Former smokers

I quit 8.5 years ago. I figured out how many I smoked per day and cut it by one for a week then repeated until it was one a day, then every other day, etc... I found the hardest thing is when you associate smoking with a particular action like breaks, after eating, with coffee or drinks, after sex, etc. The habit is harder to break than the physical addiction. Break the pattern first, then the do the physical part, I think that most of the people that have trouble stopping it's because of trying to break a psychological addiction and a physical one at the same time. Just my theory, not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, just observations of myself, friends and family members.

Totally, my greatest residual urges to smoke coincides with physical activity as a 'reward' for what I have done ... Very weird considering one contradicts another.

I used to hike all day but smoked at various rest points ... I think I associated smoking with appreciating the views/nature, it's just a habit/association that needs breaking.

Same here! My absolute favourite cigarette was the one I'd have as I exited the gym! I used to say that my blood must have too much oxygen in it, lol!

I quit in 2007, used patches for around 6 weeks until i realised I'd forgotten them a couple of days and then stopped using them. My husband quit soon aftr me and went cold turkey. We've both gained weight so I'd recommend you do some form of exercise as something to break the habit.

I hate everything about smoking now, especially the smell, but I still miss the feel of them in my hand... :smokin:

^This!

I don't smoke in my home or car, so random times through the day, or in traffic won't be a problem. I can think of things I associate with smoking and it will be difficult to break that association:
1. Waking up in the morning. Stepping outside for a smoke is the first thing I do. Well, the second technically. THe neighbors don't want to see me in my underwear, so I do get dressed.
2. After a meal. There's something very satisfying about a full belly and smoking.
3. Being outside, hiking and geocaching. Anytime my friends and I get out of the car to go hike and look for a cache, we light up. Every time we move on to the next cache, we light up. Repeat for every cache we look for in a day.


I'll have to find a way to replace the first two. As far as Geocaching, I think I might be able to manage that. I'll just either go out with non-smokers (wait...I don't know any non-smoking geocachers), or take only my kids. If need be, I'll stop going for a while.

Here's what I keep telling myself: Most addictive drugs have a "reward" which is, in part, what makes them addicting. They alter your state of mind in a detectable way. Some make you feel happy, some make you high, some relax you, some take you to a completely different world. Cigarettes don't do that. I can't even pinpoint what it is about them that makes me want to light up. So, why do I smoke? I can't tell anyone why I smoke or what it does for me, all I know is what it does to me when I don't have one. There is not one single good reason to smoke, so I need to work past what it does when I don't have one, and feel better physically each day. I'm 37 years old and feel the negative effects that 25 years of smoking has had on my body. That's the majority of my life I've been poisoning myself. I can't wait to see what my body feels like a couple months after quitting, it will be something i haven't ever truly experienced as an adult.


Why'd I type all that? So I can come back and read this thread after I quit, when my brain is trying to convince me that just one cigarette will make everything better...