question for x-smokers

[ready182]

Every time I feel like a cigarette, I stick a dick in my mouth instead. My former two pack a day habit has made 40 of my friends very happy

[Guest happyday]

How did you quit? Cold turkey? Gum? Patch? Zyban? Hypnotism? Acupuncture? Smoke Enders?

[Guest Charon]

Cold turkey, though I tried several times including one 3 year stint with a relapse before I made it. For me, it was all about wanting to be done with smoking. That made the urge manageable.

[HooBoy]

I went through a half dozen failed attempts, including "cutting down". Finally, I went Cold turkey with the help of patches. I would leave the patches on for days at a time until my body was covered with them. I had the strongest ones and they made me high, so it was somewhat enjoyable. When the urge to smoke came over me - which was about every 30 minutes or when I was on the phone, or after a meal, after sex, or meeting someone, or having a drink, or breathing, I would pop an Altoid.

 

After about 5 years, the craving for a cigarette finally died down.

 

It is absolutely the most difficult thing I have ever done and I sigh when I see young kids smoking.

 

Of course, now I can't stop sucking on Altoids. :-)

[Guest Stephan-Lacoste]

Well I love that one }>

I wish everyone would do that lol

[Guest Stephan-Lacoste]

Come on Hooboy, don't tell me you only suck on altoids

[Will]

For years I was one of those smokers who could quit but couldn't stop. But about ten years ago I did stop, and for good.

 

First, I stayed for a couple of weeks with a friend who had recently managed to stop after a terrible struggle with it, sort of like Hooboy's. So I certainly wasn't going to light up in her house, or even in her presence. That forced me to sort of taper off, and then one day walking back to her house I threw out the cigarettes I had in my pocket and toughed out the rest.

 

That lasted eight months, until I got into a very stressful situation and started up again. However, within a few months I was smoking more than I ever had before, and had a terrible cough and asthma. Finally, I realized that I hated it: I hated the way it made me feel; I hated the way it made me smell; I hated what it did to my house and clothes; I hated the associations it had. So I stopped smoking again.

 

So far, that's that. However, the second time I stopped, I simply stopped "for today," or for "this hour," or for "this minute." I never said, "I'll never smoke again." Instead, I said, "I just won't smoke right now."

 

Eventually, "right now" never came. Now, I never even think about it.

 

Good luck!

[+ Charlie]

As I was getting ready to move, I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if the new house never smelled of tobacco?" So I just stopped smoking on the day that I moved, and I've never missed it, physically or psychologically. Of course, my father stopped smoking just as easily, so I am probably genetically lucky.

[sdg]

hardest thing i have given up and in my life, smoking, i have given up alot. loved it and never wanted it to end but just decide with a new job i didn't want to be an outcast, i live in california. so i got the pacthes and after 4 years of still wanting them i can say i really don't want them. right.

 

sdg

[Guest Viewmaster]

When the time finally came that I really didn't want to be a person who smoked, stopping was immediate and simple, and I've never wanted another. My desire to not smoke was so strong that I have no recollection of any cravings. That was the actual stopping. However, getting to the point where my desire to *not* smoke was greater than my desire *to* smoke -- well, that took a long time. For years I could always find reasons why right now was not a good time to try to stop. But it's behind me, and as with many ex smokers, now I cannot bear the thought of being in a bar or any other place that has a lot of smoke.

[Samai139]

Cold Turkey--and that was 16+ years ago, and I can still remember the day and time that I made the decision. I had just had my blood pressure taken and the nurse looked at me rather quizically and remarked that she was puzzled because my B.P. was high, for someone who was athletic, played tennis and was not overweight. She looked at me and asked if I smoked. I admitted it and she just gave me a look that was sincerely concerned and a little pitying.

I walked out the office and decided that I didn't want the effects-long term of smoking. I knew about lung cancer, and had ignored, denied it, but did not know about the other effects.

I took the carton of cigarettes I had just purchased and put them in the trunk of my car--thinking that I would probably fail, and wanted them there just in case. I threw away my cigarette lighters, and the odd pack of cigarettes I had.

I spent the next week sucking on a lot of cough drops--I wish I had something more "tasty" and erotic, but hell the cough drops fulfilled the oral fixation I had. I also put the capped end of my ball point pens in my mouth a lot. Made sure I did not go to places where smoking was going on--in the first months I quit, and I kept a journal--how many days I had gone. At first it was an accomplishment to have gone a day, then a week, then two weeks, and finally a month, and best of all six months and then a year.

I told no one that I was planning to quit. It was a couple of days before my family realised what was going on, and then at work people realised that I was no longer smoking.

As I said, that was 16 years ago--May 1985--and I have not had one cigarette since. I go to strip bars in Montreal where many of the dancers and patrons smoke, and I even carry cigarettes sometimes to give to me favourite dancers. Imagine. I can buy cigarettes, have them in jacket, have them in my hotel room, give them to dancers, and never be tempted at all. I KNOW that if I smoke ONE, I would be hooked, and so I never light up.

If you are still reading after all these words, thanks. Quitting cigarettes was one of the hardest things I ever did, and one of the things I am most proud of.

If you really want to quit, you can. Good Luck. Go for it--you will not only feel and smell better, you will have accomplished a major goal.

[Guest Kevin 2]

<Go for it--you will not only feel and smell better, you will have accomplished a major goal.>

Don't forget that you just doubled the number of guys that actually WANT to kiss you! I hate smokers breathe!

[Guest happyday]

Thanks for all of your encouragement in my 30 year battle with nicotine. I consider it one of my major failures in life not to have won this battle. Next month I have programed myself to give it another shot. Maybe some of the responses here will provide that little extra incentive that will make this effort the forever one. May everyone have a safe and happy holiday. hd

[OceanTraveller]

Iused the patch in 2 different attempts . The last time they kept falling off and I said to forget the patch and went cold turkey.....that was five years ago and I haven't had another cigarette since and the urge has long since gone too. Good luck to you !!!:-)