Stop Smoking

Kotuliak

lgfrie wrote: »

Avoid nicotine replacement products. They are just as addicting as cigarettes, some of them more so. You are not addicted to cigarettes, you are addicted to nicotine, so any product with nicotine in it is just replacing one delivery system with another. You just have to tough it out, and I won't lie, it is hard. But don't fall back on any crutches like patches or nicotine gum. Just get it over with. It takes 72 hours to break the initial hard-core nicotine craving, and then around 3-4 more weeks to come to terms with things. After about a month, if you've made it that far, you should be solid.

I agree with everything lgfrie said except this paragraph. I have attempted to quit many times. Finally I used both the gum and the patches, to soften the cravings. The gum tastes so bad I couldn't wait to stop using it. I gradually decreased the patches down to zero, over a 4-week period. Without them, I think I would have failed again. The goal is not to continue using nicotine, but to break down the habit which has many different components. In my experience, gum and patches have been useful and effective tools that helped me quit smoking.

Marisela170

Marisela170 wrote: »

Any tips to stop smoking? I’ve been smoking on and off for years now but this time I’m finding it a bit more difficult to stop. When I try to stop, I start eating way more than I usually would. I want to quit but I also don’t want to gain a lot more weight in the process as I’m still working on getting to my goal weight. I’ve lost about 35 pounds this year and I still have about 25 more to go.

I don't know if anyone still reads this but here's a little update. I had surgery last month and during the surgery I had a tube down my throat and my diaphragm was inflated so for a few weeks after the surgery I was having a really hard time breathing. I tried smoking when I was walking home and I really couldn't breathe. I got lightheaded and almost passed out. I put out my cigarette and since then I think I've only smoked once. I'm trying to find something to occupy myself anytime I even think about smoking, so I'm hoping that within the next couple of months I'll be completely nicotine free.

geraldaltman

Make that experience with your diaphram and how you felt when lit up afterward your driving force, your fuel to stop. It will be your's and your's only. You will be amazed how far it can take you if you let it! And then it just won't matter what other people advise you. When I finally quit nearly ten years ago, my driving force was quite simply rage, inward rage! I got so angry at myself because in my next to last attempt I planned, I prepared for a week and on my quit day...I was smoking within hours! The other fuel you can use is when you quit and nail it down, you will then never, ever again have to hear or listen to anyone ever again talk to you about smoking! Set some kind of future modest reward goal. For me, it was a baseball jersey of my favorite team. After about three months, I saw that because of the money NOT spent on smokes, I could afford that shirt and bought it.
If you are using MFP I can assume then you are altering food choices to meet calorie goals and exercising. So, maybe using food (wisely chosen of course) might not be so bad an idea for urges. Ten years ago, MFB either didn't exist or I wasn't aware of it so I didn't have that benefit.
Finally, know these things: Anything you ate, drank or did while you smoked is COMPLETELY doable as an ex-smoker. I still drink coffee, I still enjoy cocktails, I still go to pubs once in while (I don't have to go outside or leave group if I don't want to so I can smoke) and it's all BETTER
The so-called obstacles to quitting are MIRAGES! Don't let them fool you.
Trust me, when you find yourself a month, three months, a year out from smoking you will become quizzically amazed, "I did that!? I smelled like that!?" Yes. Yes, we did!
Good luck. Go for it!!

Italiana_xx79

For me personally, I used the nicotine patches. I smoked for a long time and tried many times to quit. I only used the patches for a max of a month. It really helped with the cravings so that I could break the habit. Smoking while driving and coffee was the hardest but the patch made it easy (at least for me). Then I slowly stepped down from the patch. It's been about seven years for me now. Best decision I ever made!

geraldaltman

So intense was the driving forces for me that I described above that I wound not using any aids and frankly not needing them nor missing them. In time (really rather short) ignoring all the so called 'cues' to smoke became second nature. At that point there was no looking back and in January it'll ten years without even a peek; and it was all so much easier than anybody ever told me it was. Newbie quitters just have to get over the mental, emotional parts of it or just transform them to your advantage and not excuses to start smoking again.

acpgee

I quit cold turkey in 1993 after smoking 2 packs a day for maybe 10 years. Actually physical addiction to nicotine (which is water soluble) is out of your of your body in 3 days, so the difficulty comes from psychological addiction. I got so sick from bronchitis that I didn't feel like smoking for 10 days so I framed it as "Why start again?". Psychological addictions are not to be discounted, though. Ask any gambler.

My quitting strategy involved bribing myself. My smoking habit cost at the time EUR 20 a week, about the price of a new CD so at the beginning of the week I would treat myself to a new CD. The contract with myself was not to smoke until the end of the week when the little gift to myself would be paid for. This helped because most reasons for quitting only have negative reinforcement (not wanting to get lung cancer, not wanting your clothes to stink) and the bribes gave me positive reinforcement.

After a couple of months I could increase the stakes and time period, ie new designer shoes in exchange for 3 months of not smoking. It took about a year and a half to stop thinking about cigarettes, which is when I stopped the bribes.