quitting smoking
 

someone on here was talking about how this was the best decision of their life or something. i want to know what it feels like say 6 months down the line, do you start to feel strongly different health wise?

i've put myself thru absolute fucking torture with cigs, ive been a VERY heavy smoker for years, i started at about 14 and will easily do 40-60 if im out for a night, ive stopped intermittently recently for up to 2 months at a time but keep failing. i don't know if there is some sort of pyschological shit that i need to think through or what.

at the moment everytime i smoke its pure pain, my throat is wrecked, it feels like knives going down it. very bad, but i cant stop, or at least manage to stop and not destroy my confidene by giving in. i really really need to stop now, i live in constant fear of disease and when i breath out sometimes its like my breath is skipping like a cd, hard to explain.

i dont want to get into a whole bullshit self help you can do it if you try discussion that just rehashes the same positive encouragement cliches. but anyone with any real experience of what it feels like to quit and how to do it could probably be helpful. if i could quit and just not think about it ever again id be so happy

Giving up was fucking horrible. I gave up for 11 months last year and haven't had one for a fortnight. I felt ill constantly. I didn't put on weight, and I did do a lot of cardiovascular exercise.

I wouldn't say it's worth it, except to say that it's a good thing to not be reliant on. Running, gay though it is, really helped me have the impetus to not smoke.

But generally, all this 'you'll feel much better' bollocks is bollocks.

Happy to have helped.

Hmm, timely - I quit for the first time last night after 15 years of pretty dedicated smoking. Feel pretty good about it so far, but naturally it's very early days.

Have you read Allen Carr's book? It's main focus is to psychologically prepare you for quitting, so that you're happy to do it by the time you finish reading. Worked a treat for me, but then again, you might want to check up on that in a couple of months...

yeah ive read that book a few times and it REALLY helped maybe i should read it again
you can find a torrent of its pdf if anyone else wants it

i think if i smoked for another 15 years id have to be reanimated as a puppet with automatic cig smoke reflex for the last 13 of them because id be long fucking dead

i'm nearly 30 now, started smoking when i was 11 or 12. i managed to give up (tobacco) for a whole year a while ago but have started again. when i did stop i was able to buy lots more music with the money i saved, that's one good incentive. i did feel a little better for it too. since then though i've tried lots more times to quit but keep failing.

first and second week will be hell.

i quit and started doing it again so many times.

you put on A LOT of weight too.

I can't say long term because I never managed not to give in for months.

I smoke VERY LITTLE now (compared to what I did) and I can say I can do things like walk fast and go up the stairs without your heart racing, and a lot less headaches. Certainly, when I don't smoke for a long time I feel a lot less intoxicated. But then I get so cranky.

I've smoked for about 20 years with half of that working for a pulmonary physician.

I've seen the worst of the worst, and yet, I have no intentions of quitting.

I'm a big fan of "fuck it".

hope you do better. best o' luck.

This weeks marks 3 years for me...but I was never as heavy a user as the original poster. You may have a chemical imbalance the dopamine triggered by the tabac helps resolve. I've heard the electric cigs are good.

I honestly miss it. Its a great time killer. But I do feel cleaner inside, I had a bunch of ear and throat infections but haven't had one since. I'd suggest taking a lot of vitamin C (500 mg every other hour and use a high quality brand, esterC is good) during your detox, and lots of water.

I think quitting caffeine (or reducing intake significantly) has been more helpful.

Just remember when you're feeling bad or craving or anxiety the feeling will pass. and if it doesn't, higher level assistance should be sought.

yeah i definitly feel i have some sort of chemical imbalance
can you explain more about this?

can't you become chemically imbalanced by being addicted to a stimulating substance?

well ive been addicted to many different substances over the past few years

ive quit everything except cigs.

nicotine is highly addictive, researches suggest possibly the most difficult substance to quit.

but what i mean is your brain has been used to that extra stimulation once you quit you must be prepared for a long period of bad mood and depression.

the hardest part.

you cant tell ? but im going through it right now.

