Quitting smoking

welp.

Doing this as of this morning and I'm scared.

good luck e!

reposting my testimony for you E!!

no sweat. my testimony: I didn't just "smoke for twenty years" - I smoked one to two packs of Winston red packs a day from 1983-2007. then a friend told me she had read allen carr and was thankful to feel confident she'd never smoke again. a while later I ordered the book; that was three years ago; I don't have any desire to smoke now. not when drinking, not when stressed. the desire to have a cigarette is just gone. it fucking rules.

it rules so fuckin hard to be free of smokes. honest to God it is awesome.

Thanks. I want to quit and know I have to at this point but I identify as a smoker and sort of love doing so. For me that's the toughest part. I really can't imagine not being a smoker. That probably doesn't make much sense but I've smoked since I was 17 and it's very much a part of who I am. Right now aside from all the health stuff I'm trying to focus on other positives like all the awesome summer clothes I'm going to buy with the money I'm not spending on cigarettes and while I've managed to have pretty good skin for a smoker up to this point I don't want to start looking old and wrinkly before I have to so this should help that. Oh and not being tired all the time would be nice too. So, we'll see how it goes. I hope I can do this. The longest I've ever quit before is like 3 months.

it rules so fuckin hard to be free of smokes. honest to God it is awesome.

But I like smoking!!!

Oh and I have the Carr book sitting on the coffee table. I'm gonna read it tonight even though I've already quit and he says you should quit after reading it. It should still work, right?

for the love of God get the Allen Carr book because a lot of what you're saying is stuff he will completely relieve you of.

I "loved smoking" too - until a clear argument was made to me: "no you don't - that's what you tell yourself for a variety of reasons"

Oh and I have the Carr book sitting on the coffee table. I'm gonna read it tonight even though I've already quit and he says you should quit after reading it. It should still work, right?

― ENBB, Tuesday, April 19, 2011 9:52 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

smokers tend to invest a lot of energy into persuading themselves that they're really into this activity, they have compelling reasons to do so but get a clear view of it & voila, the enjoyment is actually a combination of conditioned responses & rationalizations

xp yeah just read it!

that book works so well. i quit smoking (also 1-2 packs a day) without even meaning to because my flatmate left it lying around and i read it. i go on and on about it to smokers who want to stop and some listen and read it and stop, but many are sceptical that a book could work, but it does, it does, it does.

ok, ok, ok I'll start it tonight!!!

That probably doesn't make much sense but I've smoked since I was 17 and it's very much a part of who I am.

like here is part of the deal:

1) zero people, including yourself, will ever think "ENBB is different now that she doesn't smoke" - "it's part of who I am" is one of the things you tell yourself to maintain this actually quite mild addiction
2) it's not really part of who you are it's just a thing you do about twenty times a day. or 30, w/e. we build up this titanic rationalization about our character being "a smoker" etc when there's really no such thing, it's just a behavior & a mild addiction, once it's understood in that light stopping is about as hard as giving up pixie stix after you've realized "I kinda don't dig pixie stix any more"

two weeks from now you are gonna be like "holy fuck I am so stoked now" and that feeling will persist actually forever

scout's honor E!!

but i kinda like going outside the pub and hanging with other cool and attractive smokers.

only smoke when i'm drinking now.

I had a pocket version of the book that a read through a couple years ago so I'm sort of familiar with his theory (also read the book about flying he wrote) and it does make total sense. I just wasn't committed at the time and I think the full book version will be better anyway.

Thanks JD :)

okay a book about not freaking the fuck out when yr flying i could use

oh his flying book plus a prescription for Ativan helped me loads and loads. I still don't love it but the very thought of getting on a plane is no longer enough to make me have a panic attack.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Easyway-Enjoy-Flying-Allen-Carrs/dp/0140278370

My only issue with Allen Carr is that there was a book called The Alienist by Caleb Carr some years ago, and I keep reading "Allen" as "Alien" whenever it's next to "Carr." Inconvenient.

awes

good luck e

good luck e!

what is nice about stopping smoking is that very soon there will be a day when you wake up and your mouth doesn't taste kind of ashy and sour.

what helps is when you realize just how noxious and processed and awful cigarette smoke smells. (hand-rolled cigarettes w/ good tobacco, now that's another story.)

well I was smoking american spirits which I think smell a little less awful than others but I do remember the last time I quit (although hope this one is for good) when a couple weeks afterwards a co-worker came to my desk and the smell was so so bad I was horrified to think that's what I'd smelled like.

hah I don't know what american spirits smell like. most people here smoke menthols and the smoke smells awfuuuuul

Even while I was a smoker, American Spirits smelled particularly awful.

currently trying to quit; wrote this bit of doggerel the other day as a way to resist cravings:

Cigarettes I Have Known:
Marlboro Reds glow in my mind
like flaming rum-soaked raisins;

Bali Shag is heavy, spiced,
mysterious and Asian;

the Camel is a desert smoke,
as crisp and dry as parchment scrolls;

and Pall Malls taste like sandpaper,
abrasive to the heart and soul.

