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Has anyone successfully quit smoking?

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aoi tsuki

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i quit cold turkey three days ago after smoking for three years. The first day wasn't that bad, actually. Nor was the second. But today, i've been home all day, thinking how great it would be to light one up. i've tried to keep my mind on other things, but it's really been killing me. The worst part about it is i've been eating and drinking to feed the urge to have something in my mouth. i meant to pick up some baby carrots for this while i was out earlier. :/ It's especially bad here since this city was built on tobacco, and people are extremely unapologetic and even defensive about their smoking habits.

Does anyone have any suggestions to ease things? On one hand, i'm kinda rethinking my decision to quit, especially since work is ramping up and i hate my job passionately. Going through withdrawal's not helping matters. On the other, i don't want to end up dead way before my time like my dad.
 
Yeah, I quit for well over a year before I started again. Started a daily exercise routine and bought myself stuff with the money I was saving on not buying cigarettes. (Videogames mostly.) The first month was REALLY tough but got easier after that. Try to keep busy and keep your mind off it.
 
People who quit get my respect. Youre quitting a drug, no easy thing. Hopefully the cigarette tax gets so high people will catch themselves spending WAY too much and see it for how it is.
 
I used to smoke 1+ packs a day for 3+ years. Then I quit. And I feel so much better now. It can be done.

Keep in mind that the withdrawl's get worse before they get better. But they do get better after a few months.
 
I quit in December after smoking for about 17 years (15-32). It's a real bitch for a few months, but every week is better than the last one. After the third month it's just occasional withdrawl pains, then I'd say once I got to the fourth month it was pretty much defeated. I strongly suggest Nicorette - gum, lozenge, patch - whatever. At least at first when it's the hardest. I used the gum for the first few weeks.
 
I've been smoke free for almost 3 years after smoking for 7 years (smoked at least a pack/day). It can be done. Well, I used 'Zyban' (wellbutrin) for the 1st month, but I'm not sure it helped. Mainly it's all about WILLPOWER. Just today, I've been countless times around friends smoking cigs, and never even thought about it. But the smell can be VERY tempting, especially the first few months...

So....
Rule 1-EXERCISE. You will have a lot of stress, this will get rid of it. This is the best thing you can do to stop smoking and stay off of it. And you'll look good too.

Rule 1-DO NOT DRINK alcohol for about a month. Willpower shrivels when drunk.

And you can always toke up if you need to relax or just need to smoke something. :D Marijuana doesn't have the cigarette's nicotine that has made you an addicted slave for the past few years. (Though it does have the same harmful effects on your lungs, so use sparingly)
 
Also, hanging around smokers makes it harder to quit.
When you get a serious urge, think about your dad.

It's good to have a memory like that which you can use to remind yourself why you are quitting, especially when the urges get really bad.

The patch, the gum or whatever else can also be good to help lessen the urges.

I found that I really wanted to move my hand back and forth to my mouth like I was smoking a ciggarette. Sometimes it really helped to pretend to smoke a cigarette, I would hold an unlit one in my hand and pretend to smoke it if I was really craving one. You can also try chewing gum. Don't be afraid to chew alot of it. Part of the addicition is oral, so doing something with your mouth like chewing gum can help.

Also keep in mind that after say 6 months the urges will go away. But you have to stay strong. You may go to a bar or be hanging around some friends who are smoking and decide to just have one. DON'T DO IT. IT'S A BIG TRAP. You will go from just having one to being a full fleged addict again in no time.
 
Excercise sounds like a good idea. Not drinking for the first month is as bad as not smoking. Same with caffeine, mainly because of coffee. i glanced at the articles at whyquit.com and figured i'd just "do it", fight some urges, and then boom... i'd be over it. i wasn't expecting it to be a thing of fighting urges for months.

What really makes things worse is that i quit being a vegetarian after about ten years the same day as i quit smoking. It wasn't from a lack of dedication, but it was simply too much work to maintain a healthy vegetarian lifestyle where i live now.

If i can't have a cigarette, i could really go for a rare steak (wtf?) or a really hard fuck right now.
 