Sure, but it works both ways.

You can start with an addictive personality--somewhat hereditary. Both parents were alcoholics and I'm very much aware of that possibility in myself.

And, I think, addiction is more or less a synonym for a chemical imbalance. Regardless of yr poison, ya gotta keep that dopamine flowing. (or something like that.)

so how are you supposed to fix a damaged dopamine system?

When you find out, let me know!

of course, if you need that external boost it must mean something.

this is why i get annoyed when people talk about drug addicts or obese people etc. simply being their "choice"

I decided to quit smoking last march, when i lay in bed and couldn't sleep.
I had no desire to quit before and had not thought of it until that night.
So, between all the thoughts, which kept me from falling asleep, there was the one about me smoking and what would change if i stopped and most of all: "why the hell do i smoke?" and the answers were all the usual shenanigan like: it tastes good, i like smoking, it helps relax, i can use waiting times, blahblahblah.
in fact, i couldn't convince myself, why i was smoking...so i quit and have never smoked tobacco again
but: my roommate had allen carr's book at home, because he was trying to quit as well, but it didn't work for him...
so i read it, but i do not know if it was the book that kept me from starting again, because i had allready quit for 2 weeks when i read it. but actually it doesn't matter.
i did not really have any detox symptoms or what you call it.
i just had the wish to smoke in the situations where i was used to light a cigarette, but got over it very fast. except, when i saw my brother smoking, i allways felt a desire for a cigarette and never got over it, but now he's quit as well, so this is over for me too...

but i guess i was very lucky...or not, i don't know, i've never really analysed why it was that easy for me. and i won't. i've quit.

Of course, it IS a choice. When you want a smoke (or fix or hit or whatever), you have a choice--give in and do it or stand firm and resist. It comes down to willpower--can you resist what your body/mind is telling you it wants.

You also have a choice to seek help or not. (Whether help is available or not, for yr particular addiction, is another matter)

I totally agree with you here. Any type of addiction is not just a choice. It is much more complicated than that. There are hereditary and psycological factors. Most addicts make the initial choice to try something when they are young and don't really understand the true risk of addiction. Before they know it they are grown up and it's too late to simply stop.

A drug addict for instance goes through phsysical and mental withdrawl from substances. When you are going through this it makes it very hard to control your behavior. You just want to stop hurting at that point, it's not really about getting high anymore.

The tendancy to over eat is much harder to overcome than many under stand.

it's kind of the same for a compulsive eater, a cutter, all of those.

I initially read this as "The tendancy to eat is much harder to overcome than many under stand." and was going to point you at a source which "teaches" one to live off sunlight - Breatharianism.

Cmon guys! Lets go photosynthesize for a bit!

Anyway, it's the brutal work from a scam / jokester named Wiley Brooks, charging anywhere between $10,000 - 1,000,000,000 for his living off sunlight courses.

http://www.breatharian.com/

just quit and don't make a big deal out of, tonnes of fat.lazy and semi-retarded morons have quit smoking, do you really want to fail at something than any old jackass can do?

I quit about 6 years ago, they still smell good. Oh, well. It took me about 4 years to really feel a LOT better, but I do now. I bike 8 miles a day and work out 3 or 4 days a week, run a mile and a half, lift some light weights and stretch. I gained almost 70 pounds, but I was real skinny back then, and have lost 40 of them, so now I'm 6'2" and 210, so not too bad. If I ever get really sick, like with terminal cancer or something, I think I'll go ahead and smoke again, but not otherwise.

really, the best decision I ever made (except for not getting married to a couple of weird girls)

In the process of quitting again myself tough days day 3 day 7 day 14 then
3 months. Atleast from past experience. Not a heavy smoker but I've got
COPD so I really don't feel like carrying around an oxygen bottle in five years.

