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Help me stop smoking! (please?)
Blackjack
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Registered User regular
Some background info before I get to my questions.
I've been smoking for about ten years, and smoking heavily for about four. When I started, I would have maybe one or two cigarettes then not crave another for months. I would go long periods without smoking, and wouldn't even think about it. I even went over a year without smoking. Now, though, I'm smoking anywhere from fifteen to twenty (one pack) a day. I've done the "I'm quitting! No, REALLY this time!" song and dance about four times already and made it about two weeks at the longest, in January of this year. Eventually though, the cravings and symptoms of withdrawal (headaches, insomnia, a horrible cough worse than anything I had while actually smoking, general soreness...Quitter's Flu, basically) made me crumble like a weakling and I went back. At first I was only smoking four or five a day, but pretty soon I was back up to my normal most/all of a pack a day.
So, my question is (especially to anyone who has successfully quit!) how do I deal with the withdrawal? The cravings I can handle, but it's the physical ones that are the real killer for me. Is there no hope other than "suck it up" like I do with the cravings?
I've been smoking for about ten years, and smoking heavily for about four. When I started, I would have maybe one or two cigarettes then not crave another for months. I would go long periods without smoking, and wouldn't even think about it. I even went over a year without smoking. Now, though, I'm smoking anywhere from fifteen to twenty (one pack) a day. I've done the "I'm quitting! No, REALLY this time!" song and dance about four times already and made it about two weeks at the longest, in January of this year. Eventually though, the cravings and symptoms of withdrawal (headaches, insomnia, a horrible cough worse than anything I had while actually smoking, general soreness...Quitter's Flu, basically) made me crumble like a weakling and I went back. At first I was only smoking four or five a day, but pretty soon I was back up to my normal most/all of a pack a day.
So, my question is (especially to anyone who has successfully quit!) how do I deal with the withdrawal? The cravings I can handle, but it's the physical ones that are the real killer for me. Is there no hope other than "suck it up" like I do with the cravings?
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One of them quit smoking tobacco...and started smoking weed. It worked but it is of course not optimal.
Many of them quit using Chantix; a popular if expensive medication. Has some interesting if not life threatening side effects and seems to work in a great deal of cases.
One of them quit cold turkey after their first grandson was born because they wanted to see him grow up. Ended up drinking more coffee and eating a bit more.
The thing I hear from all of them is that you have to keep both your mouth and your hands busy whenever the craving starts to kick in. One whistles, one chews gum, one always holds something in their hands. Another thing you need to do is get rid of all lighters ASAP.
You could try something like the patch or gum, but really you're just prolonging the withdrawal part (though making it milder). I just preferred to get it over with.
I recently quit and the cough and soreness (from the cough) last me three months. Smoking dialates your bronchial tubes and that awful feeling is your body realizing just how fucked it is. It passes. Hit the gym and do some cardio. It helps a lot.
Smoking is a bitch. Break up with her.
Not that you shouldn't try Chantix, but if you do, know you're in for some weird ass shit when you sleep and maybe if you know ahead of time you can get through it.
The withdrawals are a bitch, but what seems to be hardest is the habit itself. Having soemthing in your fingers, bringing your hand to your mouth, having something in your lips. For me, other than ecigs, lollipops have been very helpful, as you get all the same motions of smoking, but with delicious candy payoff.
Which you can totally taste now that you're not smoking!
My crutch was weed, which I smoked like a fiend for about three more months until quitting that cold turkey. I also took up running, and gnawed my fingernails down to almost nothing.
I had to stop hanging out with some (smoker) friends because when I was around them I would have hallucinations of opening my pack, taking out a cigarette, and lighting it. Like full sensory hallucinations. Every minute was just a battle to not bum a smoke. Not bum a smoke. Etc.
I'm rarely around smokers, but even now seven years later I'll catch a good whiff and feel a craving. I know that if I took one puff it would all come rushing back...
But yeah, do what you gotta do. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another, and you're never going to quit unless YOU want to.
E-cigarettes are great in my opinion. I know a number of people who have successfully used then to quit. They are relatively inexpensive and you can order cartridges with different levels of nicotine to work your way down.
I also know someone who "quit" by using nicotine gum, but they've been addicted to the gum for 10-ish years (and the gum is damn pricey).