My dad quit when my mom got pregnant. It might have been easier for him than most though, he was a teenager and suddenly broker than broke (thanks to me ;)) and he had only been smoking a few years anyway. He claims it wasn't that tough to quit for him mainly because he had no choice because he couldn't smoke at work or at home after I was born.


Only other person I know who quit was a heavy smoker and after a dozen attempts finally kicked the habit for almost a year. Sadly, another other heavy smoking friend showed up for a few weeks of partying and kept offering him smokes in the bar until Wade started again. :P Took him another year to quit again, hopefully for good.
 
I quit a couple months after my dad died; roughly coinciding with when I moved to Seattle. I put on some weight because of it, but I'm glad I did it.

EDIT: Smoked 1-1.5 packs a day.
 
When I was with my ex from way back ( three four years ago) We spent about three years together where we went through about a pack every couple days well once we broke up I stopped buying packs ( she was the one who bough them really) I never bought another pack .
 
My dad quit in his 40's, till now he hasn't smoked once. He's in his early 60's now. I think he used to smoke half a pack. Not sure though.
 
Been smoking since I was 16, now 20. Last two years, I have smoked a pack of day, not including all the marijuana, and cigars (both of which I'm afraid I have a addictive tendency towards). I quit smoking for 18 days, then relapsed two weeks ago. It was my record during my lifetime as a smoker. If you are seriously addicted, there is no way for your mind to conceive what it would be like to be a lifetime ex-smoker, so that's where I run into problems. I didn't smoke 4 days after my relapse, but it just takes a bit of junkie thinking to convince a smoker to simply "quit later".

Ever since I relapsed, I just keep smoking after smoke. And it only took a few smokes to start the pack-a-day habit. The only way to quit IMO is cold turkey. I couldn't even make it a few days with the gum or patch. You must promise yourself to never smoke again if your addiction is too powerful... www.neversmokeagain.com. I found it to be a good motivating read, and it's what triggered the 18-day quit.

And you'd think it'd be easier when you've lost relatives to the habit... alas, it's really not for me. My grandpa died at 31 (never met him) of a brain aneurysm, same with one of my uncles (all of my mother's side), 52 and with the same causes.
 
aoi tsuki said:
If i can't have a cigarette, i could really go for a rare steak (wtf?) or a really hard fuck right now.
Click to expand...

This is the correct impulse to follow if you want to quit.

I quit several years ago after smoking 1+ packs a day of Camel Lights. I felt like shit, there was a little bit of cancer in my family and I was just tired of it. I went cold turkey and have never relapsed.

The night before I quit, I purposefully overdid it and chainsmoked until I wanted to puke. The next day, I went for a jog (my lungs hurt too much to run). I took hot showers and baths to help leech the nicotine out of me and calm me down. I smoked a lot of something that wasn't cigarettes. I hooked up with a f***buddy and he was sympathetic to my cause and said "anytime you want a cigarette, come over instead." :lol I basically exercised and indulged in sex, food, a bad attitude, etc. for a month or two until it got easier. I also went out the first weekend I quit with all my smoking friends, got extremely drunk and held lit cigarettes all night in order to prove to myself that I could go out and not smoke. Finally, I kept daydreaming this smoking greatest hits montage in which I relived my greatest smoking moments (after a certain Thanksgiving dinner, bonding with a best friend, after sex for the first time with an ex) and put my smoking identity to bed. It was a struggle to discover that I could still write (and meet deadlines), have a personality and have a social life without smoking.

Oh, and the final tip-- if you take smoke breaks from work, continue to take them, only don't smoke. Stay outside for the same amount of time you would have and take some nice deep breaths with your newly pinkening lungs.
 
I quit. I mean I still smoke VERY occassionally, but I am quit now for two years this october.

(and for those who argue that occassionally isn't quitting, in the past two years I smoked maybe half a pack last year while camping, half a pack this year at ozzfest, and one this year while camping. that's it for two years and all three were because I chose to, not because I was craving it.
 
I stopped smoking for about 10 weeks - and I went to Europe for my vacation. There, everyone was smoking... and I broke down. ;)

But after hearing Peter Jenning's death - I am motivated to quit again.

lachesis
 
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