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M$5
December 17, 2008 09:27 PM
How did you quit smoking?
One of my new years resolutions will be to kick this nasty habit of smoking. What're the best/worst ways you've found to do so. What has and/or hasn't worked for you.
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| December 18, 2008 01:07 AM |
Get one of those and see if you want to smoke. (You can try but you'll regret it).
The other way to do it is to eliminate places and times when you smoke. Start with short things like the 5 minute drive to the store and back. Work on waiting longer before your next smoke, such as not right when you get up but only until after you're out the door to work. Eventually you'll have less and less need and be able to space each cigarette out more.
Also the gum works very well.
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Other Answers (17)
December 17, 2008 09:28 PM
I just did, without any help. But, like some writer said, "Quitting is easy. I've done it a hundred times". It sounds stupid, but if you want to quit, you must want to (yeah, it sounds newagey and all). I woke up one day and that was it, didn't smoke again. Just quit relating tobacco to working better or looking cool.
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pescina
December 17, 2008 09:30 PM
Thanks, I wasn't sure about the writer.
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December 17, 2008 09:30 PM
Pretty much every site attributes this quote to Mark Twain. Here's one of the uglier looking sites with some more Mark Twain quotes, just in case you were wondering. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it-s-easy-to-quit-smoking-i-ve-done-it-hundreds/348623.html
Here's the original quote: "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."
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Here's the original quote: "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."
December 17, 2008 09:31 PM
Take a deep puff and draw it in..now hold your breathe..keeping holding it.. Okay all kidding aside.. there are two issues:
1. Addiction to nicotine ..pick up the nicotine gum form your doctor.
2. You have a emotional/mental reason for smoking ..pick up a new habit to replace it tha tis hopefully more healthy..
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December 17, 2008 09:33 PM
Just don't pick caffeine. Even if coffee seems innocuous, it certainly isn't. If you drink too much and quit suddenly, you'll be in hell for a day or two.
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December 17, 2008 10:59 PM
From what I have been able to determine, typically it takes 3 days for the physical addiction to mild chemicals to pass through your system At which point your other addictions (such as hand-to-mouth, mental, emotionally induced, etc.) have to be dealt with.
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December 17, 2008 09:32 PM
I have not personally quit smoking, but several people I'm close to have. My sister quit cold turkey. Her boyfriend was a driving influence and helped keep her focused on quitting. She hasn't gone back since and it's been 9 months.
My other sister took Chantix, a smoking cessation drug. It worked well for her, but other people I know stopped taking it when it made them want to stop drinking. Didn't work for them. Worked great for my sister, though.
Above all else, quitting smoking just takes the desire. to do so. The trick is some method or device in your life that will remind you constantly of what you're trying to achieve and why. If you tell yourself you're quitting smoking because you don't want to die a horrible death to lung cancer one day, tell yourself that everyday. And when you want to pick up a cigarette and try to tell yourself, "It's just one. One won't matter," remember that it won't be just one. If you cave once, you'll cave again and again. So it does matter.
Good luck!
Source(s):
Personal experience
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December 17, 2008 09:33 PM
My mother tried quitting many, many times. After over 20 years of smoking she found it VERY difficult to quit (as I'm sure you can imagine). She finally did it with a combination of the patch and after the patch small amounts of nicotine gum. If your addiction is severe or your willpower is low, a combination of the two may help you in your attempt to quit.
The government funds a site that provides a ton of information and help called http://www.smokefree.gov . Give it a try. Good luck to you and take care.
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December 17, 2008 09:41 PM
I agree with this. My mother was a smoker for over 25 yrs. and she had to use both the patch and the gum to help ease her nicotine addiction. she made it clear that it was definantly diffcult, by sneaking in a smoke here and there, and had to convince her that the path is going to be intense but well worth it.
I for one am a different kind of smoker... marijuana. I have recently quit and have found it difficult to fight the addiction. unlike nicotine smokers, there is no patch or a chewing gum. my only remedy was will power. I fight the addiction by drinking water, keeping active, exercise and above all support of friends and family.
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I for one am a different kind of smoker... marijuana. I have recently quit and have found it difficult to fight the addiction. unlike nicotine smokers, there is no patch or a chewing gum. my only remedy was will power. I fight the addiction by drinking water, keeping active, exercise and above all support of friends and family.
December 17, 2008 09:36 PM
I read "Easy Way to Quit Smoking" by Allen Carr to the middle. And the desire was gone. I think it was the best thing I did with my body. Just finished reading his "Easy Way to Stop Drinking", so I don't drink either. The best part is I don't want to. UPD: I smoked 13 years and failed 2 "will-power" attempts to quit before the book.
Source(s):
personal experience
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December 17, 2008 09:39 PM
I've tried them all and the best option for me was Commit lozenges.... I've tried Chantix and it does help you quit but it also made me a bit depressed. Only problem with commit is that it's hard to stop using them..... and they can hurt your teeth in the long run....
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December 17, 2008 09:42 PM
I'm one of those people who has quit smoking...several times. I always quit cold turkey, the problem is that once whatever made me quit in the first place is gone(training, girl, whatever) I get bored and decide I really miss it(yes, I DO enjoy smoking). The only time it was something besides boredom that drove me back was the last time I quit. After about a month/month-and-a-half, I got tired of coughing all the time as my little lung hairs grew back..so I started back up to torch them off again...