Another suggestion is to evaluate triggers or stresses that might make you want to smoke. Yes, there is the physical aspect of quitting, but there is also the habit side like "damn a cigarette would be great right now". Many people I know who have quit for a period of time (and gone through the physical part) have something stressful happen and one of the first things they do is buy a pack of cigarettes. If this is the case for you, try to develop some alternative habit for when something stressful happens. My mom's friend used to carry around a bag of carrots in his pocket, whenever he had the urge to have a cigarette, he would eat a carrot.
What I did find really helpful was telling my close friends and family that I quit. It made me feel more accountable, and I didn't want to let them down. When I got a craving, or nearly jumped into the car to go buy a pack, I kept thinking about having to face the people that I told I was quitting. I didn't want to see the disappointment, and I wanted to prove that that I could do it.
Also, while your mileage may vary, don't bet someone money that you can quit. Monetary punishments can crowd out other motivations, and you will probably get to the point where losing $50 or $100 is worth another cigarette.
You're better off setting aside the money you would spend on cigarettes, and rewarding yourself with something at set points in time. I.e. a new game at ten days, dinner with your significant other at a month, etc.
Well, everyone has been giving really good advice, but I really like this one.
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My big thing was that I told no one. People bugging me before only made it worse. If you do let people know, stick with supportive individuals who won't give you a hard time because you're not doing it quick enough or the likes.
The most important thing is to have a plan ready to go. Improvising leads to compromising and being frustrated.
Whichever course you choose, I wish you the best of luck. It's hard to do, but totally worth it.
This is great advice. Try to figure out your particular triggers. My triggers are periods of extreme stress, social drinking, and whenever I worked a warehouse or shitty job where everyone smoked because it was a great way to get an additional 15 minute break.
Several meds can aid in tobacco cessation, so if Chantix doesn't help then you can always try something else. Don't let the risk of fucked up dreams prevent you from taking medications altogether. I've tried unsuccessfully to quit in the past, but nothing I'd been given produced crazy dreams.
One of the best tips I can give you is to ease yourself off of cigarettes, and to keep some around once you've stopped. At least initially. If you're like me, not smoking is easier if it feels like a conscious decision and not because you're out. This may seem like it would make it easier to smoke in times of weakness, but at least in my case it makes it easier.
Granted I've been unsuccessful in quitting, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt.
This is a big part of what help me quit. We had moved into a new apartment and decided we weren't going to smoke in it. Most evenings when I was on the computer or whatever, I didn't really want to stop what I was doing to go sit outside for 5 minutes. At that point I was pretty much only smoking on my way to work and on my way back after lunch. Quitting from there was pretty easy.
This is going to depend on the person, obviously, but for me it was the opposite. If I didn't have them, I couldn't smoke. Generally, my laziness would win out over my craving (ugh, I've been at work all day, I just want to get home and relax so I don't feel like stopping by the store).
Though you bring up a good point. You're not going to quit if you don't really want to. If you're forcing yourself to not smoke but still really want to, you're fighting a losing battle. You have to want to quit before you have a good chance of doing it.
I think the reason you quite is a factor as well. For each person, it's different and very personal to them. Keep that reason in front of you at all times and it can help keep your cool when you're having a nic-fit.
Really, talk to your doctor either way. He likely will give some good, relevant advice.
Identify your triggers and have alternative solutions in place. It seems like you are successful in getting through the toughest part (first two weeks), but are losing ground when you get to the day to day, which is generally a result of a trigger being hit that makes you want a cigarette.
Also, bear in mind the oral fixation is a big part of the dependency, though how much can change from person to person. Sugar-free gum is your friend and won't hurt your teeth like other oral replacements might.
I mentioned the major downside of Chantix earlier, but I feel remiss that I didn't note that the person who stopped from the awful dreams said that it did actually really make him not want to smoke. He couldn't stay on it for long enough to get it all out of his system because apparently the dreams were that impressively awful that he couldn't hack it anymore, but for that little while he was really put off by cigarettes.
I had a medication once that also gave me extremely vivid dreams of both the awesome and terrifying varieties so I can understand why someone wouldn't take something that only gave the bad dreams.
For me, I can't do the e-cigs because I'm afraid of wanting the real thing; I've come this far and I don't want to chance ruining my progress. Regardless, the idea behind not breaking the addiction is completely true. You can still have nic-fits. With the lozenges, I eventually went from 4mg to 2mg, so the nic-fits were definitely not as bad. Either method definitely results in better health and less money spent.
