Quitting smoking

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.

It's been two weeks into this and still hard. I know cigarettes don't relieve that but they provide the chemical and ritual illusion of doing so. WhatI am feeling is the feeling of unmitigated stress, just because of life. It's just a crummy feeling. Feeling and acknowledging it doesn't make me stink and spend money and stigmatize myself socially and someday probably die of lung cancer, all the things the cigarettes do. Coming home from work is the hardest – the long commute home on a wee scooter with terrible shocks, and then just being at home where I would once smoke. The 2-3 hours after work are hard. EVerything else is ok and I'm not coughing anymore.

It was dumb that I ever started again. I can't just start every time I have a stressful life event. I (presumably) have many years of life ahead of me with pain after pain ahead. Job loss. Family death. They'll all happen someday.

maybe replace just-got-home cig with some other small and pleasant thing that can become routine?

i can't even remember the last day i smoked anymore. it'll be a year sometime in october. it's awesome not to even think about it or care at all! my stress reactions are totally re-wired. my boyfriend still smokes, and i sure as hell wish he would quit, but i absolutely know the decision has to be his so i never bug him about it. luckily it doesn't gross me out unless he leaves the door open while he's smoking on the porch cuz all the smoke comes drifting inside and stays for a day or two *shudders*

crabs it's worth staying the course and you can do it. i know it's not for everyone but running really helped me. similar lizard-brain fix in the form of serotonin imo.

yeah it's when I go for a long walk at night that it falls out of my head. It's just too hot here in the desert to go out any sooner tho.

after 4 years of not smoking i am still struggling with my burning throat. cravings still come occasioanlly and they can be bad but it is like meditation where the best way to not think is to let thoughts come and wait until they go again which they always do.

so i've been smoking american spirits the past ~3 months, averaging about a pack a week. i decided to take a break and try some kools extra-longs - they were fucking gross, almost because they were so god damn pleasant. they literally tasted sweet - it was bizarre to me, and kind of sick. as such, i bought a pack of spirits this morning and am finding myself equally repulsed by them - as if they're too harsh, and kind of gross to be holding within my lungs. i gave the pack to a friend after being pretty repulsed by the 4th cigarette i felt like i was forcing myself to smoke.

so there's a way to quit, i guess.

Prepping myself to do this. Been trying every other year to quit but I usually only last a few days. This year the wifey is pretty adamant about it so I'll try harder. Still not sure whether it's better to set a specific date for quitting or to just wake up one morning and quit cold turkey.

It's been 2.5 months now, for me, without a speck of tobacco. It's been tough, I feel on edge, STILL, but it's getting better slowly. I planned to (and did) quit after a week-long blow-out with lots of smoking. I really hope this time is for good.

It was dumb that I ever started again. I can't just start every time I have a stressful life event. I (presumably) have many years of life ahead of me with pain after pain ahead. Job loss. Family death. They'll all happen someday.

― ms fotheringham (Crabbits), Thursday, September 6, 2012 11:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I totally get this, Abs.

So I lapsed (and by lapsed I mean had <5 a day for a couple weeks - haven't actually bought a pack in months now) a while ago but have been back on the wagon for the past two weeks barring the 3 I had last Saturday night while drinking/hanging out with smokers.

There are things I want to do soon that will mean I can't smoke at all so I really need to just never smoke but part of me is still like FUCK YOU LET ME HAVE MY 2 A WEEK etc. It's really dumb too because I don't even enjoy them that much anymore. I mean after a couple weeks of not smoking the first few drags are just gross.

Bah. It's OK. Not seeing any smokers this weekend so it won't be too tough.

Yes it was hanging around smokers that was another big factor. This attractive guy in grad school who started just sharing his cigs w/me when he smoked. "I know what you want," he'd say. And I bought a pack in mind of paying him back but I didn't see him that weekend so I smoked it myself –––– dumb. I never see this guy anymore though or any of his unfiltered-cigarette-loving hipster friends.

i enjoy a good smoke

shut up, buzza

jk <3 u

i don't smoke

― buzza

lol

Crabbits (seems odd to use this handle) I am sorry you are having to struggle so much with this, but you are not alone. Every tobacco smoker who ever decided to quit has to deal with this shit. My bro had to quit four or five times before he managed to really quit. My dad, too.

Nicotine is a very insidious, deep-seeping, deep-hiding drug, so much so that it is hard to understand just how much it entwines itself into your psyche. But please believe me that however many times you backslide and however steep a hill you have to trudge up to quit again, it is worth it.

