Quitting smoking that is working for me
Offline Due to the heart attack issues quitting smoking is no longer a matter of a good idea or make you healthier. It has been elevated to the life preserving category. I have quit before and both times I smoked more than ever when I started again so I had experience and knew some things not to do.
So far there has been great progress down to one or two cigarettes a day and some days none.
I live alone so there are no smokers around me. That is a legitimate consideration. Also that I have been smoking for nearly 50 years and as high as 2 1/2 packs per day.
I am using nicotine patches and electronic cigarettes. Essentially I am just getting a nicotine fix and the eCigs give taste and feel and mannerisms without smoke or tar or carbon monoxide. There are no tests of the health issues of what they do let you inhale. However it is only the water soluable components of tobacco. This includes the nicotine and many of the flavor components. Obviously missing are the burn components but the craving for them is minor and perhaps really non-existent with something else about the burning that I miss.
The eCigs are from www.v2cigs.com/categories/electronic-cigarette-starter-kits . Use eggnog at checkout before the end of the month and get 15% off. Why them? There are way too many people jumping into the business. I found a number of recommendations for it more than for the next candidate. It is the only one I have tried.
Patches, best price I found was Equate on Amazon. And they work as advertised. I have no way to compare to any other.
Anyway, so far so good. Doing better than the last times I quit. Any time there is an urge to smoke a few puffs on the eCig ends it. So I have none of anxiety and cold turkey problems. NO withdrawal feelings.
If I were feeling the urge to smoke as in the last times I would be back to smoking by now -- which is the 5th week, two days into the third and last patch step. It shows promise as with these two reductions in quantity per patch the craving ended after the first day of the new size. If this continues the worst day will be the first day of no patch in two weeks. And the worst is ameliorated by the eCig.
So far I have not had to remind myself that I have no choice but to succeed. Anyway, if you are thinking of quitting hope this helps.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
- Login to post comments
I was just reading about the ecigs the other day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/05/e-cigarettes-tobacco-harmless-enjoyable
"Why did the EU's tobacco product directive released last month propose effectively banning any e-cigs that deliver remotely enough nicotine to make them an attractive alternative to tobacco? Isn't a "tobacco product directive" reaching beyond its remit by seeking to regulate a product containing no tobacco? Why is the sale of a device that administers a mild stimulant about as energising as a cup of coffee already illegal in Denmark, Belgium and Norway?"
I've been smoking for almost 40 years and have never tried to give up, but I am starting to try to cut down a bit. I suspect I'd need e-cigs if I were to attempt cutting down a lot.
When my mother quit, she scrubbed the walls and ceilings where she had been smoking most - over her recliner where she watched TV, etc. She said getting rid of the odor and cleaning the walls was a big help.
If you don't smoke (I could never get started), the odor and staining are very gross. You might be pleasantly surprised at the real color of your walls.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
and it was the eCig that worked for me. Only smoked when on the booze - once a week or so - but chained like a madman when I did.
In Oz the eCig has no nicotine in it but the process of smoking is there and for a part timer it was enough. Bought mine from Mr eCig in South Australia.
I quite liked the taste of the eCigs. Also had a go at a real eCig and found that pretty real. Good throat hit. Australians can buy the real deal online from Asia.
Having the eCig was the thing that made giving up possible. I still carry it with me if I know I'm going to have a big night but don't need it anymore.
Good luck with it. Quitting smokes is a hard thing to do, especially if you grew up thinking it was cool.
Having all cigarette packs in Australia uniformly looking like this helped a bit, too.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I enjoy smoking. I'll permanently quit when I die or when it becomes illegal, whichever comes first. There's no point in trying before that, because I don't want to quit, which makes quitting extremely difficult. It's like any addiction. If you enjoy it and don't want to quit, it's nearly impossible to. But if you truly want to quit, it becomes pretty simple, comparatively.
That's my experience in observing and participating in the or similarly addictive activities for 2 or more decades, depending on which particular activity we're talking about.
Long story short, if you want to quit something addictive, really want it, and it will become easier. Devote as much concentration as you can to the things you hate about the addiction, and ignore any/all things you like about it as much as possible. It's a mental chess game. Use props like ecigs if you want, but be aware that it's only prolonging the process. Best bet is cold turkey. Gets it over with faster, and gives you a stronger fortifi-
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
-cation against urges over the long term.
Those warnings just make me laugh. 90% bullshit wrapped in a package of truth. You're much more likely to die or be crippled in some fashion on or because of a road than from smoking.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
If you smoke a couple of packs a day it will definitely incapacitate you and probably kill you. It's slow, sure. But choking to death with emphysema at 65 or 70 is nothing I want to go through if I can avoid it.
Wiki annual preventable deaths in USA
Smoking tobacco 435,000 18.1%
Traffic collisions 43,000 1.8%
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Laughable. That's barely a fraction of road and vehicle related deaths. And a gross overestimation of smoking fatalities. Fact is you can't prove they wouldn't have died by that old age if they didn't smoke. If you die of anything related to smoking, and smoked, it is automatically assumed that smoking killed you, without any consideration to the fact that people die of heart disease and lung cancer even if they never encounter a cigarette in their lives.
It also doesn't account for the fact that motor vehicle emissions are far more toxic than cigarette emissions.
Smoking isn't healthy, but it isn't remotely as dangerous as government health organisations would have you believe.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
For some reason I was able to quit smoking all at once, cold turkey style. Was back in my early twenties, was becoming an exercise fan at the time and so I just quit. Never lit up since.
I could never acquire the habit of smoking, but tried several times in my life. I couldn't get past the coughing and hacking and the ash tray feeling in my mouth the next day.
Both my parents smoked. They both quit cold turkey when they joined the SDA church. The SDA church did and probably do still have a course in it but I wouldn't recommend it. My father didn't really have a problem with quitting, but my mother did. She said giving up drinking was easier. I know from her it is quite a struggle and glad I could never acquire the taste. Hope you hang in there.
As side story, when I was about 8, my mother caught me looking for matches in our car. She called me in the house and I confessed what I was doing. She put down her pack of cigarettes in front of me and told me she either wanted me to eat one or smoke one in front of her. When she tells this story she says she looked away and turned back to see me chomping down on the cigs. It was disgusting, but I ate it. That kept me from smoking for a bit, but it was her best friend kids that kept me trying it repeatedly. I think the two brothers are still smokers to this day.
Good luck.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
I'd be very happily wrong.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Me too, I'm just relating my conclusion from all available evidence. Smoking has turned into a witch hunt, where any info to assist the conclusion of extreme health problems is welcomed without any bother to have actual evidence to support it.
It isn't healthy, it is unhealthy. It does increase the RISK of multiple health disorders, including cancers and heart disease.
But you can also chain smoke for 90 years and die without having anything smoking related to do with it.
Fear mongering at its finest.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Like AE I only smoke when I drink heavily, but when I drink heavily I tend to chain smoke. I have thought about getting the e-cig because I think most of the reason I smoke cigs is because I am drinking around others who smoke them. I don't really crave the cigarette itself. Mostly I just like to smoke something while I am waiting for the bowl to be passed around anyway, I doubt I would care if it is a real cig or an e-cig. Probably an inexpensive investment to add a few years onto my life.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
http://www.the-nz-e-cigarette-review.com/
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck