Quitting smoking

i saw katherine heigl hawking one on letterman and it just looked so dang sexy.

esoj how u doing

4 months clean, occasional jones but no slipups..

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I put one in my mouth for laffs recently and just the smell of the filter about did made me gag. The pack may as well have played Beethoven's Fifth when I opened it.

I gotta stop editing my posts in mid-post.

big fan of the e-cig here. the trick is to actually spend the money on a good one rather than just get some shit at the gas station; I have one of these and it:

- holds a battery charge for a week
- holds a shitload of nicotine juice (you can also buy specially flavored juices - right now I'm smoking snickerdoodles)
- can be easily charged through a USB passthrough
- doesn't look anything like a cigarette - this is actually good since you can puff away on it in public & people assume you're doing something else
- doesn't make you reek of smoke, doesn't kill yr sense of taste, etc.

right now I'm smoking snickerdoodles

You are a girl.

i really, really need to quit.

really.

REALLY.

It's been since last Thursday for me (yeah, so not that long...). I get hit with waves of sadness, but I think the worst of it is already past. The trick for me is not doing the "it's been a month, so I think I can handle having one cigarette when I'm drunk" thing.

my pretty face is going to hell

the thing I told myself when tempted by the "one cigarette when I'm ____" is: What's the point? Maybe you get a nice light-headed nic buzz for a minute or two, but that isn't really the point of smoking. The point of smoking, once you're an addict, is to feel normal. If you aren't going to let yourself slide back into addiction, then is the little one-minute buzz really worth the cheat? Every time you cheat it brings you a little closer to where you were when you first abstained, and that is why your brain wants to smoke again. Ask yourself would you smoke a nicotine-free cigarette if it were offered to you the next time you went out drinking? What would the point of smoking one of those be?

a whole whopping 36 hours. going for a run

I have an e-cig, but it doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather have the nicotine out of my system completely. And my one prior attempt with it consisted of being constantly reminded what I wasn't having.

The Carr book isn't earth-shattering, it's telling me things I already knew (addiction, not missing out on anything when not smoking, etc.) but it does reinforce a lot of the things I feel when smoking (I'm not actually enjoying this, I'd never miss anything if I hadn't started, etc..).

I'm not quitting, just trying very hard not to smoke. it's not working out too well and I'm generally grumpier than usual.

it's going to be a year for me next week!!!

I honestly can't remember when I quit. Really. I do still crave it, but I think I'll stick to not smoking. It is much easier and quite frankly. Also, I would have to stop the pill and my anti anxiety medication which would be a major dud. But I still long for'em. I think it'll always be like that, I just have to learn to live with that (occasional) feeling.

I haven't smoked a thing since September 1st last year and my phone app tells me I've avoided lighting up 7,084 times.

Wow! Congratulations! My worst cravings are when I am in a stressful situation (like "discussions" with my husband). So very very few. Thank god.

I had quit for 4 years but had about 5 last night. which kind of sucks.

i'm so shit. by only tuesday night i was ready to kill anything or anyone i saw.

I was watching some home videos last weekend and I can't get over how much my friends and I used to smoke indoors. Just sitting on the couch, lighting up a cigarette, watching a little TV. Some time around 2000, I don't know why, my little crew and I start going outside to smoke [tobacco]. I'm sure I must have felt so put out at first, but it just seems like craziness to do it the other way.

It's like when my libertarian side got all upset when my state outlawed smoking in restaurants. But suddenly, there were all these sections of restaurants opened up. You don't smell smoke while you're trying to eat a pizza. And now that we've got kids, I'm completely okay with it.

Especially since the state came up with this weird compromise where restaurants can still allow smoking as long as they don't allow anyone under 21. Whole sections of those places have opened up to, except they all have ashtrays on the table. I still go to places like that for the food, and it's so weird for me to see someone walk up to the bar, grab some matches and light up.

My point to all of this is that you'd be amazed at what you get used to. Quit now, go through some withdraw pangs, and within a year, you'll be "I used to do this?" I'm completely simplifying this sentiment, but I'm not as far off from it as you'd think.

PP, I totally feel that sentiment. I still smoke (though I am quitting in two weeks, picked a date etc. And I will not fail), but I still remember how ten years ago I still smoked in my office. I honestly cannot fathom that any more, working in a smoke filled room (have an office room for myself). The stench must have been dire, and I probably didn't even notice it at the time. It's crazy.

urgh i can't do this

three months tomorrow. i did something!

congrats and good job!

Matt P, you are a great nin-smoker!

lol NINE INCH NAILS smoker
I meant non-smoker

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTD6V1xyEoFNxOELOmu8OyjTRKqXFX9yqKlXOlBpXYRtA7qn19GBg

^^trent reznor the best thang smokin'

8 months, though i reckon i'll have one more fall off the wagon before 2012 is out

was never a huge smoker, but i was buying a pack a week for about two years. then i got a pneumonia and suffered through a week of fevers in which maybe it'd be an exaggeration to think that i "wanted" to die, but i could certainly see the appeal. sort of a weird notion i've never been able to reproduce. this was followed by 2 months of incessant and unbelievably productive coughs, like small organs exploding out of my mouth every time for periods of 9873290872 times a day.

so yeah, that's how i quit smoking.