As for Snus, it's still tobacco, so you're still risking a lot. Some say it's less than smoking, and while I won't dispute that, usually the main reason for quitting is for health reasons, and chewing tobacco isn't really too much of an alternative for health.
And to comment on your thoughts that nicotine isn't too bad for you, basically that's pretty spot on. I think it's been equated to caffeine in regards to addiction and increased heart rates. Other than that, I don't think there has been anything that states nicotine is really bad for you.
Quit cold turkey after ~ ten years. Just thought you should know that the actual physical withdrawl is only about the first 3 days. You've already gotten through it every time you've quit, if you've lasted for 2 weeks. Everything you're up against at this point is due to habitual and psychological attachment.
When you quit next, or even before, start exercising, even if it's nothing more than a brisk walk. Make it part of your routine, don't just fit it in when you have nothing better to do. Put it in your schedule and block off that part of your day, every day, as "the time that you exercise". As your lungs come back, you'll notice the difference, and that's encouraging. When you think about smoking, you'll think about how it'll fuck with your exercise, which is now a part of your day.
Other than that, find a way to keep your hands busy. Think of when you have the worst cravings and what you're doing, or more specifically NOT doing at that time. Is it when you're driving? Engage your brain a bit more. Instead of listening to music, try buring a podcast onto CDs and listening to that (May I suggest MBMBAM?). Is it when you're sitting around watching tv? Stop watching tv and pick up a hobby that keeps your hands busier. Swap to video games instead. Make something with your hands. Plant a garden, if that's what you need to do.
And yeah, sometimes there's just moments where a craving hits you and you gotta suck it up. Chew gum. Stride lasts a long fucking time.
It gets better. Smoke free for 4 years and they smell gross to me now. And I can actually smell them, cause I can smell shit again.
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I quit February of 2012, after trying several times before that over the years.
For me, the gum was terrible. It gave me lock jaw and aggravated a minor cavity into a major one due to the constant chewing. The patch did a great job of helping me not actually smoke, but didn't help in the nicotine addiction. Electric cigarettes are a joke and I have never met an individual who actually quit with them, usually they just replace one toxic chemical source for another. They can help in a reduction though, but do very little to actually ween you totally off nicotine.
So, I quit cold turkey. I used a hand full of patches for the first few days to get over the oral fixation and physical habituation (going out side and sitting while having a smoke was something I turned out to be quite addicted to as well). Once those were out though, it was hell. Took about two weeks of being snippy and disinterested in anything before I got over the hump and became a normal person.
I once took a drag off a friends cigarette at a party or something. I started coughing and spitting shouting "Oh my god, how did I ever do that?" I also gained a hypersensitivity to the "Smoker Smell", which nauseates me and usually forces me to leave the room. Not because it makes me want to smoke, but because... Holy shit, smokers smell.
Every time I turn to my wife and say:
"How did you put up with me smelling like that? I used to smoke right before we went to bed!"
"Yeah, it wasn't the best."
"Oh."
Just quit. The suck only lasts a little while. Then it's over and you can taste good food again (seriously, taste was the most major thing I noticed).
Edit:
Avoid social stuff while you're in the first couple weeks of quitting. Play single player video games, rent those movies you meant to watch, buy a few bottles of spirits and learn how to make a good cocktail. You'll be an intolerable boob the entire time you're working on resetting your chemical dependencies. It's best to try not to inflect that upon people you care about.
My point is, it's no longer the nicotine that has you at that point. It's just your body craving something it's been having for years and that you're now denying it. People can go through legitimate withdrawl symptoms from placebos. Your body is going to fight this. Keep yourself busy, have some support around you.
I would disagree with Anon the Felon and suggest you hang out with non-smoking friends and family as much as you can, so long as you make it clear ahead of time that you're making a serious effort to quit and you might be irratable. If they care, they'll understand if you're a bit frazzled. If you hang out alone, you will have a lot of time on your hands to fill, and the temptation to sneak out and get some smokes can be overwhelming. Hang out with non-smokers and do something to eat up the time with people who don't take smoke breaks. You can blow through whole afternoons and not notice you didn't have a smoke.
Nicotine is fatal at doses of around 50 mg, or the amount of nicotine in about 50 cigarettes. Before more modern toxicology tests came about it was commonly used as a poison by someone with a murderous flair.
