# Smoking



## Geri (Sep 27, 2012)

I've tried to give up...-AGAIN! - I can hear my friends voices shouting!! This time I am currently 3 days off them...I miss smoking, especially when I am home alone, writing..oh sweet ciggs!!!! Anyone in the same, even similar boat?? My partner has also given up, but I imagine it is a bit easier, since he is in college all day! Anyway, there is a little insight into me and my smoke loving addiction!!!! [-X


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## dale (Sep 27, 2012)

i quit for 10 years. (it gets a lot easier after the 1st month, so try to have patience) and i smoked 2 packs of lucky strike non-filters a day.
i recently took it up again for my health, though. i needed to quit drinking and i figured a cigarette in my hand would help me with that.
i plan to quit smoking again soon. i do dread going through that 1st month again, though.


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## nerot (Sep 28, 2012)

I quit smoking in May.  Nicotine withdrawal is ......uncomfortable... but it does get easier in time.  Have you tried the nicotine gum?  It really helped my husband and I with the cravings.  At any rate, hang in there.


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## Ian8777 (Sep 28, 2012)

Geri...

Let me give you the best piece of advice you will ever recieve. Go and buy a book called 'THE EASYWAY TO STOP SMOKING' by Allen Carr. I smoked for over twenty years, and had attempted to stop on numerous and painful occassion. A friend reccomended this book so I bought a copy and within a week had given up with ABSOLUTELY no cravings whatsoever.The book was written by an ex one hundred a day chain smoker, who smoked for over forty years. The book is simple with lots of positive reinforcement. At first I was sceptical about it but believe me, buying that book was the best thing I ever did. It's also available on audio CD.

Nicotine replacement therapy will keep you hooked on Nicotine. Stay away from it. The reason you smoke is because you are addicted to Nicotine and not because you enjoy it, or it calms you down, or it helps you concentrate. Inhilators, Nicotine Gum or patches will keep you hooked on Nicotine. I really wish you well. I know the mental torment that giving up can be, but as this book will show you. You are not giving up anything, but you are freeing yourself from a lifetime self-imposed slavery. All the best. And thanks for the reviews you have given me on my work!

The book will show you it is very easy to give up smoking. Any smoker or ex-smoker who tells you otherwise has not read this book.

Ian


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## The Backward OX (Sep 28, 2012)

Trying is Lying.

There is no Try, there is only Do.

There is only ONE WAY to STOP smoking, and that is to STOP.

Anything else is a sham and a pretence.

_‘“Look at me; I’m trying to stop smoking.” Lights another one. “This is only my fourth, today. Isn’t that great?”’_

And if you don’t stop, you’ll finish up just like me:

I have emphysema, bronchiectasis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pleural effusion, a collapsed lung, and *LUNG CANCER*. All from smoking, which I stopped in 1995. *The cancer is killing me*. I’ve stopped eating solid food, as a result of which my weight has dropped by about 25% (to visualise me then and now, think of a modern-day Laurel & Hardy - or should that be Hardy and Laurel?), I have a more or less constant cough, my energy levels are such I can barely walk unassisted and sometimes I even lack the strength to lift a soup spoon, and I am almost permanently constipated.

Smoking was fun when I was young.


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## Daggers (Sep 28, 2012)

Smoked for like 2/3 years, quit because it was too expensive, gave it another shot a couple weeks ago (year and half later). Funnily enough I now know I am a non-smoker because It made me feel physically sick. I also couldn't stand the smell on my clothes and hands afterwards.

Obviously I wasn't a long-term smoker but I did smoke regularly in that time (perhaps not heavily).
Mind over matter though guys, instead of thinking you are going to try to quit, just tell yourself to quit and stick to it. Convince yourself you don't need it and eventually you won't. Think of it as an easy task rather than a difficult one and just try to put it out your mind.


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## shadowwalker (Sep 28, 2012)

I smoked cigarettes for about 40 years, then switched to cigars. Cigars aren't inhaled, don't have all the chemicals added to them (which are the danger and the addictive part), and at least where I live, aren't taxed like cigarettes. I doubt I'll ever quit smoking, though. My father once told me I'd quit when I wanted to, not before, and I think he was right. You won't quit if you're doing it under pressure from friends or family or society; you'll do it because you want to for you.

