Any smokers out there?

I've been smoking for years and I'd like to quit. I've tried a few times. I tried Chantix once and it did help but I had bad side effects from it. I had vomiting and diarrhea. I am going to quit but not right now. Having a hard enough time watching what I'm eating, I'm gonna lose weight first and then deal with the smoking thing

I quit Dec 2nd, 1999, after 15 yrs of smoking........best thing I ever did!

1) I wanted to quit. I had enough and I genuinely wanted to quit. (This is key)
2) I eliminated the "triggers" or replaced the actual smoking with a different activity for the ones I could not or didn't want to eliminate that gave me the urge to smoke. Like after meals, alcohol, social events. For that after meal urge, I went for a walk instead. Alcohol, I noticed I would smoke if I were in a bar but not if I was at home. So I quit going to the bars. In certain social events like gatherings of friends, I would excuse myself if the smoke bothered me or I began to get the urge. Then return after it subsided.

I know this two step process seems trivial. But you have to WANT to quit before you will. Then it is just like dieting, you have to work at it and build the self discipline and keep moving forward and never look back.

this!!!!

I quit with Chantix..it really worked for me except for the messed up dreams... it made cigarettes smell and taste awful!

ME TOO! Chantix was my miracle!!! Messed up dreams, but it really works! I was a smoker of 15 yrs. I will be smoke free for 2 yrs on April 19th! If your insurance covers it, give it a try! If not, well, its is really expensive. Good luck to you! I know what your going through!:flowerforyou:

A+++ Advice ^^^^

Wellbutrin helped me to quit, but I did gain a lot of weight. I started smoking again in hopes of losing the weight. Now I'm just as heavy and smoke.

^^^I am shocked! This is really the first Wellbutrin/Zyban reply out of how many?

Bupropion is an antidepressant known as Wellbutrin that coincidentally caused so many of its smoking users to quit smoking. It was so effective, they were able to give it its own label as "Zyban". If your insurance covers it (or if you have a student health center on your campus) you should do this! You actually LOSE weight...I would say 1/3 from the medicine, but 2/3 because you become more rigid with your own rules. Maybe its just me having taken it for ADD, but I think others have reported the same thing.

I know it sounds crazy...but if you go on it for depression, there is more chance that it would be covered by your insurance, and you would be taking more of it for longer. Unlike other anti-depressants which are more for blocking synapses, this one adds more norepinephrine activity. So I think of it more like adding, not subtracting anything (made me feel better about it)

It improved my life ALL around, and I wasn't even on it for depression/smoking. I can see how it gets people to stop smoking though with your self rigidness, stress reduction, AND cigarettes just smell awful!!! I would sometimes hold my breath going by a smoker because it was so intensely short lived. I could have a friend smoke next to me and get used to it, but passing by...wooooo.....

But yeah, taking it for ADD improved my whole life, including school and housework and losing weight!!

Wow, this is long.

I smoke on and off... mostly off. The last cigarette I had was around Christmas, before that the last pack I bought was in early November. Every once in a while I'll have a bad day and go buy a pack (I smoke Dijarium Blacks) and it lasts me a few weeks until I'll want one in a few months. I've been trying not to do that because my boyfriend is a smoker and is trying very hard to quit using the e-Cigarette.

Im a smoker and have been for 25 years. Ive tried to quit several times in the past but i really didnt have the mind set. Its my only vice and i still enjoy it. I will quit when they no longer ease the stress, craziness, or moodiness. I know the risks and dangers of smoking but i also know myself and the danger id be to others around me. When im ready, ill quit.

I was a twenty year smoker and had genuinely tried to quit at least 15 times. I had even started joking with my friends that I had given up giving up!

Then I found this website

www.whyquit.com

It helped me understand my addiction, admit that I was a drug addict, and gave me the tools and information I needed to beat my addiction.

I gave up cold turkey & have now not had a cigarette for a year & a Half., and am sure I will never smoke again.

I really hate to use the cliche "If I can do it, any one can", but in this case it is so true!!

Goodluck.

I am a closet smoker and just quit Monday Feb 13th. I am using the patches and so far it is working. The only time I smoked was in my car while driving or waiting. I would leave way early to get someplace just to have my chance to smoke. The first couple of days were hard because I wanted to eat, and I did allow myself a few indulgences and it showed on the scale. I am much better this week and feel a lot stronger. My taste and smell has started to get better. Now to figure out how to get the smoke smell out of my car. I had to make the decision. I was sick of being a slave to the almighty cigarette. It was getting to the point where it was an anchor around my neck. I started hating the taste and the smell, especially on me. You have to want to quit and set a start date. That is important. I have saved almost $40 by quitting so far...I would rather have the money and put it on something that will help me and not hurt me.

I used to be an occasional smoker. I think I've smoked maybe half a pack in my life. I never really found anything about tobacco addictive....maybe I'm just odd rsrs

I've quit smoking almost a year ago (the one year mark will be on the 1st of March this year) and in the process I've lost 101 lbs too.
So with the authority that these achievements give me (if any) let me demistify a few things:

If you quit you'll put on weight.
Well I've 101lbs that say otherwise. Quitting coupled with a change in eating habits has brought me more energy then ever before, I didn't get as tired as before and could keep exercising for longer thus making weight loss easier and not harder.

I' can't quit, it is too hard to quit.
You can, if I could so can you and let me tell you something else, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The way I describe it is First week = Hell, First Month = Nightmare, First Trimester = Bad Dream, First Year = Liberation.
Yes you'll crave, yes I still have occasions where I feel like I'd like a cigarette (very few and far between), but these go away almost immediately, in the early days they'd last for a couple of minutes or so and then once you focused on something else they'd go away. Now they last only a tenth of a second when a behavior or action where you used to pull a cigarette triggers the memory and you feel like you should have one, but almost immediately you dismiss it.

I like the smell / taste!
Really? So next time you're going for that chocolate on your press why don't you try to eat one of your cigarettes instead if you like it so much? Next question.

I don't really want to quit, it is a social occasion.
I never had a problem socializing as a non smoker, as a smoker however there were plenty of times where I had to break a conversation to go satisfy the nicotine demon outside.

Smoking calms me down.
Really? I've never had the feeling of "I'm running out of cigarettes and everything is closed, what do I do now?" again since I've quit smoking. I'm calmer and can concentrate easier as a non smoker then I ever could as a smoker when I had, for instance, to take regular breaks from whatever I was doing to go have some puffs outside.

So to all the smokers in this thread...

If you knew with 100% certainty that the next cigarette would be the one that would cause you lung cancer, would you smoke it?
I'm pretty sure what your answers were, so STOP now as the next one may very well be THE ONE!

I'll leave you a resource that I've found very useful, there's a group of really helpfull people out there and there's a bunch of great advice and support on those forums, so take some time to register and just quit.

http://quitsmoking.about.com/

You can do it!

I quit smoking two and a half years ago after smoking for 15 years. It took me losing someone who was like a father to me to cancer for me to finally quit (cold turkey). It was a huge eye opener for me, my kid's were my reason for quitting.

My mom and dad smoke. Like chain smoking one right after another. They are trying to quit now with the electric ones it works for my dad but not my mom. So I guess it is a hit and a miss with it. When they quit they are going to take all the money they would be spending on cigarettes and are going to spend it on a new car payment :glasses: it's good incentive for my mom especially.

I smoke and haven't been able to quit.... Everyone says cold turkey but I've done that before and it only lasted a year and I was back smoking again.