I've Decided to give up Smoking

Sydney · #1 06-20-2002, 04:33 AM

Yes, I've decided to give up smoking. One, for the obvious health benefits and two, I'm about to commence a medication that doesn't go well with cigarette smoke.

Anyone have any tips? I'm not going to go cold turkey, but rather gradually phase cigarettes out of my daily habits. At the moment I smoke five or six a day, which in the next couple of days will be reduced to four or five. A couple of days later it will be three or four, then two or three and so on.

Before I completely quit, I want to try some cigarillos, but from then on it's none.

Surfacing · #2 06-20-2002, 04:51 AM

Congratulations Sid!, from what I have heard quitting is not easy, so you will have to be dedicated and once you have stopped that's it you can go ever go back, remember it takes just that one cigarette and your hocked again, my advice would have to be nicarette gum or the patch's they really do work from what I have heard, good luck

One, Two, Middlesboogie · #3 06-20-2002, 06:40 AM

Good for you, Syd!

Here's a method for quitting used by the Chinese:

Take a betel nut (no idea what a betel nut is, but you might be able to find some in oriental food shops) and make a hole in it. Fill the hole with tobacco tar. Place the nut in boiling water for 2 hours, then remove it. Whenever you feel the urge to smoke, sniff the nut instead. After 3 days you should no longer feel the need to smoke.

LuxoJr · #4 06-20-2002, 07:31 AM

Heroin works.

One alternative is to buy the absolute worst cigarettes money can buy. If they're all you have around, smoking them might actually put you off the whole process. I've heard of this working with some people.

Alternatively, if you want to at least cut back on the amount you smoke and wean off that, start rolling your own. They take enough time to make so you're discouraged from using so many at once - but only if that's the difficulty you have with smoking, of course.

Gluk Schmuck · #5 06-20-2002, 08:53 AM

Good for you. Have fun with your withdrawal symptoms.

Sl'askia · #6 06-20-2002, 09:00 AM

Good for you Syd! Now for advice...hmmm *thinks*
I remember hearing somewhere that one of the reasons former smokers can't stay 'former smokers' is that they are so used to the act of putting a cigerette in their mouths. When you get down lower in your useage and feel the urge, stick a lollipop in your mouth instead. (ok...this sounds like advice to give to a chain smoker that want's to quit....oh well)
I know it will be hard, my dad quit pipe smoking (tobacco! Not weed or anything else!) cold turkey. He had smoked as a form of stress relief (if I remember right...this was years ago), so to give his hands something else to do, he started toying with a shoestring he puts in his pants pocket. The family dubbed it 'worry string'...and trust me my dad worries alot. (Often as a bit of fun I would try to snatch the string from his pocket, hehehe don't worry...I started doing that way after he successfully stopped smoking.)

Steve · #7 06-20-2002, 09:51 AM

I have no advise because I have no idea how to quit smoking effectively. best of luck to you, you took the hard way out and I hope you stick with it.

PinkHaired Mudokon CWR · #8 06-20-2002, 11:07 AM

I'm cheering for ya SIdman~

TheKhanzumer · #9 06-20-2002, 11:55 AM

I think you are doing a very wise thing Sydney for you and everyone you know. My advice is to go cold turkey... everyone says that makes it a lot easier even if it seems harder.

Wolfpac · #10 06-20-2002, 11:57 AM

Well at my work I have a friend that's gone cold Turkey. And he's done it too. A couple of year before now he quit. And he didn't touch one for 7 months. Be one day he went to a party and got drunk and someone offered him a smoke and he was hooked again. So that's how easy it is. I asked another friend if he could quit smoking, but he said no.

So you see it's so easy to get addicted, but hard to quit. So good luck.

PinkHaired Mudokon CWR · #11 06-20-2002, 12:55 PM

Don't eat try those nicotine patches. They really don't work. You should eat strawberries because I read it in "The JuiceMan Book" that eating strawberries would gradually wean you off of smoking.

Doug · #12 06-20-2002, 01:41 PM

Mark Twain: Quitting smoking is easy; I've done it hundreds of times.

Good luck, Sydney. You are doing the right thing. Besides the health benefits, think of the money you'll save. I think it's particularly heartening that virtually all of the damage that your lungs may have (probably have) incurred will be healed if you quit at a young enough age.

I smoked maybe twice as many cigarettes a day as you, and I quit cold turkey. I was pretty cranky for a week or so (breaking up with a long-time girlfriend at the same time didn't help), but after that it really wasn't a problem. I had a couple setbacks over the years during particularly stressful times, but I'm far enough removed from that that I know it won't happen again.

There are a million tricks to it that people have tried. The only thing I can add is instead of feeling like you are missing something, think of yourself as actively not smoking, that is, that you are affirmatively doing something and in fact accomplishing something positive and beneficial. I know that I got some gratification from that thought in the early days of not smoking.

salty pretzils · #13 06-20-2002, 02:18 PM

Hey, good for you Sydney, quiting smoking is going to be something you can be proud of. Good luck!

Danny · #14 06-20-2002, 08:35 PM

You just giving up Tobacco or giving up smoking altogether? My friend Tom's advice for giving up cigarettes is to become addicted to Cannabis instead. It works because cannabis is more trouble to get hold of than Tobacco, so it often isn't worth the trouble to get rid of the cravings...

Still, I'm not sure how much pot you'd have to smoke to get addicted. Must be pretty much - I've never known anyone to get addicted...

I'm blethering. I'll shut up.

oddling · #15 06-21-2002, 12:51 AM

Congrats Syndey!!! My dad quite smoking about 6 years ago and what he did was whenever he wanted a smoke he would either chew gum, eat a lollypop, or chew on a pencil. Sounds crazy but it works. He said that watching Sci-Fi movies helped him too. You can say I'm crazy but they're all his ideas. Middles Boogies idea is very good too, if I were you thats what I would do.
If you wanna go cold turkey I made a little thing that pretty much sums up what it would be like, ahem.... It's like going into a cold swimming pool, if you do a cannonball in to the pool, then you get it done all at once but it's a bit harder to get used to the water, if you go in a little by little then you get it done a bit slower but it's a lot easier to get used to. I hoped that helped a bit probably didn't.

Oddling l:c l