Quitting Cigarettes…
- Started
- Last post
- 24 Responses
- hydro741
I quit little over a year ago. Tried the nicotine pouch, but one pouch was the same as 4-8 darts. So moved to CBD pouches about a week later, those got old and pretty much killed that craving for nicotine. Oddly easy. Smoked since college, so 25+ years. Now trying to get the wife to quit, but it’s more her choice. Nothing makes you smoke more than people telling you to quit...
- +1
"Nothing makes you smoke more than people telling you to quit"YakuZoku
- +1
- OBBTKN1
Quit this year on Xmas, back to smoking one month later (with the typical excuse of stress :().
Now, after a week of vacations and doing nothing time, I plan quitting for ever.
I love biking, and being asthmatic, smoking is not help anyway.
Not a heavy smoker, I can quit when I want, but, the weekend beers with friends and a cig, only one, fucks my will.
Cero cigs after this sunday, 4eva, and back to bicycle training again, this is the plan. Hope it works!
- rzu-rzu0
don't know if my advice counts, since I'm back to smoking now but last year I've managed to quit both alcohol and tobacco for about 8 months (I didn't smoke weed for like 10 years until September last year)
what helped me, big time, was excercise, cycling was the best
I did not go cold turkey, I was still having that one cigarette a day in the evening, but after few days I've noticed the taste and smell of smoke became increasingly disgusting, while the taste of food... oh my, quite the opposite
If you get cravings during the day, do push-ups until they go away (and they will, it doesn't take long).
the most dangerous thing though: after few months you might think to yourself, while having a beer with friends: "I'm ok now, everything is under control, so it's not a big deal if I smoke one or two tonight"... just don't
...and now I'm thinking I should quit again :)
- shellie10
I’m turning 40 in october and i quit cold turkey 3 y es ars ago. I took stock of some of my older girlfriends that smoke and they look, well terrible. Their skin is just ruined (hands, chest, deep face wrinkles). I’m lucky enough to have a young look mostly do to being a black woman that doesn’t go out of my way to tan. But, i felt like i needed to stop pushing my luck. The way i was able to quit was purely based on the benefits of the physical maintenance on the outside only — but inside i also feel volumes better.
Weed scratched the itch and now gummies satisfy my need to find instant calm/chill when stressed or fun when partying. I don’t think ill ever quit that unless im pregnant.
It helps that my new partner is a non smoker and i know its a dealbreaker for him so im not tempted to cheat.
- Projectile1
Nicotine gum is what did it for me.
Vaping is better for your lungs, but sooo much more addictive. After a couple of years of vaping I couldn't go 1hr without a puff.
Patches are fucking useless as you're not in control. Gum gives a burst of nicotine, so it's at least a bit like smoking as you're in control. And easy to wean off.
Just get her a box of gum, so any time she decides to make the switch, it's there.
- BuddhaHat1
I vaped with nicotine for probably 3-4 years and gradually dosed down the nicotine amount until I vaped just juice for about 18 months for the hand-to-mouth habit aspect of smoking/vaping, then just tried really hard to stop, and pulled it off. been about 8 months.
I totally agree with comicsans you have to want to stop, without that will/desire it's unlikely to happen. I urged my alcoholic bourbon-swilling weed-monster barbecue-chowing mate to slow down on everything but it was only a proper scare from insanely high blood pressure that got him to calm down. I don't think he'll ever stop tho', he lacks any form of self-restraint.
- comicsans2
My "enough is enough" moment. My motivation was self loathing.
A wet Sunday afternoon and I was settling down to watch a film on the VCR. Reached for the fag packet and there were about 4 in it, more than enough to last the film but my instinct was to go out and walk about 15 minutes to the nearest shop to get another box. Finding myself with my jacket and shoes on, I was disgusted at the craven addictive behaviour. I did go out but bought a box of cigars, I had decided that I would smoke as many cigars as I wanted (without inhaling) but no more cigarettes.
On Wednesday I threw the cigars away having had the last one on Monday.
- comicsans3
I quit having just turned 30 after smoking for about 14 years. A few previous attempts had failed.
You absolutely need your own personal motivation, trying to quit because someone wants you to do so is not going to work. Equally, feeling you should give up is not the same as knowing it is time to stop. I had my "enough is enough" moment and it was remarkably easy. Because I had internalised that I was no longer a smoker I have not had or wanted a cigarette in decades.
I have heard hypnosis can help but have no experience; other crutches like patches may help the initial easy part (stopping), they will not prevent the backsliding weeks or months down the line.
You have to want to quit, you then make the rest of it work.
- Yup. You gotta make the internal decision, a true commitment that is beyond the surface.monospaced
- shapesalad-2
Am I the only one on QBN who besides a few beers now and then, doesn’t smoke, vape, smoke weed(I hate that smell, fuck off with that), do drugs, micro dose etc??? Nor do I have tattoos or sleep with escorts.
