I smoked for 10 years a pack a day and quit cold turkey a couple of years ago. Haven't smoked since. It was damn hard at first, and the cravings were powerful at times. What helped was I read the cravings come and go, so I would hold out until the craving subsided. It was a series of mini battles each day. Eventually the cravings got farther and farther apart and I had it completely beat after about 2 weeks. So the moral of the story is be a strong willed bastard and don't let those things beat you.
Still going strong I stopped using the patch yesterday. Over the weekend I had a few drinks and almost caved but decided I would only be cheating myself so I beat that craving and kept going. Im still amazed at how easy this has been. I honestly thought it would be the hardest thing ever. All that talk about it being as hard to kick as heroin. What a bunch of shit that is I've known people hooked on that crap and have seen first hand them trying to kick this is not even close. If you want to quit get the patch use it for a few days then cut them in half do that for a few days then cut it into quarters if need be. Good luck...........
fucnluc and anyone else interested in an alternate strategy -- from the time I was seventeen to the time I was in my mid-20s I smoked between two and four packs of unfiltered Camels a day. By the time I was 30 I had (unpurposefully) ratcheted this down some, but was still smoking 1.5-2 packs per day every day, now of unfiltered Pall Malls. I went from that to smoking eight cigs a day, with no cravings, no cheating and a massive improvement in how I feel and my overall health within a couple of months. I then quit, and it was a disaster -- cravings, nerves, etc. went on for months and months and I gave up, felt like shit etc.
I realised then that it is not just about my health -- if everything were about my health I'd give up steak, coffee, sunshine, anything with sugar in it, arguing on the Internet etc. It's doofy for people to quit smoking citing health reasons when 9 out of 10 of their other behaviours are unhealthy.
Anyway -- today, I smoke eight a day -- not everyday, sometimes less. I did it with simple rationing and the addition of aerobic exercise to my daily regimen (it's extremely hard to do aerobic exercise of any kind if you're a heavy smoker.)
The rationing went like this -- maybe not useful if you aren't as heavy as a smoker if I was, but adapt to your own purposes.
First step was one cigarette an hour. I know this sounds crazy; it's more than a pack a day. But that was still a cutback from where I was. I literally took one cigarette each hour on the hour and set it on my desk, whether I smoked it or not. So there'd be a little stockpile there -- a suprisingly reassuring visual for some reason. At this point I stopped smoking inside, to start getting the smell out of everything. This went over easy and soon I had a "backed up" stockpile because my smoking had just edged under a pack a day on its own.
Next step was one cigarette every two hours. This sudden 50% reduction was harder -- I wasn't a nervous wreck but there was never a stockpile anymore and I'd find myself watching the clock ("Eight more minutes til my next smoke! Fuck yeah!") I added no smoking in the car to this -- so no smoking in the car, or in the house, and down to just over half a pack a day. This actually took me a couple of months to get acclimated to.
Next step was one cigarette every three hours. I dropped the "stockpile" thing since its initial effect was no longer meaningful. Going from 12 to 8 was of course a lot easier than going from 24 to 12, so I added that I no longer take cigarettes with me anywhere that I would have to excuse myself to smoke -- e.g. going to a friend's house who doesn't smoke, going to most restaurants etc.
Between the limited intake and the ancillary discipline I've cut back and had a beneficial psych effect as well, and that plus the aerobic exercise has had a fantastic effect on my health -- my bp, relaxed pulse and lung capacity are all within the acceptable range for a guy my age, and I've been smoking for nearly twenty years now.
I doubt I'll ever bother again with trying to fully quit because the fact is, addicted or not is debateable (I got off coke -- pretty sure I can get off cigs) but the fact is that I like to smoke. Not just the smoke in my lungs but I like the short break from work, the quiet time to think, the oral fixation and the fact that in a world full of anal retentive do-gooders trying to stamp out smoking I just light up all the goddamned time that I want to. I just trained myself to want to light up less.
Hope that is of some help.
Phaedrus
I realised then that it is not just about my health -- if everything were about my health I'd give up steak, coffee, sunshine, anything with sugar in it, arguing on the Internet etc. It's doofy for people to quit smoking citing health reasons when 9 out of 10 of their other behaviours are unhealthy.
Anyway -- today, I smoke eight a day -- not everyday, sometimes less. I did it with simple rationing and the addition of aerobic exercise to my daily regimen (it's extremely hard to do aerobic exercise of any kind if you're a heavy smoker.)
The rationing went like this -- maybe not useful if you aren't as heavy as a smoker if I was, but adapt to your own purposes.
First step was one cigarette an hour. I know this sounds crazy; it's more than a pack a day. But that was still a cutback from where I was. I literally took one cigarette each hour on the hour and set it on my desk, whether I smoked it or not. So there'd be a little stockpile there -- a suprisingly reassuring visual for some reason. At this point I stopped smoking inside, to start getting the smell out of everything. This went over easy and soon I had a "backed up" stockpile because my smoking had just edged under a pack a day on its own.
Next step was one cigarette every two hours. This sudden 50% reduction was harder -- I wasn't a nervous wreck but there was never a stockpile anymore and I'd find myself watching the clock ("Eight more minutes til my next smoke! Fuck yeah!") I added no smoking in the car to this -- so no smoking in the car, or in the house, and down to just over half a pack a day. This actually took me a couple of months to get acclimated to.
Next step was one cigarette every three hours. I dropped the "stockpile" thing since its initial effect was no longer meaningful. Going from 12 to 8 was of course a lot easier than going from 24 to 12, so I added that I no longer take cigarettes with me anywhere that I would have to excuse myself to smoke -- e.g. going to a friend's house who doesn't smoke, going to most restaurants etc.
Between the limited intake and the ancillary discipline I've cut back and had a beneficial psych effect as well, and that plus the aerobic exercise has had a fantastic effect on my health -- my bp, relaxed pulse and lung capacity are all within the acceptable range for a guy my age, and I've been smoking for nearly twenty years now.
I doubt I'll ever bother again with trying to fully quit because the fact is, addicted or not is debateable (I got off coke -- pretty sure I can get off cigs) but the fact is that I like to smoke. Not just the smoke in my lungs but I like the short break from work, the quiet time to think, the oral fixation and the fact that in a world full of anal retentive do-gooders trying to stamp out smoking I just light up all the goddamned time that I want to. I just trained myself to want to light up less.
Hope that is of some help.
Phaedrus
I got into smoking a couple years ago in my upperclassmen years of high school. I have a smoke off and on, and have been gifted with not being addicted to it. Even though I rarely smoke, I see how addicting they can get and hope for everyone to overcome this powerful addiction.
Good luck fellas, I'm pullin for ya in every single way.
Good luck fellas, I'm pullin for ya in every single way.
