Reply to: quitting smoking

[DS23]

the urge to smoke is a test of your resolve. how determined are you to stop? your nicotime nemesis will be tricksy but you can do it!

my wife and i stopped smoking when our first born was conceived over 9 years ago. for us there was no option but to stop - so we stopped. actually, i found it remarkably easy depite having been quite a heavy cigar smoker - i just needed a reason not to smoke that was more signficant than the urge to smoke. everybody is different though. money, smell, health... focus on one of those and use it as a weapon against the urges that will twist inside your gut.

good luck.

chefs shouldn't smoke!

[Bob Dalek]

As Willie Rushton so wisely said, "Stop putting cigarettes in your mouth and lighting them."

Or, as Mark Twain said, "Stopping smoking is easy: I have done so thousands of times."

[BoredBloke]

I gave up about 4 years ago. The way I did it was

1 - work out how much I was spending on cigs. That more than the health benefits gave me an incentive.
2 - got my wife to give up at the same time. We had this rule that if one person smokes then the other will. So because I didn't want her to and she didn't want me to, neither of us did.
3 - as snaw said earlier try to anticipate the triggers. For me, a really stupid one was a speed camera on the A40 just by the Greenford turn off. I knew that if I lit up at that speed camera, I could finish my cig by the time I got to the gates at work. Once I gave up I found my hand would literally itch. Once I was aware of this I could anticipate this.
4 - don't have any cigs around as you will make up an excuse to have one.
5 - don't make any rules up like only smoking when you go out etc. It doesn't work.

I did it by going cold turkey while my wife used the patches (good thing that I worked at GSK at the time and could get them for £4.39 instead of the £17 they were charging at Tescos). A bit later on my mother in law gave up and she was a 40-60 a day person. She did it through being hypnotised. While it didn't remove the will power part of things it did help a lot. She'd tried many times in the past to give up without any joy.

When I go out for a beer I could still murder a cig. What I found straight after was that when I went out I got pi55ed more because instead of holding a cig I would hold my pint. As a result I tended to finish it quicker and so drink more pints per night. The good thing is my lungs should be much healthier now although I am awaiting a liver transplant

[chef]

Ouch! smoking's not THAT bad for you

haha beat me to it ravello

[chef]

i've been clean over a year now ..two things did it for me in the end - NRT and getting married.

now why would you swear at me like that? there's no need, really

[Ravello]

i've been clean over a year now after a few failed attempts. two things did it for me in the end - NRT (patches AND gum, ignore the advice on the packet unless you have a heart condition) and getting married.

Ouch! smoking's not THAT bad for you

[lambrini_socialist]

i've been clean over a year now after a few failed attempts. two things did it for me in the end - NRT (patches AND gum, ignore the advice on the packet unless you have a heart condition) and getting married.

[Archangel]

No real advice to add to the above, I gave up 4.5 years ago (using Zyban for 8 weeks, then ordinary gum for about 6 months).

Go for it, good luck, and don't forget the "smug factor", use this at every chance, think how better off you are health and finance wise, and how stronger willed you are than those weak smokers.

[SallyAnne]

Hi Chef

If you are really determined to not smoke, then you will do it. You'll find a way.

Do you genuinely want to be a non smoker?

I gave up about 15 months ago after many failed attempts.

It really helped me that my lad didn't smoke - I just purely focussed on snogging him whenever I needed a fag, seriously. I concentrated on how clean my mouth must've tasted to him, and how horrible and disgusting it would be for him if I had another one.
And at work I concentrated on how clean and lovely I smelt, and how if I had one, I would smell so horrible to my work colleagues, etc

This actually got me through - I tricked my own mind into thinking smoking was horrible, and it still works.

I also no longer need that alone time - I used to value it so much, and it was my rebellious "me" thing....but now I dont need that anymore.

You may feel like the bottom has falledn out of your world at the minute...but life does go on. The void DOES get filled. I dont even have a void anymore - can't really remember the void...but I remember it being there when I first gave up.

Anyway, enough from me. All the ex smokers have given long replies, cause we could probabluy all write books on it. It's a ******* hard thing to do, but it can BE done.

Good luck
xxxx

[swamp]

I haven't smoked in seven years. Before that I smoked heavily for around ten years (e.g. 20 a day).

Now I would say I'm completely 'cured'.

My secret was to compelety disassociate from anyone who smoked. I met friends (who smoked) in restaurants where you couldn't smoke and then left before I ever saw them light up. Should be much easier to achieve this now the smoking ban has come into force. You need to put yourself first; be selfish and don't allow anyone to pressurize you into going anywhere where you are likely to be around people who smoke.

[rhubarb]

Accept that you will always, ALWAYS crave one.
Haven't touched one for 5 years now, and I could absolutely murder one right now.

If you can not smoke for a couple of weeks, get into your head that having one after that is pointless because you're beyond the nicotene addiction stage. You would only be having one because you fancy it.

Thats the way I looked at it anyway.

Roobarb.

[Stan.goodvibes]

Go buy a pack of your favorite ciggys (Marlboro Lights - what else?) then open it, remove about 5- 8 ciggies so the remaining ones are free to move around the pack then hand one to your mate and get him to go rub the filter end between his bum cheeks or under his 4skin, then put that one back in the pack with the others, and shake the pack so you don't know which one is the 'tainted' one.

Carry the pack with you at all times. You'll never reach for another cigarette again....

[bullseye]

since i turned the big 3 0 last weekend i decided it'd be best to quit smoking once and for all, no excuses..

i've done it before.. sort of.. well usually for around 2-4 months or so then there's always an excuse to start again, the main one being "well, i like it and i have just proved its not an addiction as i quit for x months"

anyway, this time i'm determined to stop but it seems so much harder and im only on day 4

help or tips greatly appreciated..

Stopped smoking 2 months ago. no inhalers, patches, books, tapes, cds were involved.

Told myself that I wont smoke from now on, in spite of all mates being smokers, I have managed to stay put so far.

I think its all in your mind, if you can tame it you can do it.

All the best !

[TimberWolf]

I only quit when I lost it

It could still be behind the sofa

[cupidstunt]

It's quite clever really, it's brainwashing, but not patronising. I found the Alan Carr book to be repetitive and very patronising, repeating the same tennents over and over i.e. smokers are sad. The McKenna book was more about taking control cravings and subconscious control rather than trying to turn you into a anti smoking hitler. I found I could stand with my smoking friends and not want one within a matter of days. There are similar CDs but the McKenna one is one of the best. I must admit I didn't particulary like the guy or believe him before, but it does work and it's very relaxing, that's probably the best part, remove the triggers remove the craving!


<edit> i used the gum method and it can work for a while, but it's nowhere near as good as the hypnosis, and more expensive

FFS, a contractor moaning about the price of gum. We're all doomed