Any one quit smoking successfully?...help!

I smoked for 10-12 years. I always said I would quit when I was ready to have kids and I did. It was actually easy. I honestly think it was b/c I had told myself of this event/date for so long that my body and mind knew I had to quit at that time. Weird, I know. However, I cannot lie when I say I would not love a cup of coffee or glass of wine with a cigarette, I would. I just don't b/c I am afraid I will start again. It was more of a cold turkey stop. Prior to stopping, I had tried the gum, it never worked and tasted really bad.

I was fortunate that although I was a long term smoker I've never been a heavy smoker. For the last 2 years I stopped bringing them to work and only smoked when I got home. In Feb I got a respiratory infection and wasn't able to tolerate cig smoke so after a week I decided to not pick them up again. It hasn't been too hard, even though I live with a heavy smoker sometimes I get the urge but it passes quickly.

The best advice I heard from a friend who quit was to do it slowly. He used to wake up every morning and light a cig first thing. For 2 weeks he waited an hour before smoking every day. Then, after 2 weeks he waited 2 hours for 2 weeks, then 3 hrs. etc until he was able to quit without shocking his system.

I hope you find the strength to quit...it's honestly the best thing I've done for my body in a long time.

Quit cold turkey, just make up your mind and find things to keep you busy that won't make you think about it.

I quit 2 weeks before we left for a 1 week cruise. I was so busy with packing and details it got me through the 2 weeks so by the time we got on the ship, the cravings were not bad at all. We stayed soooo busy having fun, I forgot I ever smoked during the trip. The TEST, we came back to more snow than we have seen in many years. As I tried to drive, all I could think is; I need a smoke, omg I need a smoke. i made it through and it will be 2 years in December.

Today is 31 days of not smoking. I have smoked since i was 15. So i have smoked for 16 yrs. The only thing that helped me was being ready to quit, and taking chantix. Consult your doctor about the side effects. the only side effect i had was vivid dreams, but none were nightmares.

Good Luck,

I am an ex-smoker. I am 47 y/o & started smoking when I was 11, quit smoking for good when I was 31...By the time I quit, I was up to 2 packs a day!!

I tried to cut down, probably a dozen times or more...worked for a bit every time, but then I ended up increasing and I would be smoking heavily in no time.

Cold turkey worked for me. The first week was horrific, then it got better over time. Find activities to keep busy, read, write, paint, clean, etc etc.

I would say it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I am still trying to figure this weight thing out once and for all.

I remember the first time I smelled lilacs in the spring because my sense of smell was improving - it was wonderful.

The truth of the matter is....sad, but true, I still have a phase here and there when I want a smoke. It correlates with when I am stressed. I also dream that I am smoking when I am stressed and panic when I wake up thinking I blew it and started smoking again, but then I realize it was just a dream and I breathe a big sigh of relief, into my healthy pink lungs

Good luck to you - you can do it!!

Cheryl

I've never smoked but I was talking about it with a lady in my yoga class and she is doing great, over 2 wks without a cigarette. Things helping her are yoga 3x a wk, chewing on a toothpick, and gardening. Good luck!

Oh my older sis quit by replacing cigarettes with sunflower seeds in the shell which used some of the hand/mouth fixation.

i quit smoking in 1996. i used to smoke 2 packs a day. i was around 23 and sick all the time with bronchitis. so i had to quit. it was hard but so worth it. now i hate cigarettes and can not believe i ever smoked. i used the patches and had a list of why i was quitting and read that everytime i wanted to smoke.

good luck you can do it if you set your mind to it.

6am tomorrow it will be 4 weeks smoke free for me. half a pack a day for most of the last 24 years, since i was 12 or 14.

my two cents on quitting. you have to decide if you really want to quit, not kind of want to, not quit because your family wants you to but that you dont want to be a smoker anymore. if you cant say that you want to quit then dont try, might as well enjoy it until you decide enough is enough and you want to give it up since the battle will be an inner one. really think about it, think about your favorite cigarettes and think about experiencing that moment without a smoke.

like most everything else in life, it is mostly if not all mental. the mind can tell or teach the body to do anything but the mind can work against you if you arent completely committed.

think ahead and think about what success will look like. for instance, if the toughest time to not have a cigarette is in the car then have it detailed, that little extra incentive will help, you dont want to waste all the money you just spent making your car nice. if you feel like you cant afford to detail your car think about it this way. how many packs will you spend on detailing the car. lets say it is 20 and that you smoke a pack a day. put the detailing on the credit card and in 20 days you will be able to pay the credit card bill... as long as you dont buy cigarettes during that time (yet more motivation)

do the same to your home, get a maid service for a big cleaning and then no more smoking inside after that.

my toughest time to not have a smoke is right after a workout. think about that time and think about it smoke free. you will need something to occupy yourself then and peeling and eating an orange works great for me. it occupies my hands and something about the citrus and natural sugar helps dull the physical cravings and oranges are good for you. good combo

change your routines as much as possible. it helped me that i quit at the beginning of a camping trip and i will never smoke around my kids so that was a few days where it wasnt an option and it rarely came to mind even though those are supposed to be the toughest days.

who else either doesnt know you smoke or you wont smoke around them for one reason or another? schedule a bunch of time with them in the coming days and weeks.

post about not smoking on FB and MFP and twitter or wherever you frequent, at least once a day proclaim how long it has been since you smoked, you wont want to have the clock tick back to zero next time you make such an announcement but if you do, suck up the embarrassment and start over, smarter for the mistake you made

i dont tell people good luck since luck has nothing to do with it (and if you think you need luck then dont try to stop), it is all about deciding for yourself, deep down, without reservation, that this is something you want to do, then thinking about what that means and what it will be like to not have a break at 10a to go outside work or to not sit on your front steps after a meal or whatever your rituals are.

