Do you still smoke?

KateK8LoseW8

I switched to an e-cig a bit over a year ago with zero effort required on my part. I'm still addicted to nicotine, but eh. No lung problems.

tm82001

I quit 23 years ago and am so thankful. I smoked for 8 years and it was FRICKIN' hard to stop. I white-knuckled it and went cold turkey, but the power of the cig is a beast and my desire for a smoke was strong for an additional 10 years (although I never cheated and had one!). Good luck to you...please quit.

ValerieMartini2Olives

I was weening myself off. Then I just quit. I hated the way I smelled, the way my mouth tasted, and how I couldn't breathe when I rode my bike. Been smoke free for a year and a half.

WendyTerry420

I've been smoking since I was 18.

WendyTerry420

I stopped smoking 9 years ago because I couldn't afford $70 a carton anymore. I still want to smoke and have to be dragged away from people outside on their breaks who are smoking.

I don't feel it makes you a bad person or your should be down on yourself for smoking.

$70 a carton? Wow! We roll our own. Bulk tobacco is only about $13 and makes about 2 1/2 to 3 cartons.

cwolfman13

I quite on Sept 25, 2012...it was the first thing I did in my quest for a lifestyle of "good livin'. I actually used an e-cig to help me quit...I basically picked up an e-cig and told myself I would never smoke a traditional cigarette ever again. From there, I mapped out a plan that would slowly reduce my nicotine intake over time...over the course of 12 months I went from the highest dose available to zero nicotine and as of Sept 25, 2013 I no longer use the e-cig either and am completely independent of nicotine, cigarettes, the e-cig, etc. It's pretty awesome.

For me, it was not something I could just do cold turkey...I've tried a million times. For me, I had to go through this very lengthy process...for me, it was about "harm reduction" first and then working my way towards full independence. The best part though was that with the e-cig, I kind of felt like I was still smoking...but it was just water vapor...so my lungs started to clear up right away and within just a few weeks I was feeling much better than I had in years...within a couple of months I was exercising again.

I was a 2-3 PAD smoker for the last 5 years or so...in total I smoked at least 1 PAD for about 20 years.

The way I look at it is that the road to health and wellness is a long one, but you have to start somewhere. Last year is was getting off the cigs and getting my diet in order and exercising and just basically fixing a bunch of bad blood work and getting my fitness back. With that accomplished, I will continue onwards...but this year I'm tackling my drinking. I'm not an alcoholic, but I am an abuser of alcohol and drink far too heavily, far too often for what I'd call "good livin". I just joined a group called Moderation Management to help me moderate my intake and help me make alcohol a healthy part of my lifestyle or not. I begin next month with what is called "the 30"...abstinence for 30 days and then there are a number of other steps which include keeping a diary, etc. Ultimately it is designed to either moderate intake or identify whether I just need to quit altogether if I am unable to moderate...should be a good program and will take me the better part of 2014.

richardheath

I quit about 16 years ago when I got engaged, then started again 3 years ago when I got divorced. "That'll show her!" I must have been (not) thinking!

I quit for 3 months over the summer using Chantix. I too had the bad dreams, sleeplessness, so I stopped taking it, and a month later started smoking again. I got an e-gig about 3 weeks ago and have been using that exclusively ever since. I'm on the 18 mg nicotine now (equivalent to a pack a day) and plan to try to reduce down to the 12 in the spring, then phase it out totally.

RunForChai

Watching two youngish friends die of lung cancer....that's painful. Both smokers who tried many times to quit and used every rationale in the book for not quitting.
I don't smoke and never have, I have tremendous sympathy for those who do---but hope that you keep trying to quit.
They say it take 5-10 serious attempts to really quit.
Good luck.

emilychristinet

I was at a pack every two days, then I was at a pack a week (since my budget is set every week, it was an excuse for me to smoke less) and about 2 months ago, I lost the urge to smoke. That week, I didn't buy a pack and never bought one again. Don't know how it happened. Unfortunately, it made me really lazy since a didn't smoke inside and liked to go out for walks when I smoked. Now that I know I'm done smoking for good, I'm trying to get bad to old GOOD habits. Good luck to all the smokers out there who are trying to quit. It's hard, but when you feel you are ready, it's far from impossible.

Rosyone

I quit in December, 08. What I did was scatter a box of nicotine patches around all the places where I knew I'd be during the day - in my desk at work, under the keyboard of my home computer, in the car, and so on - so that I'd have the comfort of knowing that nicotine was always within easy reach if I really REALLY needed a fix. I quit cold turkey, as I never actually used any of the patches in the way they were intended. I just used them to fight off the urge to acquire more cigarettes long enough to break the addiction, sort of the way garlic is used to fight off vampires. Eventually I passed the still unopened patches along to a friend who used them the same way.

It took me about a year to get through all of the major and minor triggering events when I would have smoked before. The last bad one was on a hot Saturday that summer when I was worn out and sweaty from a day of yard work. I came in for a cold beer and... And what? I was used to having a smoke at such times, and I wanted it SO bad it felt like someone had jammed his hand through the wall of my chest, grabbed a fist full of bronchial tubes, and given them a hard twist. The feeling soon passed, though, and never again did a nicotine craving involve any sort of real discomfort. I still think about cigs occasionally but I don't want them anymore. It's just something I used to do.

fbmandy55

I tried and e-cig a few weeks ago and the first day was super easy, until it gave me horrific nausea and diarrhea.... Guess I can write off the e-cig route.

IPAkiller

I tried and e-cig a few weeks ago and the first day was super easy, until it gave me horrific nausea and diarrhea.... Guess I can write off the e-cig route.

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