Any one quit smoking successfully?...help!

the best way to quit smoking is you have to want that change in your life i quit 11 months and two weeks ago i will be at my 1 year mark september 2nd.,it is hard work and dedication,and learning not to replace them smokes with food ,good luck

I do not think anyone can quit smoking successfully until they really want it. I had tried several times but didn't really have my heart in it. I one day woke up and decided I wasn't going to let my life be ruled by a little inanimate object. I quit cold turkey. I cut up straws in the size of cigarettes and smoked them when I felt the need. Helped with the hand to the mouth thing, along with some jolly ranchers. I also decided I didn't want to gain weight and ended up losing it with the help of my fitness pal. Keep in mind, too, I was unemployed the entire time I quit smoking with no friends or family in Arizona to keep me busy. If I can do it in those circumstances, I think anyone can! You will feel AMAZING as time goes on being a nonsmoker. I have been one a whole year and the smell of those things and smokers themselves gross me out now!

I agree, but my problem was that at the time I quit I honestly DID want it. But so many months into being smoke-free I missed and craved it so badly I would give in and start all over again. I have smoked for 12 years and I've probably been trying to quit for the last 7 of that.

I started smoking at 13 and quit when I was 24. I took Welbutrin for about a week to help me quit. I've been a non-smoker for 8 years. I will say that if I go to a party and drink too much, I may have a hit of a cigarette or smoke one but that's once every couple years. I still like the smell of the a freshly lit cigarette too but I hate the smell on my clothes. My daughter's dad smokes as well as my parents and I will rewash my kids' clothes when they come home from spending the night. I know it sounds weird but ugh!

My first husband was a heavy smoker since age 13 and he died of a massive heart attack in 2004. No warning, no nothing. In a split second he was gone. In 2008 I reconnected with my high school sweetheart and in 2009 we got married. He also had been a heavy smoker since he was around 15. We were out hiking in March at Gatlinburg and he had chest pains and could barely breathe. I thought we would never get back to the car. An angiogram showed two clogged arteries. A stent was put in one and he is on daily medication for a year. He quit smoking in March using Chantex. Chantex caused some terrible nightmares for him. In April we were in a high-rise hotel room and he woke me up in the middle of the night and told me not to let him jump off the balcony. When I asked him about it the next day, he had no memory of saying that. He got off the Chantex in May and has been cold-turkey since then. Having a 'cardiac event' was the scare he needed. (I don't think he would have quit otherwise). Today, he calculates that he has saved nearly $2000 in no longer buying ciggies.

I wish you the best of luck.

I quit 21 weeks ago cold turkey after reading The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.

That's what I'm reading now... getting my mindset.... feeling like a hampster in a wheel.

Guess I'll let you know how it goes, hoping to complete the book this Friday.

I quit smoking cold turkey June 26,2011. One year to the day and time that my beloved father died of lung cancer. He asked me to try to quit shortly before he died. I gave myself one year, to get past all the firsts, first christmas, first birthday without him. I planned quitting for months ahead. I knew my worst two triggers were talking on the phone and driving so I looked for alternatives to break the routine. For driving I began listening to audio books. I plugged my phone into a charger when I was home because I only smoked outside and I couldn't go outside while plugged in. I have never had so much as a puff since. But the demon still tries to get me. I just choose not to give in. Besides better health, which took quite some time to notice, I find I have so much more money now. I was paying over $7 a pack. Be strong!

I am happy to say i have been smoke free for almost 2 years now and I NEVER ever want to go back to that nasty habit. I had a herniated disk and had to see a neurosurgeon and he said if I were to quit smoking it would increase my chance of recovery by 400% because the chemicals in the cigarettes were not allowing the cells in my lower back regenerate quick enough to recover. Now was that just a ploy to get me to quit? Maybe, however, it was the best thing I ever did for myself. I quit cold turkey and can tell you it is the only way to really be successful at quitting. I also used the help from a web site called whyquit.com they list out interesting facts and people get to share sad stories on how loved ones died from it. So every time I would get a craving I would log on and read a really sad story about how someone lost a lung or a close family member to death from it and it made that craving go away really fast! The first two weeks are the hardest with the cravings but if you can talk yourself off that craving ledge for 10 seconds it goes away and then over a few months you won't even get them anymore and at some point the smell of it will totally gross you out and make you wonder what the heck were you doing all those years! I wish you the best of luck with being a quitter!