Drum is musty, mulchy, earthen,
a fungus sprouting in the mouth;

Spirits have a caramel sweetness
I thought I could not live without;

Newports greenly colden, shooting
crystals through the stiff’ning veins;

Parliaments have little dips
some people use to snort cocaine;

a Crush was given to me once
by a slender pretty girl—

I gladly sat beside her while
the smoke, and her long legs, unfurled.

Lucky Strikes are what, I’m told,
our boys in Vietnam preferred

(although, in my experience,
they mostly taste like dirt);

Nat Shermans, elegant and brown,
taste less smooth than they appear;

but when I searched for Chesterfields,
I could not find them anywhere.

re: American Spirit smell — take w/ a grain of salt but my ex- used to tell me the only reason she put up with my smoking was that they smelled better than any other cigarettes. told her I used to smoke Reds before that, and her response was "I wish you still did cuz then I'd make you quit in a heartbeat!"

Lucky Strikes remind me of my friends out on the West Coast.

Camel Lights remind me of my ex-girlfriend at christmastime

Oh I smoked camel lights for years before switching to AS in an attempt to convince myself they were healthier. lol.

yay good luck Erica!!!

I think my problem is that I'm convinced I would fail at quitting, so I don't even try.

that's the propaganda sarahel! it is like nowhere near as hard as plenty of other stuff you've probably already done

I honestly don't believe there is anyone who can't quit smoking once they're able to understand that it really is the case that it's not all that hard. couple days of a weird headspace & recalibrating habits. once your understanding of the habit is "a behavior I decided to cultivate," not "a thing that now has THIS DEATHGRIP ON ME," it's like this huge revelation

Bernard Snowy, I think you've convinced me to pick up the habit again with that poem. Also, I didn't know that about Parliaments, but it explains a lot!

j/k re: relapsing of course. I am just going to do what I see as my duty and remind all of you who are trying to quit to stay super-hydrated. Go down to the grocery store and buy a pallet of bottled water or whatever. It'll help.

lot easier if you can go boozeless for a week or two, too

I know I know but priorities, you'll be able to afford way better booze once you get free

in the end, i did quit right around the time i turned thirty and never really looked back. i didn't find it to be particularly difficult for some reason, maybe because i kinda realized that i didn't want to see myself as a smoker anymore. when you're in the middle of a long run as a smoker, you probably recognize the long-term effects on your health but don't really realize how nasty it is on a day-to-day basis until you've been off it for awhile and your system starts to clear up. it's not just in the lungs, it's everything. and as far as it being a part of image, i certainly notice when people who didn't smoke (or i didn't know were smokers) light up a cigarette, but when people who are smokers totally quit, it's really not noticeable and doesn't alter their identity for me because smoking isn't a defining characteristic for someone unless they're a cartoon camel.

i've quit drinking before, when I felt I was drinking to excess, and that was fine. And now I'm at a point where I can drink in moderation and be okay. But I'm unsure whether I can do that with smoking.

i think a lot of it is more psychologically habitual than physically. the whole process of movement and ritual involved w/smoking is itself addictive. and i also think that people who say smoking chills them out might in fact just be chilling out because they're standing around inhaling and exhaling deeply, they might actually chill out rather well w/o a smoke doing just that.

definitely! Or because they tell themselves, "I am taking these 5 minutes to chill out."

how nasty it is on a day-to-day basis until you've been off it for awhile and your system starts to clear up. it's not just in the lungs, it's everything

OK so tell me some of these other things. What specifically is going to be awesome assuming I stick with it, of course.

kinda hard to pin it down but you're not going to feel as winded from physical activity, your skin might be even *better*, cleaner teeth, you will actually taste food better ime because your taste buds will clear up (or open up, idk), your car, clothes, house/apt will smell better (because even if you only smoke outside it's gonna come along with you wherever you go), and i tend to think that w/o smoking as an expected crutch or the ritual you'll go to at the end of every day, you'll have a bit more zest and ambition for future endeavors. that sounds stupid, maybe, but i think it's true. i don't think it's really hard to cast aside once you decide that you are not a smoker but rather you are a person with this smoking thing that you do sometimes. there is a difference.

It is so nice to sit here and not worry about when and where my next cigarette will come.

When I go to the doctor because I don't feel good, he doesn't tell me to stop smoking. Not sure if that was ever the problem in the first place, but now, at least he has to dig a little deeper.

No, I don't have a light. Guess I can keep walking.

I once swore I'd never pay more than $2 a pack. I quit when they were $3.50. I don't know how all you moneybags are still keeping up with this today.

$3.50?! My god. I've been making a list all day of the cute things I'm gonna buy with all this money I'm gonna save. Pretty excited about that part tbh.

Good luck to you.

That would be the most exciting part for me, I think, the previously wasted dollars adding up.

Seriously. Every time I've had a craving today (which has be surprisingly infrequent) I've bookmarked something I'm gonna get instead of smokes.

best of luck e

Thanks guys the support is nice and now I'll feel like a real ass if I don't stick with it so this is good!!