My New Years Resolution - I'm going to quit smoking
 

A little background information;

I've been smoking for about a year. I smoke about a pack a day, maybe a little less. I've noticed that since I've started smoking, I get sick easier, I have a hell of a lot less cash laying around, not to mention I hate smelling like smoke, (all my shit smelling like smoke, etc).

I don't want to do the e-vape thing. But quitting cold turkey scares me a little.

Any advice for me? Words of encouragment? I'm all ears, and would appreciate some postive support.

Thanks,
Big Smoke

Your package shouldn't rolled up on your deltoid any way

You've been smoking a year? How the **** old are you?

Quitting smoking after a year advice... hmm... let me think.

Oh yeah. ****ing quit. It's not like it's hard. You aren't some thirty year vet with a hard addiction. Sack up.

You will be less cool.

You're nowhere near ready to quit. You need a near-death experience and then you can quit. Ain't no sense quitting after a year, dude.

Good luck!
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Heh my advice? Don't resolve to do something....just do it. There's a reason why the vast majority of people fail with 'New Years Resolutions'. Simply, no matter what they resolve to do, it's just not that important to them. If it was they wouldn't be resolving to do something, they would be doing it....today.

If you've decided to do something then do it today. Don't wait for silly things like the new year, all that means is that you're not really committed to doing it. If you're not committed you will fail.

You just started man. How do you know you don't like it? You haven't been doing it long enough.

Seriously though....the patch.

You should change your user name to "No Smoke" to remind yourself.

If you want to quit do it get the nicertine gum to wane off the craving. Use a carrot to hold in your hand so you get out of the habit of having a cigarette in your hands don't hang around people who smoke. Also drink plenty of water to get the toxins out of your body. Finally replace smoking with a hobby that you love to do like running reading or laughing. Hope this help

Break your fingers so you cant open the packages.

19.

Easy for you to say it isn't hard. Feel free to go **** yourself.

I smoked for 4 years. I quit cold turkey, it wasn't hard, I just didn't smoke any more.

Don't be beetch.

I don't have one.

I had a good year this year, just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. I don't smoke so **** you cancer

I quit cold turkey after 14 years. No patch, e-cigs, just decided I was done smoking and quit.

Clear your house of all cigs, lighters, ashtrays, etc. Plan to quit drinking for a while, that's what gets most people restarted. Start working out, with lots of cardio, and set some other non-smoking goals to concentrate on. Things you want to accomplish not things you can't do.

Im on about 2 weeks without a cig. I chew 1 or 2 pieces of nicotine gum per day still though.

A little motivator for me was that I read a study that hangovers aren't nearly as bad for non smokers. I had a few drinks last night and don't feel like death, so I can confirm :)

but good luck! It's not that easy, your brain tries to make up little excuses to go buy a pack of cigarettes and you will find so many little things have become routine with a smoke.

I chewed for the better part of 20 years.....**** I'm old.....tried to quit so many times before. Never would take. Then on Oct. 2nd this year I quit - used Chantix. Haven't had a chew in 84 days.

You want to know to quit? You have to want to quit more than you want to smoke. I know that sounds really ****ing stupid, but I did nothing different this time that I haven't done countless times before and failed with. What made me finally say "Enough" was my 15 year old & my 8 year old telling me "Dad, we want you to quit".

That was enough for me.

An extra $1500+ a year buys a lot of hookers. Or just one really good one.

And some blow.

People still smoke cigarettes?

Oh.

That's all you need to know. The patch and medicine will help....but if you don't want to quit....you won't.

I, too, quit cold turkey a couple of years ago. No patches, no e-cigs, nothing.

My biggest downfall in my previous attempts was always the same thought I'm sure everyone has: "I'm just going to smoke one more and it will be my last one and then I'm done for good."

You just have to look at it objectively and tell yourself the truth - that last cigarette ever is not going to change anything. You're still going to want to smoke when you're done with it, so what's the point of even smoking that "last cigarette"?

Your mind is going to give you a thousand different reasons why smoking another cigarette is a good idea. You're going to find a thousand excuses for why it would be OK to smoke one more. Just man up and say no to yourself.
After a couple of months, you're going to look back and wonder how the **** it was even possible for you to smoke that much and think it was OK.

and you know the price range because?

Oh I buy hookers as stocking stuffers. Plus hogfarmer can get them for $50 an hour with no drama.

Find an evape you like and do that until you feel like you don't need it...

