Originally posted by belgianfreakI hear you. It's been 96 hours and the nicotine urges have tapered off.
slim, it can be easy - it really can! I quite 5 weeks ago and only felt very slightly off colour for a few days. Within 2 weeks it didn't bother me at all! Part of the problem is expressed in your description of the cigs being "glorious" - if you believe that they give you anything good at all you're going to go through a long time feeling like you are ...[text shortened]... lliant and makes quitting almost totallly painless. Seriously, it's totally worth it!
Carry on, slim!
It's good for your health and i... who am I trying to fool? :'(
Smoking feels good, though it may do no good. Last year I quitted for 2 months, because I was living with this girl who hated smoking and I thought she was worth. The 2 worst months in my life, I must say. I was in a bad mood all the time, quite agressive, and instead of being sensitive to my situation, the girl nagged me all the time about my mood. I tolerated the thing for, well, 2 months. Until one day, sick of taking crap, I went out to the backyard for a smoke and after a tenderly, memorable reconciliation with my cigs, with its sweet, embracing wings of smoke around me, I started throwing little rocks to her window, calling her attention. After 2 or 3 tries, she showed her face and... well... that was it.
The lady hasn't returned to me yet: 3 pants, 2 shirts, a bunch of papers, 2 boxes of chocolate, one wristwatch, and 50 euros I left for sending the package. Instead, I am sitting here with my loyal pack.
😉
Seriously, I wish you make it, and you sure will IF your loved ones support you and treat you with delicacy, patience, and understanding... and the buy for you tons of candies.
Way to go!
Originally posted by slimjimgreat - your though the worst. Now, what got me to never want another cigarette was :
I hear you. It's been 96 hours and the nicotine urges have tapered off.
1) MOST IMPORTANT - cigarettes don't give you any enjoyment! All they do is releave the stress that is caused by the nicotine addiction. Once you've kicked that addiction you have no nicotine stress to relieve. Although you will have other stresses in life, a cigarette won't relieve them, so although as a smoker yiou have learnt that cigarettes help relieve stress/boredom/help concentration/enhance good times they don't. YOU ARE NOT MISSING OUT ON A PLEASURE. By not smoking - you are as contented/unstressed as a smoker whi has just had a cigarette is already.
2) recognise that smoking is an addiction caused by the last cigarette you had. As such it makes a chain that goes on until you break it. You 've broken it no (well done) just resist the illusions that make you think you are missing out on something pleasurable.
3) one cigarette does hurt, it restarts the chain. Either you reignight the addiction or think "that didn't get me hooked, I can smoke occasionally and get away with it", which means you'll be walking a tightrope all your life that you'll eventually fall off.
4) calculate how much smoking will cost for the rest of your life, and realise that because smoking is a chain the next cigarette you smoke will cost you that much!!. For me it was £45,000. If I were to have one for cigarette the chain restarts and that's how much it'll cost me. Realise that if you reach for another cigarette that's how much you'll be paying for that one cigarette. You know it's not worth it?
I'm still paraphrasing Alan Carr. I'd honestly recommend his book to anyone who wants to quit. It was recommended to me by an ex 30 a day man who quit overnight with next to no discomfort. I didn't really believe him, but after reading it did the same after reading it. Recently at a dinner of 8 people I mentioned I had quit smoking 3 weeks before - when one person appologuised for smoking in front of me and I said it didn't bother me in the slightest (it realy didn't!) I caught the eye of another diner who asked "why?". When I mentioned Alan Carr's book he smilled and said "me too, 7 years ago". It really does work, and with an amazing frequency, and takes most of the unpleasentness out of it.
Originally posted by huckleberryhoundNot every body Huck ,like i said before i gave up the grog cold turkey and have not had one drop since.
i had maybe a few cigs in the first year,maybe two or three (on seperate occasions)when i was drunk and around smokers.
My point is that if you do have a fly puff, don't take it as a failure, everyone does it when they give up something.
Just get back on the horse, and put it down to experience.
Originally posted by belgianfreakI think we all have different experiences in quitting any form of addiction. In many cases, it's not an illusion. For me, the hardest thing of all is nicotine addiction. I switch on and off coffee at will. I quit alcohol after 25 years of heavy abuse and it was almost painless but nicotine I find to be infinitely worse. The best I've managed is six months using sprays as opposed to going straight cold turkey and I suffered badly for months - lack of concentration, insomnia, headaches, the works - until I started again. We've all heard the stories of people who decided to quit one day and just did so. We admire them, but for others it's a long, hard road. Hang in there, Jim, and I hope you make it. Same for the rest of you. I'm going to try again before the end of the year.
slim, it can be easy - it really can! I quite 5 weeks ago and only felt very slightly off colour for a few days. Within 2 weeks it didn't bother me at all! Part of the problem is expressed in your description of the cigs being "glorious" - if you believe that they give you anything good at all you're going to go through a long time feeling like you are missing out on something that would make you feel good - you're not, it's all an illusion.
Has anyone seen the film Cat's Eye (1985) -written by Stephen King-? It's a trilogy and the first tale has chain-smoker James Woods enlisting in a mysterious sadistic mafia-run quit-smoking program "Quitter's Inc". Great fun. Highly recommended.
OK, I'll try very hard not to sound too evangelical 😳
I quit smoking 3 years ago with the help of nicotine patches. I had tried to go cold-turkey on several occasions before but everytime it made me feel very ill and foul-tempered (she hears ironic laughter from friends at her understatement).
The patches are great but the only way they worked for me was when I decided not to follow the instructions and use them differently and over a longer period of time than that stated. Anyone needing more info is welcome to ask and I'll happily divulge HOW I DID IT *
I always recommend going on the patches, there's enough guilt as it is once you've given up. At least there was for me, with the sudden realisation of the effect it had had on my health when I realised how much healthier and happier I was after quitting.
Anyway, the best thing about quitting was recovering my sense of smell/taste. It came back within days and that was an amazing feeling!!! The worst thing was putting on weight as food suddenly tasted so much better and of course you need to replace the ciggies with something else.
- I am surprised to see that so many people are trying to give up smoking the hard way by going cold turkey. Why suffer? Does it make your success any more rewarding?
Well, good luck to those trying to give up!
* all major credit cards accepted.😉
Originally posted by slimjimIt would be a good idea to use one of those hypnosis sessions you can get on quitting smoking because the addiction is a subconscious thing. If you listen to such a session every day you will most definitely speed up your recovery.
It's been 72 hours since I have last lit up one of those glorious Marlboro Reds. The nicotine jitters have subsided but I still have fits of rage. Just last night I shot my dog for continually barking for nothing. I guess thats better than lighting up.