to smell and taste things, incredible $$ saved, get sick a lot less.

Been off 'em for 12 years, though after 5 years I was able to have the occasional cigarette without lapsing back. What a life!

Yes! Also, when you meet people, if they offer you a fag and you say "no thanks, I don't smoke," they never offer again. Whereas if you say "I've given up," or even the really ambiguous "I'm trying to give up" they will still think of you as a smoker and try to draw you into their ways.

This is totally true for me. I have little desire to do so if no one else is. (Which reminds me: fuck, I forgot to bring my cigarettes with me today since I'm going straight to the bar after work.)

If you can go for three days without, quitting is possible. That's how much time it takes for nicotine to flush out of the body.

Thereafter, the 'twinge' your body makes when your synapses are crying out for a fix is actually a form of pain, so taking an aspirin or Tylenol or ibuprofen will relieve that pain.

Weight gain is a concern many people have but cardiovascular exercise will actually help reduce the capacity for a craving, and help with fitness generally. Many smokers are just plain orally fixated which is why food can become a problem. Drink water instead each time you feel like putting something foody or smokey into your mouth.

Worst part is hacking up giant lung cookies. If you use a gym, steam/sauna will help clear the lungs that bit faster.

anyway, i have quit for weeks at a time (been smoking 10-25 a day since i was 16, now i'm 22). what always got me to smoke again was driving long distances. but now that i can't do that until at least february, i think it might be a good time to try again?

Once this pack is emptied(that should be like...a week or two. It's like 1.2 cigarettes a day) i'll drop it to 3 puffs and then try this drug my pharmacist suggested.

this is about half otm for me, I went halfway by calling myself a "person who isn't smoking" cos "nonsmoker" has connotations of self-righteousness and severity that probably would've doused my enthusiasm to quit. It's a semantic headgame but those little itty bitty things make all the difference psychologically and of course it's different for everybody. Next Thursday will make it two years without a cigarette and I still don't conceptualize it as having "quit", but my fitter lifestyle now + the time and work I've already put in would be a whole lot to toss out the window so I find the moments of weakness get less and less rough with time(I had to ask my wife for help in Guatemala a few months ago tho; indoor smoking=yum. NO).

I smoke about two a day now. :-( If I do any more, I'll just quit full stop. Must be doable. I already quit coffee. -> No, migraine attacks so far! Hurrah!

this, i'm fully aware, makes me a total bell-end on several levels (no-one needs an annoying mate stealing their smokes) and what really gets me is that if i'm out with non-smokers, i'll have NO DESIRE TO SMOKE AT ALL.

i did try some self-analysis about a year ago to work out why this happens: i think a lot of it is tied up with tired old notions of coolness/control and the ceding thereof. it doesn't help that mrs fiendish is still a social smoker too; it does help, however, that we're both very keen to knock this on the head once and for all.

ultimately, when it comes to smoking, i'm a bit of a twat. end of story.

Well, considering I smoke, not really. :-(

Fixed :D

accentmonkey: wow, that sounds like a whole new kind of annoying behaviour. you should shoe these people roughly in the bolls. i think i have seen someone do that once, but had blotted it from my mind.

Just because I WANT to fuck my ex girlfriend doesn't make me anything in relation to her but her ex-boyfriend.

I've had a couple of drunken setbacks but I've been lucky enough to wake up next morning with regret and a sore throat rather than a craving.

I had a Final Cigarette In A Pub when the smoking ban came in earlier this year and it was wonderful, maybe the best cigarette I ever smoked.

This would be a lot easier if cigarettes did horrible ex things like knock you up and then break up and disappear from existence, change phone & locks, etc. As it stands cigarettes just stop me from going bonkers.

I quit for five months recently and went fucking BONKERS...I was dreaming about them all night, every night, and thinking about them every minute of the day. I also wanted to strangle everyone I saw smoking out of jealousy. Crimes of passion and deprivation. I was talking to my mom-in-law about it and just burst out crying. She went and bought me a bag of roll-yr-own tobacco bcz she was so startled. SO now I'm back in the saddle of dying cowboys again. :(

The thought of going through grad school sans cigarettes was killing me, too...but imagining how I'll quit once I have a baby is even more maddening. I feel like a wreck.

"And you broke me like the cigarette
That I busted on the day I quit.
But now that I've been drinkin',
My pack is empty and I wish that I hadn't"
Alkaline Trio.

The fact that I love that song is what's kept me from both drinking alot during this period and also when I do have like ONE beer or something to stick with my regimen.