ETA: One thing that might help is the one step idea - you're not going to smoke for the next five minutes. When that five minutes is up, you're not going to smoke for the next five minutes; rinse and repeat. It's how I quit drinking. I didn't think about all the hours and days ahead - just the next few minutes. The craving is much easier to handle that way.


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## Nemesis (Sep 28, 2012)

I smoked the flavored Vendetta cigarellos. They had less tobacco in them and were a bit cheaper, and they made your lips taste like chocolate.


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## Kyle R (Sep 28, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> Trying is Lying.
> 
> There is no Try, there is only Do.
> 
> ...




Quoted because I believe more people need to read it. 

Sorry to hear about your situation, Ox.


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## Geri (Sep 28, 2012)

oh Ox, I don't know how to reply to that..I feel like you have given me a huge virtual kick up the arse and sadly at your expense. I am so sorry to read what you are going through, really I am. Thank you all so much for the support! Good tip about that book Ian, I will get that!!!! Shadowwalker... my dad gave me the same advice, and i am ready, I want to give up! I'm getting married and I've two little boys who are old enough now to know smoking kills and I really don't want them to take the habit up because mom and dad does, ya know?! Appreciate all the support guys, I really do. Thinking of you Ox and all you are going through


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## The Backward OX (Sep 29, 2012)

Yesterday, I rushed into print too quickly.

What I should have added is that *every time you say, “I’m trying to stop smoking”, you’re giving yourself permission to light another one.*

Think about that for a moment and you’ll realise I’m correct.

What you need to do, next time a situation arises where the lighting of a cigarette or cigarettes is the focus, is to say, *“I’ve stopped smoking.”*

That’s all.


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## Baron (Sep 29, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> That’s all.



Doubtful.


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## The Backward OX (Sep 29, 2012)

Baron said:


> Doubtful.



That's Strike One. Two more like that, and I'll be coming back to haunt you from beyond the grave.


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## shadowwalker (Sep 29, 2012)

Actually, I think giving yourself permission to have an occasional smoke in the first few days/weeks can work better for some people than going cold turkey. As I mentioned above, keep telling yourself you can wait five minutes or 10 minutes, and do that over and over - but if you really start getting rattled, have one. But only one. And then start with the "I can wait another X minutes". I think a lot of people fail to quit because they set themselves up for failure - it's got to be cold turkey or nothing! I think the longer you can go before allowing yourself one smoke, the easier it gets to go even longer before the next one.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Sep 29, 2012)

When I quit smoking, if I'd allowed myself to have a cigarette when I really "needed" one, the definition of "needed" would have expanded a lot. Some people can just have one now and then, and I'm jealous of that, but I'm fairly certain it wouldn't work for me.

The advice to get through cravings a few minutes at a time is good. 

It also helped me to think about the various situations in which I regularly smoked and then consciously think about not smoking as I did them. Like, Okay, I am now going to open my eyes in the morning and sit up and the first thing I do will not be "light cigarette." I am now going to ride in the car without smoking, get off the bus and not immediately light a cigarette, finish dinner and not light a cigarette. Think about all the little habits and not just the big one.

Best of luck, Geri, you'll be glad you did it. And you may, as I did, have a sudden epiphany: "I have smelled terrible all these years!" Not smelling terrible is a great thing.


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## MJ Preston (Sep 29, 2012)

I quit smoking in 2001 and for me it was simple. Every time I craved a cigarette I did replacement therapy. When I felt the overpowering urge to smoke i would grab a frosted mug and fill it with my favorite Canadian Ale. Since making that decision back in 2001 I am proud to say that I never relapsed even once. I am almost 12 years off those filthy toxic smokes that controlled every facet of my life; including what restaurant I would go to. Although here in Canada you can't even smoke in a bar anymore. 

Yup, big success for me and it will work for you as well if you find the necessary replacement for cigarettes. 

Twelve years. I mean, who would of thought? Of course as a result of drinking Ale to replace all those horrible cigarettes I have since become a complete drunkard, but I say what the heck. I mean a lot of writers had substance abuse issues. Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King and I think that puts me in pretty good company. So what if I ran naked through downtown Toronto screaming. "They're coming to get me! They're coming to get me!" And yes there was that rather embarrassing incident when I woke up at the zoo, again naked, snuggled up with a Llama. But the way I see it, I'm quits with the cigarettes and that's what counts.