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December 17, 2008 09:46 PM
I quit cold turkey at the age of 30, after smoking for 14 years. Partly it was a social thing: I was on my way to a serious career and it just wouldn't have been appropriate to be outside smoking all the time, in a context where my co-workers were educated, serious people who didn't smoke. But I think the biggest factor for me was the realization that if you've got a brain in your head, you've got to kick it eventually or die. The alternative is ending up being one of those people who smoke their whole lives and have to breathe through a hole in their throat.
When you're 22 and going to bars and stuff, smoking is part of the atmosphere and you join in and do it too. At some point, however, you need to begin to make more careful choices in your life.
That probably wouldn't work for everyone. Every person deals with addictions in their own way, so my experience won't apply to everyone else. But, I found it really helpful to learn from the mistakes of older folks I knew who were seeing the adverse impacts on their health and quality of life. Do you really want to go through life that way? It stops being cute when you're old, it just gets disgusting and nasty.
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December 17, 2008 09:56 PM
I recently quit smoking (about 10 months ago) and I completely understand how hard it can be to kick the habit - I smoked for over 10 years. Here are a few things that made quitting a little easier for me: 1. I started after getting sick. When you're sick, your desire to smoke decreases a lot (especially if the sickness involves a soar throat or cough). While you probably shouldn't wait around to get sick, if you do, think of it as an opportunity to not start again after you get better.
2. Surround yourself with people/friends who don't smoke. The hardest part of quitting is seeing other people smoke around you. If your good friends smoke, just ask them not to around you. Luckily, my girlfriend didn't smoke so we just started spending a lot of time together and that helped.
3. Chewing nicotine gum helped me get through the first few months. For me, it was as much about the oral fixation part as the actual nicotine, so having something that i could chew on - and that also gave me a little nicotine - really helped a lot. It can get quite expensive, but you can find generic nicotine gum at a much cheaper price than the regular stuff.
4. Try to identify the activities that you associated most closely with smoking (drinking coffee, getting drunk, taking a break from work, after meals, etc.) and then try to find something else to do during those times. For me, I always had a smoke when I took a break from work. Instead, I went and did a short work-out session for 15 minutes or so every time I took a break. It gave me a little shot of adrenaline that took the place of the buzz i used to get.
Good Luck, and if you need some more helpful hints, check out Mahalo's page on http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_Quit_Smoking
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December 17, 2008 10:20 PM
All great answers here. What it came down to for me personally was the absolute will to quit. Despite knowing the horrific medical consequences of smoking and how much it upset my wife, I continued to do it because I wanted to. It wasn't until I decided to start taking care of myself before it was too late that I quit for good. Will you miss it? Yeah, but less and less everyday. Supposedly it take 21 days to break a habit, so get some low-sugar suckers (I prefer the ones with the plastic sticks), change your routine (critical for breaking the habit (vs. the addiction)), and take up something healthy to replace the habit. For instance, I stopped smoking and began jogging. Two healthy choices FTW. Bottom Line, be honest with yourself. You have to WANT to quit. No one can make you.
Nicotine gum and patches didn't do anything for me. Supplying yourself with the chemical you are trying to gain independence from isn't logical in my opinion. Chantix didn't help me. Welbutrin helped a little bit, but ultimately I wasn't ready to quit at the time I was taking it. Hope this helps and good luck!
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December 17, 2008 11:02 PM
As a hypnotherapist, I've helped a great number of people to stop smoking. Then again, I've had a number of people quit hypnotherapy before they got what they wanted. I've found that, the most difficult part of letting go of smoking is not the addictive part. It's understanding (and figuring out how to let go of) the underlying issues. We all do "bad behavior" to take care of our needs. I use hypnosis (and some talk-therapy) to allow my clients to take care of the same needs in a DIFFERENT way (than smoking... or eating... or drinking... or...
If you don't take care of the underlying needs, you'll just go back to taking care of those needs with smoking again.
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December 17, 2008 11:46 PM
I'll tell you what I told my brother that helped him quit (once), basically modified a diet I had. I just told him to wait before he lights up.
If you usually light up before getting into the car, wait until you get in the car. If you usually light up right when you get in the car, wait until the car is warm, or wait until you've been on the road for a few minutes. If you usually have a cigarette in the shower or before taking a shower, wait until you get out of the shower to light up. If you want to have a cigarette now, put it and the lighter in your hand and wait a little.
This helped in two ways. The first is, sometimes the craving passed and he didn't smoke nor eat. The second way was, if you wait to light up, you will smoke less simply because more time will pass between cigarettes.
Eventually, this did help him stop smoking completely. He stopped smoking for eight months, which is pretty good. Unfortunately he went back to smoking, but I don't think it was because of the method.
I do recommend switching to a brand that has way less nicotine in it, maybe even one you don't enjoy the taste of.
Also, telling yourself outloud, "this tastes bad" even if it tastes delicious and it's what you've been craving all day works.
That little tingly feeling you get on your first puff? "That hurt."
After the cigarette? "Eww, my mouth tastes like charcoal."
The smell on your shirt? "Ooh, I smell like an ash tray."
When you buy cigarettes? "Wow, they're really expensive."
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