Emphysema, lung cancer, throat cancer et. al. are just a nasty painful place to end your life. You've got too much value to risk that kind of future. If you need encouragement, come here and get some. We ALL will be glad to give it to you.

So lately I feel like I've had trouble breathing and my heart keeps doing this skippy thing. It's been doing this on and off for a couple of days now and today it won't stop and I'm terrified! I only smoked like three fags yesterday but was pretty much chain smoking on Saturday... I feel wrong though, kinda frightened...

I wish there were some sort of drug you could take that just purged all the tar and crap from your body in one go so that you could quit and notice the effects of quitting almost immediately!

tbh the effects of quitting i got were 'loss of sense of smell' (three years now!), 'discovery that i had asthma', and general lung-related crap forever.

but now sometimes i drunk or stressed bum a cigarette and even one leaves me feeling like shit, so there's that.

I've had that fucked body feeling before- usually after clubbing where I've probably been fairly heavy smoking for over 12 hours. Not nice.

Wish I could quit. The thought of a cigarette doesn't cross my mind until I get out of work at which point my cravings become kind of insane. If I just go to bed and read or watch TV- I'll be fine, but that never happens, and I don't want evenings like that anyway. So I go hang out with people, band practice, go to a bar, make some music, out of for a meal and I'll smoke 5-10 cigs, easily. And that's probably waaay worse than smoking 5-10 cigs throughout the whole day. SUCKS!

I stopped bringing cigs to work and that helps. I think I could prob give up roll-ups if I could still smoke the odd splff but that has tobacco in. Might get a pipe or some nonsense.

we were just saying at work if you wanna quit you have to go to a cigarette free island for a while - otehrwise you will get dragged back in

http://i.imgur.com/hd0Fx.jpg

this looks promising. trying out the patch now ... withdrawal is the hardest part, i'd be happy to never smoke again. if that doesn't work, maybe i'll go in for a few good zappings.

I have heard people say quitting is not so bad but not going back after a few months is what is hard

I think I could prob give up roll-ups if I could still smoke the odd splff but that has tobacco in.

you can smoke weed without tobacco fyi

yeah, it's so tempting cuz you're like, we'll i've quit for so long, i'm over the addiction -- one cigarette can't hurt, just to be social. that's foiled many of my past efforts to quit xp

exactly. patterns are very difficult to break - you must drive out the old habit with a new one - have you tried sniffing glue?

i addressed that problem by deciding i couldn't say that i've successfully quit smoking till it's been like 5 years. i think that's actually helped, psychologically. alcohol helped too

I hope they soon invent a kind of non invasive lobotomy - nano nicotine shit

That few months later thing got me every time. Up to about 2.5 months now, though!

Painless Laser Therapy of Manalapan, supporting Master Musicians of Joujouka.

yay ― schwantz,!!!
keep at it! its worth it

Thanks! I think it might actually stick this time.

OMG I just realized that I have smoked, but NOT SO MUCH in a CLUB! Most clubs I've been to have weird ventilation systems or dry ice and it deters you from smoking. I just realize that because why do I associate clubs and dance with smoking. I now recall that no...it discourages it. So does being semi-drunk.

I'm an on and off "sneak out to have a smoke because I'm frustrated" type of person. Don't find it hard to quit when I'm fit and the pressure is off.

Had eye surgery recently and just popped pain pills and stayed off the shit for three whole days. Hate it, switched to these natural cigar things that seem less addictive. I'm trying to turn my health around...

yeah I've quit seriously twince in the last 10 years and relapsed after 6-12 months thinking I could have just one "cuz it's a special night" or some bullshit.
Anyway I really feel like quitting now but not sure if I should try yet another nicorette product or not - might be easier to withstand teh withdrawal but in a way I fear it maintains this connection with nicotine somehow.

i am sorry to say but i think unlike the umbilical cord the nicotine connection will never be cut once you have established it by smoking heavily for a couple of years. after 4 years without fags, there are times where i think the connection is broken but there are others where it is stronger than ever... ;-(

Tobacco plants - the human parasite

i'm getting close to my first week quitting smoking, after about 3 years of a half pack/pack daily. for some reason my muscles and body feel way weaker than they did while i was smoking... i thought i'd feel like superman or some shit right after i quit. i did an easy workout today, but it was a lot more difficult than anything i've experienced during my smoking years. on the flip side i was able to cycle uphill way faster than before, which felt pretty great.

what's up with this?

i dunno -- every time i quit in the past, i would catch a cold or get the flu. it was weird! maybe your body's working through its addiction? you'll feel better soon, though. congrats!