My wife was supportive in the beginning. Until I punched her snooty brother in the mouth because I didn't think he was looking at me quite right. And when the house burned down because I moved the BBQ into the living room, well stuff happens man. It was too cold out at 4 am on Christmas Day to be flipping burgers.

Okay I've rambled enough. You keep at it with quitting those smokes. There is nothing worse than having an addiction and I know, because I'm trying to kick alcohol using the same method I did with smokes. I am still trying to decide between Crystal Meth and Heroin, but I think the writing is on the wall. 

Needles scare the crap out of me.


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## dale (Sep 29, 2012)

MJ Preston said:


> And yes there was that rather embarrassing incident when I woke up at the zoo, again naked, snuggled up with a Llama.



well, as long as the llama was happy, you really can't be faulted for anything.


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## doublebagger (Sep 30, 2012)

Been clean for 4 years!


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## The Backward OX (Sep 30, 2012)

doublebagger said:


> Been clean for 4 years!


Sorry to rain on your parade but read my original post. I'd been clean (so I thought) for* 17 *years, and look what it bought me!


Btw, after the CT scan to find out why you're coughing so much, when they want to do a triple sputum test, tell 'em not to waste their time and to go straight to a bronchoscopy. It'll all be there on the video screen - all the l'il cells swimming around, and all the blood, luverly blood, dripping all over the insides of your bronchii and alveoli.

Remember, you heard it here first.

Otoh, you might just be one of the lucky ones. My mother-in-law, God rot her, smoked liked a furnace for over 60 years and died of pneumonia.


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## Geri (Oct 1, 2012)

wow Ox, you sure know how to paint a pic, not a very nice one either! But thank you for doing it!!! Thank you everyone for the responses and sharing your own experiences with this devil! I am one week off them...not clean...I hope eventually I will be though! I smoked 20 a day for over 10 years...my God, that sounds so bad when I say ( type) it...I wish I never bloody lit the first one. Thanks guys again, and virtual hug to you Ox !


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## TheWonderingNovice (Oct 1, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> . My mother-in-law, God rot her, smoked liked a furnace for over 60 years and died of pneumonia.



Funny how the world works.


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## stellar (Oct 18, 2012)

So I don't smoke. I have for a week at a time on two occasions. It wasn't hard for me to quit. 

I don't know why it was easier for me to just ignore smoking, while for other people, they just never quit. 

I admit there is a feeling that is satisfied when smoking that has to do with stress and it was stress that drove me to buy packs of the stuff. Maybe if you can find a way to eliminate the stress, you will just forget that you need a cig.  

Like if you work in an office and your office-mate is ticking you off all the time, work on getting relocated. If your boss drives you mad, find ways that your boss can adress their complaints to someone else, like your annoying co-worker. 

If you just absolutely hate filling out the 1040i, part two because of the ten OKS that you need to send the damn thing, work hard at getting those ten damned people to check the damned thing at the end of the day so it only has to be done once. Just do something to change the outcome. 
You work at a convenience store and the kids harass you. Wear bigger coats and install some fake cameras or more real ones. 

I don't know. I always think there's more reasons than the straightforward ones to solve the issue. Probably it is a chemical dependency and lifestyle changes can't help. Change brands then? Try pure nicotine.


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## Rilto (Oct 20, 2012)

Best of luck with the continued quitting! :thumbl:  You have the best motivator in your health and your children. 

I quit in 98 after more than 20 years and I can't imagine smoking now. I followed a 6-week class with a psychologist at a local hospital, and he focused mostly on making us aware (spreadsheets for recording every cigarette we took), breaking habits (we could smoke as much as we wanted, but we had to change brands every week) and giving us tools to manage after quitting (lots of pencils to chew on, counting to 30 because most cravings last about 30 seconds, carrying apple pieces and nuts in ziplocks, sour candy, etc.) 

Ox, I am so very sorry to hear about your health condition. I have seen some very good results for cancer sufferers with reishi, a Chinese medicinal mushroom. It helped my mother-in-law tremendously. There's a non-profit site - www.reishi.com - where you can get a lot of information.


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## DuKane (Oct 29, 2012)

I gave up one week ago after forty+ years of total contentment. Why? Not sure other than I wanted to be the one to decide when I gave up rather than having to be told I must.


I'm judging next months competition and if this doesn't put off most people from entering ……..


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