Ex-smokers! I need some advice to help me quit

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  • Sp1nGoddess
    Sp1nGoddess Posts: 1,138 Member
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    I logged and ranked my cigarettes and started gradually cutting back. Then I used Nicorette gum. I have not smoked for 15 years.

    This book helped me:

    http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Smoking-Skinny-Joseph-Martorano/dp/0380794969

    For me I knew 100% without a doubt that I would quit. It was really mind over matter for me. You have to truly believe and know that you can do it.

    I distanced myself from trigger situations as much as possible.
  • Stacyanne324
    Stacyanne324 Posts: 780 Member
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    I smoked for 10 years and have been quit for about 8 1/2 years now. I found the patch to be pretty helpful but ultimately it was just something I had to do so I did it. My husband (then fiance) had a heart attack in 2003 and was told that if he didn't quit smoking he wouldn't live to see 30 (he was 28 at the time). He never picked up a cigarette again and I quit by the time he got home from the hospital. I knew I couldn't help him if I continued the habit so quitting was about something bigger than myself and it worked.
  • kewers0718
    kewers0718 Posts: 12 Member
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    I had several people tell me the easiest way to quit was to start an exercise routine and they were right. If you get the urge to smoke, do some lunges or squats, push ups or sit ups whatever...

    I started an exercise routine and bought a treadmill. I am smoke free now for 2yrs 3 mos and don't have an urge.
    Warning: I cried for the first 3months. It was like losing my best friend. I had the support of my mother, whom I didn't live with and no support of my still smoking husband, whom I do live with. I did it and so can you.
  • lisawoods25
    lisawoods25 Posts: 1
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    hi i have stopped smoking for 3 weeks now i went to the stop smoking clinic and got champex tables i also go to the gym in a morning which helps as i could smoke more in a morning good luck
  • ReluctantKiller
    ReluctantKiller Posts: 21
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    The biggest thing in my experience is you have to want to be a non-smoker.... you have to think of yourself as a non-smoker. You can hate smoking and hate yourself for smoking, but that's not enough. You can say you're ready to quit, you can say you want to quit, you can know intellectually all the reasons you should quit and agree with them, but until you have the image of yourself as a non-smoker, nothing will work.

    Don't think of yourself as an ex-smoker or a trying-to-quit-smoker, you are a non-smoker!
  • pamelad77
    pamelad77 Posts: 292 Member
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    Champix, (chantix in the states) was the worst thing I have ever tried. Talk about spaced out, it felt like I was a character in a video game for most of the time, really didn't feel like I was in the real world! Glad it worked for some though, I'm still trying :(
  • Janice032557
    Janice032557 Posts: 163 Member
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    I quit just under 3 years ago and I would not have been able to do it without the use of the patch. It was the most wonderful help anyone could ask for. The only side effect I had was if I wore the patch when I went to bed I got nightmares. So I couldn't wear it to bed, other than that wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Good luck.
  • jonisteenhoek
    jonisteenhoek Posts: 92 Member
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    My husband quit using Chantix - it was hard. He had a lot of emotional outbursts, depression, and horrible dreams. He's been cigarette free for almost two years now and without Chantix for about 18 months. My mother-in-law has tried Chantix five or six times and can't kick the habit. I think that is the problem, so much of it is a mental habit: need to smoke when you're in the car, at the bar....some things just go together it seems, like milk and cookies. Deciding to break the mental habit might be harder than the physical addiction.
  • Kymmy81
    Kymmy81 Posts: 168 Member
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    I am 65 days smoke free (yay!) and did it with Champix - although I've been off the Champix for about 2 weeks now. No matter all my promises to myself about quitting, I could never truly visualise myself as a non-smoker, that's how much smoking was a part of my life, and who I thought I was. But I was kidding myself - of course I'm still me without smoking. Just a less smelly, richer me with a far greater fitness level than I ever thought possible! I miss it in certain situations, but the benefits I have found far, far outweigh any little cravings.