I've tried to quit by every method known without success until I watched the video presentation of Allen Carr's Easy Way To Quit Smoking. After that the way I thought about nicotine changed and I no longer have ANY desire to ever smoke again.

I quit smoking on March 22 after smoking off and on since I was around 16.

One of my primary motivations (other than the obvious health reasons) was the cost of cigarettes. I don't know how much cigarettes cost where you live, but in Chicago they are $10 a pack. (And rising!) This means I have saved nearly $1500 since I quit smoking, since I was smoking around a pack a day. I didn't think twice about throwing away $10 a day on cigarettes. It's stunning to me now, thinking back.

Instead of throwing that money away, I bought the shoes in my avatar as a reward to myself when I hit three months. (I still would have spent more on the cigarettes.) It makes me physically ill to think about all the money I've thrown away on smoking over the years, and every time I start to think fondly about smoking, I remember that. And I wear my new shoes.

You will not regret quitting! You will regret not quitting. Don't waste any more money!

I remember the first time I smelled lilacs in the spring because my sense of smell was improving - it was wonderful.

Cheryl

THIS IS SO TRUE!!!

You will be shocked at your sense of smell and taste when they return. You smell and taste things that you couldn't before.

This is gross: I had two children when I quit smoking. I packed their summer clothes away after I quit, and when I unpacked them at the beginning of the next summer, I had to throw EVERYTHING away. I could not believe how HORRIBLE their clothes smelled. I was so embarassed that my children smelled bad because of my DISGUSTING habit.

I do it all the time, I smoke a prime time maybe once every other week or so. mostly just when I'm camping or super drunk.

I smoked like a chimney and had the most dreadful eating habits. lived on coffee, coke and choclates.
I used ZYban for about 2 months to kick the habit and I am so grateful I did.
I did not feel better when I gave up and was as sick as a dog for more thatn a year, I caught anything doing the rounds.
My eating habits didn't improve and I put on 50kg,
I will NEVER smoke again because it is even more difficult trying to lose the weight I put on!
I still have a craving once in a blue moon, but I think of all the weight and i'm done!

Good luck, it really is worth it.

In December, I will be smoke free for two years. I started at 16 and quit at 32 - half my life I smoked a pack a day. I didn't have troubles breathing, or coughing. I didn't get sick all the time, I didn't feel bad, I was active and exercised regularly. But I wanted to quit, but couldn't do it. Then my father-in-law had a heart attack and the doctors looked him over and said everything was fine - the heart attack was solely blamed on his smoking. He had to give up booze, cheese, meat and sausage and salt - the real reasons for living! My husband and I decided we wanted to eat those things, so we quit together. He quit with the patch. The patch gave me rashes, so I did a few things. I got Wellbutrin from my doctor. I got an e-cigarette for when i craved holding one and inhaling and I got the gum to chew throughout the day....
Using all three of those things combined helped...then I got pregnant. That made it a lot easier to stay smoke free...I don't recommend that tactic necessarily. But I do not believe that any of those three would have stood on their own and helped me quit. I needed all three together.

Good luck!! We are all rooting for you!

I don't know that I have any real "advice". Personally, for me, it was just *really* wanting to quit. I didn't even really plan it out. I had sort of decided in the back of my mind that I needed to quit after realizing that I had slowly worked up from "just" 1 pack a day to 2 packs a day. Then at the end of a business trip, I stepped out of the airport, realized I had one cig left in the pack in my pocket, and decided that I wasn't going to smoke it. I tossed it in the trash, and quit cold turkey right then.

The hardest part was getting through about the first 2-3 weeks. Every time I stopped to get gas in my car, I had to fight the habit/urge of going inside to buy a pack. Over time, the urge got weaker. And as everyone will tell you, there comes a point where you start to realize just how strong and how bad the scent of stale cigarette smoke is. Some stranger will walk by you, and you think to yourself, "did *I* really smell like *that* all the time?"

Another hard part is feeling like you need something to do with your hands, or something to chew on. You might want to keep some sugar-free gum around, or lifesavers, or some other low-cal, long-lasting snack (maybe try carrot sticks or celery).

Another thing that helped me stick to it was that once I decided I was done, I told all my friends that I was quitting. This added pressure on me to not backslide, and fail publicly.

That said, I did backslide once or twice over the years for brief periods (once while traveling with a smoker friend, another time due to stress). But I was able to stop myself easily. I haven't smoked in about 15 years now.