So right now that's my memory trigger think of the oxygen bottle and the desire goes away......

yr insight on addiction is enlightening.

see also: "cool story, bro"

see, if think this is going to fuck you up here, i mean if you went to the psych. and they told you that you had an imbalance that specifically relates to smoking, that's one thing,and they could help you with that. but just assuming you're unable to quit smoking on yr own is self sabotage and a total copout

it's true, if nik wants wants to quit smoking so badly and he can't even do it, he's basically a pseud or something

there's no insight needed,a fuck of alot of people stop smoking

have you quit smoking?

Have you tried just weening off them slowly instead of cold turkey? Try cutting down to about 6 or 7 a day. Once your body gets used to it you can try having 1-3 a day. Then just simply stop. When you go two months without then have one again, do you zip back up to smoking 20-40? or do you have a few and it just snowballs back up?

I only have about 1-3 a day and can barely even stomach having more than 6 in one day.

"Quitting smoking is easy! I've done it 12 times!"

i'm not sure, i smoked really heavily until a month ago when i moved back here, i still smoke in theory but cigs are stupid expensive and there's no where to actually smoke.

so i guess when it comes down to it i still smoke but just don't actually do it, if you could send cigarettes through private message i would gladly accept a donation

but you're a douche for bringing my personal life into this when millions of people smoke, i'm not really relevant considering how many people have smoke. i have known two people however who smoked heavily for more years than nik has been alive(i remember that he's a few months younger than me),it's well possible.

actually if you're having serious trouble,i can tell you how a heavy smoker for almost 40 years quit(i recommend trying conventional methods first)
he tripped and fell on his face, and his cigarette got caught in his throat, apparently he still wants to smoke but can't bring himself to do it

i plan to move in a month or so and I'm going to try and give up once i'm in my new place.

4 years... what was it like after 6 months? How long did you smoke for before you quit?

so I'm the douche for pointing out that yr toxic advice is not only worthless, but completely unsubstantiated in yr own life?

which is it then? are you the retard that can quit or the one that can't?

en boca cerrada, no entran moscas.

i can quit, i don't want to, but i'd imagine being a week with no cig i'm not physically addicted

yes you are the douche

i repeat

you are the douche

that's not a good reason to quit. But sometimes i feel like what else can be said apart from just fucking do it, i don't want to have to think about this shit forever. initially ages ago it was a lot harder to quit cos i thought i would somehow loose my edge or a part of my personality, it's as stupid as it sounds but that's genuinely how i felt and some other syger told me he felt the same thing when he was younger. it sounds ridiculous but it's an attitude i found to exist very strongly within me, someone on here also made a brilliant point about how when you quit a drug its hard to seperate the buzz you get from music from the buzz you get from drugs but eventually it will happen. i guess i am trying to solve whatever psychological shit i have that makes me fail at quitting. it's easy to say just do it but when you start getting those feelings and set off to get some cigs your brain is overriding all logic and the release is quite a rush.

but you already have a good reason to quit, it sounds like you feel like shit as a result of smoking, that's basically what's going to happen when you stop is you'll feel bad because yr body is convinced it needs cigarettes.

did you cut down yet though? because if you're over a pack a day then it's a huge part of yr routine and that will cause you problems

I quit smoking cigs cold turkey. It took 6-8 weeks before all the twitchy nerves and the pangs of want went away fully. I used any time I normally had used to smoke to instead draw. I would draw out of nervous energy and eventually would forget why I was drawing and not notice the jangly nerves anymore.
It helps if you take something up to pass the time.
the hardest are those times when you used to ritually smoke, after a meal for example, or in the car on the way home from work, or after sex.

habits are programmed into our brains by ourselves.

There is a good bit of study done that shows a ratio betwene how often you do something and how long it takes for NOT doing t to feel normal.

The ratio is between 1 to 12 and 1 to 16.
a daily habit takes 12 to 16 days of not doing it to "break" the need/desire.
a weekly habit takes 12-16 weeks to break. something like that
I have talked to many ex smokers and they all say that if you can get through 3 weeks without a cig, you are 3/4 of the way to quitting for good.

I've cut down to about 10 - 15 a day.

i manage to do 1-3 a day.

I really think if you can limit yourself to 5 you'll manage no problem for now.