I quit April 9th after 40 or so years of smoking. I've tried pretty much every stop quitting thing there is. Cold turkey worked for me this time. You definitely need to want to quit more than you want to smoke. My 15 year old told me if I didn't quit, she was going to start. That was enough motivation for me. A radio host named Dr. Dean Edell said it takes the average smoker somewhere around 10 tries before they actually quit. All you have to do is don't buy them and don't bum them. And your right, they do stink. I'll bet your car, cloths and breath reek right now.

Good luck with the big sex talk...

Of course it is. I quit at 33 after smoking since I was 14. After I **** myself, I won't be having a cigarette.

Because quitting was easy, once I wanted to.

Ha. She's pretty up to date on that. I don't think she's had sex yet, but she's very responsible. I've pretty much done all I can do at this point.

No resolutions for me, just try to survive another year.

Have you asked for your user name to be changed? Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing going on if you don't.

LMAO

This is quality advice. Smokers will kick your ass if they catch you faking it with a carrot.

Same here. Either quit or wear an Im a pussy cap

I hope my son never gets on the planet. He'll realize pretty quick that I'm doing stocking stuffers wrong.

there is a massive quitting smoking thread I think started by frazod. I was a Respiratory Therapist for 10 years. Taught a lot of smoking cessation classes. Info and tips are in there.

If you want it bad enough, it will happen.

I quit smoking February 8 2013 & the best advice I can give is don't smoke your next one.

If you don't light up the next cig then your not smoking. By far not easy but it can be done if I did it.

if i want to be young again i just have to want it enough, right?

i smoked from 1964 thru 1987, sometimes as many as 4 packs a day and quit, after trying dozens of times...

i used the gum, gradually decreasing over the period of a year (and 100 lb - worth every ounce of it)...

gum, patch, e-vape, whatever works for you...

there's a lot of good advice in this thread...

You haven't quit yet. You're on a hiatus. I quit chew 100x. Sometimes for as long as 2 years and then failed again.

Here's the damn secret to the whole thing... This is difficult and I should be charging for this advice. Don't quit smoking. Smoke everything you can get your hands on. That is fine. It's a lot easier to just quit buying it. You can't consume what you can't by. Don't carry that disposable cash with you. Cut up the cards. If you can't quit smoking easily, then just;
quit.
buying.
it.

My advice mirrors this. I smoked 2001 - Feb. 26 2013. Tried to quit many times before. What killed me was bumming one just for this or that special occasions. This time I didn't have a single one after deciding I was done. Still haven't had a single cig since then. I had to completely cut myself off. It's just mental determination. Convince yourself that you're done.

Pardon the PSA:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7454/alj.gif

I quit 6 months ago, I smoked for 18 years and spent 16 of them trying to quit. It is very difficult. I had really rough go of it quitting. You are lucky that you have only smoked for a year, that is a positive. Quit now and you can legitimately overcome whatever ailments you feel you may be most at risk for. Hopefully you or someone else finds this useful.

Here is my 2 cents on quitting smoking fwiw.

Its ends up being quite complex to successfully quit for good. The following two items are helpful in the short term, but relatively critical to long term success.

It helps to establish some type of exercise routine that you can do often. Perhaps at least 3 times per week at least? Exercising has a natural way of making you WANT to do things like eat healthier and treat your body right. The most difficult thing for me over the years regarding finding success with this transition, was that I always tried to immediately set huge workout goals and expectations for this and want to go rebuild the world in a day with the new non smoker me, and then experience a low and go right back to smoking. The key to the whole thing is consistency. Each day you don't smoke is a victory and victories stacked up on top of each other make for a successful campaign! The exercise can be as simple as walking a few blocks. The key is that it is something of a greater output than what you are currently doing, because every time you do it you will be reminded that smoking sucks and how glad you are that you don't smoke anymore.

Dealing with stress... The fact of the matter if you are truly being honest with yourself, is that there are things that you DO get out of this. Otherwise, its unlikely you would have gotten to the point where you felt you couldn't quit. For me I used it as stress relief, taking a mental vacation from all of the shit I had to get done next, or today, or whatever... The thing about this that is interesting is that everyone does things to take a mental vacation and do things for entertainment/distraction (this message board being a great example of this haha!), but when you are a smoker it is hard to imagine what else you would do to fill that void. You must come up with something to help fill the void and a new outlet for the stress that you will be experiencing. Projects that require attention to detail can be helpful, puzzles etc etc. sometimes when I am stressing out It helps to go sit on the porch for a few min like I used to, I just don't smoke.

With those points in mind for the long term, it is obviously critical to figure out how to navigate the short term successfully since it is the most likely time you will fail, and also by far the most difficult part of the process. I cried several times throughout the process, it was really ****ing hard.