I smoked heavily for about 10 years. It took me several attempts at going "cold turkey", but when I fell off the wagon, I got back on. Eventually, I didn't buy another pack.
Shortly after I quit for the last time, I got pregnant...that kept me smoke free. I've been smoke free for more than 11 years.

I've smoked since i was in college,i am now 31. I was ine of those people who resigned to the fact that i will smoke until i get old. My partner, who is in health care, helped me through the process. I was checked up on every so often, caught when im lying ( :0 ) and supported when i strayed. One very vivid thing that kept an imprint was that i smelled cigarette smoke on a very humid and cold evening when i was abstaining and i was so repulsed. I guess i was just ready and primed to quit.

I had 2 or 3 fails of 2 to 5 months each. I am now going 1 year. I feel so much healthier! The benefits everyone said they felt, they are so real. I am still a big girl but i dont lose my breath climbing few flights of stairs, i breathe easier, i have been more productive and my smoker friends say that they'd like to go back smelling smoke free cause they say i smell great. Lol.

I guess you need someone who can support you and help you progress.

I smoked a pack a day for 2 and a half years straight. It's obviously a mental crutch as much a physical addiction, so I attacked it at both angles:

-Physical:
1- I used commit lozenges, and some gum. Whenever I was severely jonesing and on the brink of lighting up, I would pop one and it gave me my fix. It also helped replace the gratification of lighting up to popping one. I became addicted to the Commits temporarily.
2- I also started exercising and eating healthier. The last thing you want to do after a long run or 30 min at the gym is light up- gross!

-Mental:
1- I walked through all the damage it was doing to my lungs. And it helped for sometime. But really, I focused on the vanity (sounds terrible, I know). But I would visualize how my skin would become really dry and saggy and my lungs would be filled with tar.
2- Then I identified the habit times and spots- after a coffee, when i jump in my car, when I'm out at a bar. And i would really have to work hard to replace a cigarette with a Commit or a piece of fruit.
3- Also keep a calendar of how many days you've been smoke free!
4- GET OVER THE FACT THAT YOU'LL GAIN WEIGHT. This was the hardest part- but just accept that it may or may not happen, and that the long-term health you're going to regain is worth every short term inconvenience.

BE STRONG!

bump to read later

i smoked starting at the age of 12, and smoked 3 packs a day from 18 - 34. I quit 14 months ago. Honestly, i can say that i tried SEVERAL times. and when you want it bad enough, you will do it. You just have to lay them down & NEVER EVER touch one again. No matter how much your body begs for one. It is a simple (yet not so simple) as that.

Good luck!!

Patches, over 10 years ago. Best thing I ever did. My brother and I quit together, we didn't live in the same town but I think it helped us both. Good luck.

I smoked for 10 years. You're probably not going to like this answer too much, but here it goes.

I wanted to get married, my fiancee hated the smoking, so I just stopped.

Was it hard? Oh yeah, I had to stop drinking at the same time since the two went hand-in-hand for me. After the withdrawals went away, I just never picked one up again. It took a conscious effort, and a realization that you have control. Stress, social pressures, depression, they're all just excuses we make because we really don't want to quit, but if you want it bad enough, then you'll just put them down and tell yourself every time you are tempted to buy a pack, or when someone offers, you just say no.

When you say no to others or yourself enough, it'll become a habit that you won't even have to think about after awhile.

That's the best answer I can come up with. The only magic pill is the one between your ears.