Smoking was nasty, but nicotine is a godsend.

Interesting factoid from Smoking and Schizophrenia:

Approximately 85% of people who have schizophrenia are also heavy cigarette smokers (and 60% to 70% of people with bipolar disorder) and they smoke two to three times as much as an average smoker. In fact it has been estimated that 44% of all cigarettes used in the US are smoked by the mentally ill.
Research now suggests that people with brain disorders smoke at a high rate partly because nicotine reduces some of the cognitive dysfunction that is a common symptom.

I'm prone to anxiety, and (as mentioned above_ use snus imported from Sweden to help manage it (the American brands are vile), but used to go through a half-pack of Camel lights a day. Snus lacks the carcinogens in smoked and smoke-cured (American oral) tobacco, so its estimated as less than 10% as harmful. It also costs (at my usage) about a dollar a day, vs. the $3+ for cigarettes.

Was so proud of my ex for quitting, he lasted about a month, cold turkey (for him, a REALLY big deal), then xmas/new years parties happened and drinking and BAM and now he keeps stealing "just one" of my smokes, and I feel like an enabler and it is awful :(

According to my app, it's 504 days since my last one and I've not smoked 9,584 since then.

is it the 'since i quit' app?

i use it and it's the best thing ever. i've been 43 weeks, 4 days, 18 hours, 13 minutes, and 20 seconds free of cigarettes.

(this is like my 4th time quitting btw.)

I quit smoking a year and a few months ago. I didn't mean to; I started dating a wonderful person who didn't, went on a weekend trip with her and realized that, thanks to all that tIme spent with her and without cigarettes, I had gone 3 days without, and decided to ride it out. That same person broke up with me almost three months ago.

The last year and change wasn't good. I loved (and still do) her with all my heart, but it's the most depressed, anxious, and unfocused I've ever been, in a life defined by depression, anxiety, and lack of focus.

I was drunk the other nIght, and bought a pack of fancy cigarettes. I had one that night, and another one last night. I've been a little bit happier and much, much more able to handle almost every little problem and obstacle in life quickly and competently without the usual paralysis.

Do I just need nicotine? I started smoking when I was much younger (16), and I wonder if, in concert with my natural depression stuff, I unwittingly wired myself to need this substance to be a marginally functional person.

I don't want to be a smoker again. But if my choice is between a functional smoker and a non-functional non-smoker, I'll choose the former.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

unfortunately I do

Six days fag free. Promised my wife I'd stop at the end of the football season. Tetchiness diminishing. Hope I can keep this one up. Have given up for three separate periods of three years plus before, and each time allowed myself to think "Ah, one social cigarette won't hurt!" And been sucked back in.

@energy food: i don't think that smoking solves any problems. it's all in your mind, you tell yourself a story which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. but if you think your depression goes away if you smoke and it works, why not continue smoking? one question though. how did you feel before starting to smoke? have you been depressed before discovering nicotine?

I swear to god the electronic cigarette was working for me for a while...then I lost it somewhere in the house.

I was on a medication once that helped me quit cold turkey. Some anti-depressant, can't remember which.

That would be bupropion (brand names Zyban/Wellbutrin in the US).

Alex, it's a bit more complicated than that. I'm not claiming smoking as a magical depression cure. It's more that, and this makes some sense biochemically, this last year and change, far more so than was the case when I still smoked, my anxiety and hemming and hawing over the most basic of everyday decisions and problems (to say nothing of bigger decisions) has gotten out of control. Having a stimulant in my system that affects neural pathways in a way that we don't fully understand seems to have alleviated that a fair amount. And that anxiety/over-thinking/paralysis is not the key to my depression, but it is one of them.

I don't think I'm actually going to start smoking again, I'm just venting how concerned by this positive effect I've seen in the last two days and it's correlation to inhaling a couple Flaming Stix of Deth.

Yes! It was Wellbutrin.

I found another miracle product. This store near me sells $2 (US) cigarettes. They are not bad, like some toy cigarette you'd smoke in high school. Just crappy enough to deter smoking too many of them.

It's weird, you'd think the high prices of other brands would be a deterrent.

I've quit before and I'll quit again. Now that the weather is warm and I'm outside more it should be easier.

Doing this again.

Gah.

yeah, getting ready to do this but think I will also need to quit drinking for a while as the two are inexorably linked

god, when i quit smoking my drinking went through the roof. i would have been unable to do without both.

8 years next month.

Last week I quit caffeine too. Feeling pretty good.

normally after 3 days without I'm in pretty good shape but it's been 5 and I am still really, really struggling. possibly having to do with being unemployed. would have given in but there are significant health issues that might be helped if i stop immediately.