3 days until the chemicals are out of your system. Every minute it seems to get tougher and you become more frazzled the further away you get from your last smoke. Keep it in your mind that after 3 days the physical withdrawals will experience a dramatic decrease. Just focus focus focus, "if I can just make it 3 days it will get easier".

After that

3 weeks to get over the mental cravings. It will be 3-4 weeks to experience the amazing feeling where you realized that you forgot for just even one mini second that you used to smoke. Leading up to that you will probably be extremely anxiety and stress ridden. It gets worse every day. You feel like there is a damn war going on in your brain and your head is going to explode and everyone around you doesn't have a clue really how you feel. You look the same to them as you did last week and the week before, it is your own private 3 week miserable hell. Focus on the exercise, focus on the fact that you just need to make it 3 weeks.

The thing that was the real x factor for me was getting massages crazily enough. I have a lot of back pain that I have dealt with for years, and I decided I was going to chunk out the money and get weekly massages to see if it made a difference. To be honest I wasn't planning on quitting smoking until I got up to leave my first massage.

If you have ever had a massage you can probably recall sometime after having really cloudy or dark urine, it is a great way to "wring out" the toxins in your body. Meanwhile it is super relaxing and stress relieving!!!! I realize having done it how much of a financial commitment it was to get massages every week, but the longterm savings and your health are worth the world. Speed up the process of ridding your body of chemicals and chemical dependance, and reduce your stress at the same time!!! I find it funny that I stumbled onto it so randomly after trying every quit smoking method out there.

Drink lots of water.

Well yeah I can appreciate this post Phobs. I first had to stop buying my last pack of smokes saying "this is my last pack" every day. I also couldn't stop coughing it was bad non stop kept me up at night. Enough was enough.

So much better now but I put on weight from icecream bingeing all summer long. I had more craving for icecream I had to stop that too.

Do you think people who think they might want to quit respond better to the cold harsh truth or pats on the back?

Yea you're not gonna quit. Prove it.

Good luck to you. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.

I chewed since 1977 but haven't had a dip since October 11. The gum kept me reasonably safe to be around and I stopped the gum after a week or so(less than one box). I've ate enough Tic-Tacs and Icebreakers to choke a medium sized horse so far and haven't stopped either of those.

Thanks for the good advice. I even appreciate the "quit or you're a pussy" posts. I'm not 100% certain that I want to quit, and I think that's what is the most concerning. I've got about a pack and a half left, and think I might just smoke these and then just not buy anymore. We'll see how it goes.

Eight years ago I made a resolution to loose 40 pounds and keep it off. I have done that and then some. I weigh less than I did in high school and basic training. Good luck.

20 year 1/2 pack a day quit cold turkey. Had heart burn for two weeks and smoking dreams. 5 + years later best thing I ever did for myself.

if you're not sure you want to quit you won't. it took me almost 17 year to really quit. first tried when i was 21 then finally completely laid them down when i was 38. been just about 12 yr now. funny thing is though after this long there are times when it feels like i could pick one up and light up like i never quit, but that passes now pretty quick.

if you decide you really want to quit remember you'll never make it a week if you don't make it a day. then weeks turn into months, and you know the rest.

You started smoking when you were 18? You do know that isn't cool anymore, right? Hell, it wasn't cool when I was in high school 10 years ago.

you will not be successful. It's too damn hard. You can't quit because you want/need to quit.

Yeah. I hate to be the judgmental prick because I'm usually not that at all; but smoking cigarettes is one of the dumbest ****ing things you can do. Like, why? Why even take that first hit? There is nothing good about, whatsoever.

The hell there isn't...

I guess you could argue that the nicotine buzz is considered a high, but really you're just scratching an itch.

You should try heroin. Shit's way more intense and last quite a bit longer...

Smoking is relaxing to me. Always has been.

I haven't had a smoke all day. But I sure as hell want one. This is going to suck. :facepalm:

Stay strong man.

That's why my dad won't quit. He says he likes his morning cig, his after meal cig, his before bed cig. I just don't see it.

You know, you likely find it relaxing because you're getting that nicotine fix that you were craving. That's why people that try to quit often feel anxious or whatever; they're going through the withdrawals.

I could see how the time itself could be relaxing, but why not just spend it without smoking? I like my time on the shitter. Sometimes I'll go sit on the toilet for 15 minutes even though I know I don't have to shit. I'll have a seat, think about the day, think about tomorrow, check CP...