- gawd you sound boring.... ￣へ￣pango
- No. But I don't judge anyone that does it because, apart from the tatoos and escorts, I did it all when younger.dmay
- Boring? Perhaps I sound like someone balanced and not suffering some sort of trauma that I need to pacify.shapesalad
- Nothing as fun as giving yourself cancer and paranoia by puffing your money away on cigs and weed...shapesalad
- Honestly that makes your searing, pervasive gloominess all the more depressing, sadsalad.BuddhaHat
- Lol.shapesalad
- Couldn't care less, but what does say a lot about you is that you feel you need to come out with this sort of dull response every time the topic arises.Nairn
- YES. You remind us constantlyscarabin
- ...And yet you’re still not happy. Odd, thatscarabin
- Sadsalad. Do you have "live, laugh, love" on your wall? :)pango
- monNom0
What worked for me after 10 years and many failed attempts was to recognize that quitting initially wasn’t so hard (despite the hype), but that it was too easy to start up again.I used nicotine patches for three or four previous attempts and they worked well to manage cravings. Or as a placebo to manage cravings at least. I used the lowest dose ones as the others were too strong when first applied. With the patches I’d get quit and then make it a few weeks/months, but then I’d have one cigarette while out with friends and within weeks I was back to smoking. I realized after the last time, having quit for 6mo and starting up again, that it was that first cigarette that was breaking the spell and putting me back on the road to smoking (“what’s one going to hurt? I quit. Now I’m a ‘social smoker’, I can handle this”). But once you have one, the next one is so much easier to justify to yourself, and the next even easier and suddenly you are smoking again.
So the next time I tried, I decided I wasn’t going to get tripped up by having just one. And sort of as a byproduct, that would mean I wouldn’t ever smoke again. It simplified the task and I wasn’t even thinking about forever, just the singular event of the craving where I allowed myself to smoke again, and understanding what that single cigarette would mean in the grand scheme of things.
Now I know it sounds a bit ridiculous, “just don’t have another cigarette and you will quit smoking”. But it was that insight of giving in to the craving in a weak moment as the inflection point of my quit/start cycle that allowed me to simplify my quitting into just don’t have that first one.
So the next time I tried to quit, I used patches for about three days but didn’t feel I needed them after that. Cravings came. Especially after I completed a task. I was rewarding myself with a cigarette so my brain expected one every time I finished something. Instead, I’d count to ten, or get a drink of water, or stand up and stretch. Within a minute the craving would subside. After a few weeks, I wasn’t getting as many cravings, but occasionally my mind would try to convince me I should have ‘just one’. I didn’t give in, and those impulses became less and less frequent, until they just didn’t happen anymore. That was 14 years ago and I haven’t touched a cigarette since. The longer I’ve stayed quit, the bigger the cost to having ‘just one’ cigarette, which I think has helped me to avoid falling back into the cycle.
Hope that helps. Maybe she’ll need to have her own “ah ha” moment to find the thing that works for her, but if mine works for her, she can have it.
- pango0
QUITERS!
- fooler0
My grandfather had emphysema and had to walk around with an oxygen tank when I was a young kid. That's all it took for me to never pick up cigarettes.
I was a chronic weed smoker but age, kids and a PAX vape has weened me off of that.
I just had one of my best friends from High School visit me who I haven't seen in 10 years. It was sickening how he had to spend the majority of our time outside so he could chain smoke. I was getting sick just from the second hand smoke and he had to be at the airport 2 hours early so he could apply nicotine patches after going through security.
I've had plenty of vices but cigarettes hasn't been one.
- nb2
Have you tried not being a weak ass bitch
- dasohr-1
Cut the weed. Invest in Nicotine gum. The first week is the hardest.
- ideaist-2
I smoke 1-3 cigarettes a day...(ThannieFearce)
- scarabin2
Acid
- instrmntl4
Go cold turkey. The first two weeks are harder, but after that, it's mainly adjusting habits/situations that make you go smoke.
- dbloc7
You gotta be ready mentally. That's my only advice. If you're not, it's next to impossible. Took me a few tries.
- Exactly. Also being reminded that you smell like shit and people might not want you around their families or children.monospaced
- Yeah this. I found the nicotine patches and lozenges helped heaps too.thumb_screws
- Non-smoker here. Quitting smoking makes you smell?jagara
- No. But knowing you stink helped me quit.monospaced
- What a dumb question, sorry XDjagara
- Nairn0
I've broached this subject with my partner, given these days I pretty much only smoke tobacco with joints and... it has not met with much, if any success.
All I can suggest is - "tread carefully".
- YakuZoku0
I quit years ago by switching to vaping using vape juices that was very similar to what I smoked (no fruity flavored stuff) and a strong nic, I think it was 24 mg/ml
after a few years of being hooked on that I switched to nicotine gum, now i'm addicted to that.