Caffeine on the other hand only starts becoming toxic at about 500mg. It takes around 192 mg to kill the average lab rat. and takes around 150-200 mg per kilogram of body mass to kill a person. You'd have to really work to kill yourself with caffeine and could only feasibly manage it in a condensed pill form.
First of all, not the thread for this at all, because this isn't a D&D thread about whether or not nicotine is poison. Stop being off topic.
Second, if you're going to be off-topic, at least be fucking correct. Nicotine has an LD50 of 50mg/kg in rats. That is not 50mg total, and it's meaningless for humans. In humans it's actually much less than that, albeit with a wide range (.5-1.0mg/kg), but still per kilogram of body weight, which means different for everyone. On top of that it doesn't just sit there, your body is constantly metabolizing it. So if you're an average guy, you'd need to smoke a cartoon-style bundle of about 45 cigarettes at the exact same time (efficiently!) to actually kill you. That's why people can smoke 2 1/2 packs a day for 20 years and not die, and also why you aren't supposed to chew nicotine gum with a patch on your arm while continuing to smoke a pack a day. It will kill you, but you have to go to some lengths (and expense) to do it.
Not too long ago we actually had somebody in here asking for advice about caffeine powder, and he was told the same thing: sure caffeine won't kill you in coffee and soda (well, an estimated 80 cups of coffee could), but don't play with it because if you do it really can, and using too much powder is a great way to do that. If you still really want the nicotine but don't want to smoke, whatever, that's entirely doable, and there are fairly easy ways to get it without actually setting something on fire. If you use those means as directed, getting nicotine that way will eliminate a lot of the really nasty things about smoking that will cause you to die a slow and miserable death, plus you will stink less.
Nobody is saying it isn't still a carcinogen. Nobody is arguing that it's perfectly safe. But if you really want to be addicted to something and have the basic capability of following written directions, it is significantly less likely to kill you in the long run than say lung cancer or emphysema, both of which are in actuality usually a side effect of breathing burning tar year after year.
Now that we have that out of the way, if you have some useful tips for quitting smoking feel free to add something productive to the conversation.
for me, the killer of my habit was finally the Chantix.
Seriously, it was the best thing ever.
I don't remember any vivid dreams or anything like that (although my brother went through them like hell and had to stop taking the medicine). All I remember was the absolute violent nausea that would overcome me when I tried to smoke my last cigarette. It was 4 days after i started the medicine. My first break (was working front end at walmart) and i bummed a smoke from a manager. Went outside, lit up, took a drag, and almost vomited right there and then. I didn't touch another cigarette. This was December 1 2009.
I was a cashier so the fact that the smell of nicotine would almost send me into violent dry heaves was not the best, but after the first month of the Chantix, I was fine. No instinctive cravings, no insane need to fidget. Now, it's almost 4 years later and I can actually manage to be around smokers without gagging. In fact, occasionally, the smell of smoke while walking down the street or on a coworkers clothes is actually comforting
The Chantix worked like a dream for me. It will not work like that for everybody and in fact I'm one of the few people that I know of who has not gone through the hell of the dreams. It's a great drug and effective, but for some people it will not work.
Best of luck, it's a difficult thing and good on you for deciding now is the time. There's (as you can see) a great community of us here, and I'm sure any of us would be more than happy to help you out through PMs and stuff if you just need somebody to scream at.
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While the jury is still out on the long term effects of vaping, thousands of people swear by them. The fact that the contents of the juice you use only consists of four ingredients at most is nice, as opposed to the ~4000 in one cigarette. For reference, these ingredients are:
1) Propylene Glycol - Generally Recognized As Safe by the FDA
2) Vegetable Glycerin - found in frostings and some liqueurs
3) Nicotine - Most places I order my juice from have ranges from 0mg nicotine to 24 mg nicotine
4) Flavor - usually from an extract
It worked for me, it's worked for a slew of my friends and a lot of my coworkers. There's a slew of resources devoted to electronic cigarettes out there, and I'd be happy to point you to them and answer any questions you might have.
In the end, whatever helps you quit and stay off of cigarettes was the right choice.
I also decided I need to not have any alcohol during this whole time. Recognizing habitual triggers where you've combined an action with smoking and then preventing those situations can help prevent making cravings worse. I started smoking at parties when we were all sitting around drinking, so I've got the two combined into one ritual at this point. Taking walks has helped me in the past as well. Keeping occupied when the cravings hit helps ride them out until they pass. Stay positive- almost everyone has to make a go of it a few times before it sticks.
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