    Whatever your chosen weapon for quitting, good luck. All the cliches are true - it's the best gift you can ever give yourself. x
  • dida0721
    dida0721 Posts: 107 Member
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    I used the gum (plain label nicorette). stuck in my lip like chew. I still want a cigarette most days, but I've been smoke free for over 13 months. Only took me one box (90 pieces) of gum.
  • LeBlanc2011
    LeBlanc2011 Posts: 6
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    My husband just quit after 11 years in October. He used the patches
  • mndamon
    mndamon Posts: 547 Member
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    I smoked for about 15 years. I started working out and realized I could get further if I'd quit smoking so I started using Chantix. I haven't had any side effects from it, although I took it differently than the prescribed way. Instead of one in the AM and on at night before bed I just take one in the morning and that's it. I haven't had a cigarette since last September and never feel the urge to have one. Could be a placebo, I don't know and don't much care because it's working. I do still struggle if I'm having drinks though, that's what probably took me the longest to adjust to.
  • Sabresgal63
    Sabresgal63 Posts: 641 Member
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    This is said lovingly............................throw them away and let the chips or *****iness fall where it may.................you don't want to carry oxygen around with you when you are older...........good luck!:bigsmile:
  • tuffytuffy1
    tuffytuffy1 Posts: 920 Member
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    I quit smokikng a little over a year ago. Here are some of my tricks and tips:

    1. Smoke your last cigarette right before you go to bed on a Sunday night. Have no cigarettes in your house after that.
    2. When you wake up, you will already be 8 hours or so into not smoking. The physical addiction of the nicotine only lasts about 48 hours.
    3. Go to work and do NOT leave the building for the entire day. At the end of the day, get in your car and go straight home.
    4. Repeat Monday's routine all week for the most part until you start feeling confident that you can go out and not run into a store and buy a pack of cigarettes.
    5. I chewed sugar free gum, coffee stirrers, and straws when I felt a craving hit hard.

    You can do it!
  • Heaven71
    Heaven71 Posts: 706 Member
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    Smoked many years, tried quitting a few times and about 1.3 years ago, I finally quit for good. COLD TURKEY. In my case, I changed my whole life. My route to and from work so I didn't pass the places that sold them. Don't go places where people smoke and I didn't and still don't spend time with smokers. It's just like eating and getting healthy, you have to change your whole life.

    I just stopped doing what I was doing and did something else instead. Keep busy! Clean, organize, exercise just do anything to keep your mind off of it. Also I founf it helped to use something to replace it in my hand. I chewed on a pen for a few days and that helped A LOT!

    Good Luck, you can do this, you just have to really want it!
  • jeffrodgers1
    jeffrodgers1 Posts: 991 Member
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    I accepted that I needed help for starters. Quitting smoking is in a sense more difficult than quitting cocaine or heroin. It is still mildly socially acceptable, and legal. It also has seriously addictive properties.

    When I quit smoking, I needed the realization that it was a physical and a mental addiction.

    I stopped doing things that triggered my cravings.

    I started taking zyban AND the nicotine patch.

    While on the patch, I weened myself off of Nicotine and was able to stop taking zyban shortly thereafter.

    I then took several months to avoid the triggers (i.e. drinking beer, partying which lowered my willpower, stopped hanging around with people who smoked (sorry friends... if you were really my friend you wouldn't offer me one or blow it into my airspace).

    I have now been smokeless for 16 years (and for you Canadian smokers out there... I was smoking 2 packs of Green Death or Players plain daily).

    If I can do it.... so can you!
  • daphnegetnfit
    daphnegetnfit Posts: 175
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    My husband tried everything - someone on MFP recommended Allen Carr Easy Way to Quit Smoking, I ordered the book on Amazon for about $8 - he read it - he stopped smoking on July 4th - and has not smoked since
  • terriw1958
    terriw1958 Posts: 3 Member
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    3years and going :D I wanted to be healthy , so I quit with the help of an electric cigarette, Knowing I could smoke it if I needed a
    cigarette really did it for me, and knowing if I wanted to use it forever, I could did it for me, after abt 4months I didn't even need to
    use the electric cigarette. I also, tried to break the cigarette with coffee, cigarette when driving a step at a time also
  • jeffazi
    jeffazi Posts: 198
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    Best method ever. It got me off of them. However many cigarettes you smoke every day start there and smoke one less than that for a week. So, if you're a pack a day smoker, count out 19 cigarettes, put them in a pack and that's what you smoke each day for a week. The next week, 18 a day. The next week, 17 a day. All the way to none. It's a painless way to quit. No withdrawl, no suffering. By the time you get to 1 a day you won't even want that one. I stopped when I got to 3 per day and didn't miss it one bit.

    Hope this helps.
  • katecoaches
    katecoaches Posts: 1
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    i tried quitting so many times; it was finally the nicotine patches that really worked for me - starting with a high dose and slowly decreasing the patch dose every couple of weeks. they really made it doable for me & now i can't believe i smoked for so many, many years! good luck! you can do it!!!!

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