You should pick up meditation or reading or something. That's just as relaxing and actually healthy as well.

It's not easy to understand if you haven't been a smoker for a long period of time. You don't simply replace smoking with another activity and find any satisfaction. It's a complete lifestyle change, not just a switch of hobbies.

You're right about the satisfaction/reward aspect though.

1) Be 100% sure you want to quit. If you're not 100% into quitting you will fail, trust me on this. I've tried to quit in the past but was not 100% into quitting and failed every time.

2) Only way I was able to quit was to have a nicotine replacement (Nicitrol inhaler for me) and an anti-anxiety medication. That combo worked for me. I was no longer using my inhaler after 3 weeks.

3) Stay away from actives that you would normally smoke during, i.e. having a beer. Your brain will trigger your desire for a smoke.

4) I have had almost every illicit drug out there in my body at some point in time. Not bragging and not proud of that. However, cigarettes are the toughest thing I have ever quit. I was able to quit blow cold turkey easier than quitting smoking.

Hang in there and best of luck.

getting off the weed is just as hard too...been struggling

Then do the blow off the hookers ass.

Always wanted to do that.

Make up your mind. Don't smoke for a couple days, and then go smell the last clothes you smoked in. Do all the research about cancer, and look at all the pictures of smoked out lungs. Go work out and see how your performance compares to a year ago.

****ing quit dude. Smokes are bad shit.

The thing I tell everyone is take the money you would put into cigarettes and put it in a jar. Save that money and do something nice for yourself.

Christ dude, if you're on a pack a day and a pack costs $6, that's $2,190 a year. Two freaking grand. You apply two grand to a mortgage or car payment and that's huge. Hell that will buy you a ****ing 70" TV. EVERY YEAR!

Don't see how it goes. ****ing quit that shit. Now.

Made it through day 1.

Go me!

It is very difficult but you can do it, just as others have. I smoked for 35 years and quit. I feel so much better. I can breath again. Food does taste and smell better. You will be glad you don't smell like a used ashtray too.

Remember, if you tell yourself that "it is only one" then it won't be and you will have ruined all that you gained. I had cravings for a long time and two years later my initial reaction sometimes is that I would like one but that lasts a microsecond and you move on from it.

Doesn't hurt to be in a peer group of people who can help you stay off the cigs as well.

Not even in the same ballpark for me. With weed I just got bored of it over time and stopped doing it without even really thinking about it or making a conscious effort. With cigs it's like having the worst case of the shakes of all time, constantly trying to make "deals" with yourself like "Ok I'm gonna go buy a pack and only smoke one every few hours or after meals only". Then that goes to "Ok. I'm only gonna smoke once an hour." Then you buy a pack after work and it's gone by bedtime. For me there was nothing physically addicting about weed at all. And since I was already tired of it the mental addiction wasn't there really either.

Good job, dude. Tomorrow is going to be a real hurdle but if we could do it, so can you.

Just remember that the cig you want to smoke so bad is not going to change anything. There really is no point in smoking it.

I still get a little jealous when I see my friends enjoy the **** out of a cigarette.

I know that feel bro. :(

Good job!

I'm oversimplifying this shit but if you don't buy them, you can't smoke 'em. There are a few other dynamics in the mix too.

But I'm seriously thrilled to see you get started before Jan 1. That tells me you have a better chance than most. If you fail, start over. It's not nearly as hard as everybody makes it. You make up your mind and it's done. Period.

I quit eating pringles about ten years ago...

I just quit buying that shit. It's bad for you.

Yeah, I had one or two cans at a party here and then but I didn't let that discourage me.

I haven't had a cigarette since 630 on New Year's Eve. Granted, I've been puffing like hell on this e-cig, but this is longest I've been without a cigarette since boot camp 10 years ago. And yes for anyone wondering, the e-cig is a miracle worker on the cravings.

So far so good. Haven't had a cig since 12/26.

Rep to you both. Keep it up guys - it gets easier.

Day #94 for me.

On a side note.....

In 94 days I have saved almost $700 (if not more) from not buying 2 cans of chew a day.

Good for you! I quit several years ago, and I don't miss it (or the smell and expense) one bit.

You'll just have to change you name to Big Quitter instead!

I smoked a pack and a half a day for 17 years and Iv'e made it 23 days now with out one. Question for anyone who has quit in the past: did you get aweful gas a few weeks after? I could clear an indoor stadium with these farts. They are terrible.

It's how the rest of the world knows you're staying sober. If you rip one and it doesn't kill at least one person in the room they know you've fallen off the wagon.