Quitting Smoking...

[FrizzleFried]

JESUS H. CHRIST ALMIGHTY is it difficult to stop smoking cold turkey.   16 years of smoking...stopped in it's tracks.  It has been friggin' a nightmare!   I have fought with my wife pretty much all week (Lisa and I fight MAYBE once a year normally...)...i've made my mom cry when I called her for support and she told me what kind of an ---uvula--- I was being and I went off...My dogs are scared of me...and I've likely pissed off the one guy on this forum that helped me the most (Ken).   

<censored by saint> ...ARGH!

<breathe!!!>   Ahhh... ok... 6 days now... it can only get better... right?

 

[horseboy]

You need to talk to a lady about this. Most of them quit smoking once a month.

[FrizzleFried]

You need to talk to a lady about this. Most of them quit smoking once a month.

 

You are comedy gold today Horseboy!   Thanks!

 

[sodapopinski]

I did it by going to the gym, i'm there 5 times a week and its a great reason not to smoke.

[grantspain]

get so drunk that you forget you smoke

[Zakk]

My buddy and his wife just went from a carton a week each to absolute cold turky using that pill (zyban??).  He was sick one day, but 6 months later, no other side effects, they both swear by it.

[Loki]

My dad stopped smoking in one day after getting an acupuncture treatment... he was smoking for about 20 years, 3 or 4 packs of tobacco a week (150-200 grams per week)

Too bad it didn't work for me. I went crazy when I was 2 days without ^^;
Oh well, maybe I'll try some other time.

[FrizzleFried]

Smoking is 95% mental and 5% physical in my estimation.  Being that I am as stubborn as a mule and have made my decision...It's done...but it's mental hell (for now).

[Tailgunner]

Tried the Zyban thing once, kept me awake like I'd been smoking meth. According to the directions you're supposed to take it for a week before you stop smoking, by that point I was bouncing off the walls and had I stopped smoking then I'd have ended up either dead or in prison.

My uncle quit a three pack a day 40 year habit after accupuncture, I'm not quite willing to have needles stuck in my yin-yang just yet.

Cold turkey worked the best for me, at least in the short term. First week was pretty rough, but after that it was okay till about the third month, by that point I was stressing pretty hard jonesing for a smoke. Bummed one off of a guy at work and that was all she wrote.

Last time around my doctor gave me a perscription for Xanex which was a huge help with the first week. I wasn't seriously trying to quit so I didn't, but had I had them back when I went cold turkey I likely would've not started again.

Good luck with quitting, it's not an easy thing to do.

[Donkey_Kong]

Just don't give up man. Stay with it. A good reason to quit helps. Something other than the  fact smoking is hazerdous to your health and your family. That just don't cut it for most of us tough guys...nope there has got to be more.

For me it was snowboarding. After 20+ something years of puffin' stogeys (started early see my baby pic) I finally found something worth quitting for. Something really important. Yea snowboarding was sooo cool and I hated being winded from bending over to strap my bindings on. That was my turning point. Never looked back. 6+ years of no smoking, cold turkey.

Good Luck!!   

PS: It helps to not get too drunk when trying to quit...so I've heard.

[shardian]

When I got sick as a kid, I associated certain foods with the sickness. I had a smores pop tart one time right before I came down with the flu, never touched the things again.

I say this because if you can get yourself to associate cigarettes subconsciously with sickness, then you have a good shot of quitting. So here's what you do: tell your significant other to do something to a cigarette in your pack one day in the near future. Something really, really horrible. Then after you smoke the pack they can tell you what they did. After finding out you smoked a cig that had been dipped in the toilet, you just may get the will-power to give them up!

[horseboy]

When my friends and I wanted to quit smoking we just started making brownies.

[FrizzleFried]

Day 6 is just about over with...and it was actually pretty easy.   To say I didn't have a craving would be a big ole' fat lie,  but what the hell...I can do this.

Dogs still love me...

Wife still loves me...

Hell,  I bet Cheffo still loves me!

 

[shmokes]

Just don't get cocky.  I have a friend who quits periodically and he always says he has quit smoking after a week or two, rather than that he is quitting.  He really believes he has kicked it and so, when he's really stressed or he's drinking at the bar and decides to have a cigarette or two, just this one time, it seems like no big deal to him.  Of course, a week later he's smoking a pack a day again.  At six days you have a long way to go, not to minimize what you've already done.  Good luck.

[Bones]

I gave up shmoking 8 months 2 weeks and 2 days ago. I was a pack a day shmoker and went cold turkey. I shmoked for 20 years. I tried about 10 times to give up but always returned to that sweet sweet shmokey goodness.

It really sucked giving up. Even all this time later it still sux at times. Cravings still spring from nowhere and without warning.

There have been a few occasions where I have shmoked while party drinking, maybe a total of 3 times but I DO consider myself a non-shmoker and I am confident I won't ever take up shmoking again.

According to my little firefox pop-up I have avoided shmoking 6539 shmokes and saved $3008.00

I feel no different. My health does not seemed to have noticeably improved. If anything I have just gotten angrier with the world.

Good luck. It will get harder before it gets easier. 

[CheffoJeffo]

Hell,  I bet Cheffo still loves me!

 

Don't go all delirious on me ...

Stay the course, man. You are pretty damned stuborn, so I have faith that you'll kick it

Good Luck.

[FrizzleFried]

Just don't get cocky.  I have a friend who quits periodically and he always says he has quit smoking after a week or two, rather than that he is quitting.  He really believes he has kicked it and so, when he's really stressed or he's drinking at the bar and decides to have a cigarette or two, just this one time, it seems like no big deal to him.  Of course, a week later he's smoking a pack a day again.  At six days you have a long way to go, not to minimize what you've already done.  Good luck.

Schmokes,

Oh,  i've "quit" before...and you are right...it's an ALL or NOTHING situation.  There is no "I will just smoke while I drink" or "Just one won't hurt".   One = back to smoking GUARANTEED.

[J_K_M_A_N]

I quit cold turkey 5 years ago in September. I still get cravings but I tell myself I am going to win. Not the smokes. Now, if the wife leaves me or something REALLY bad happens, I am right back on them. But for now, all is well.

You really have to WANT to quit otherwise it will never happen. If you really want to, you will be able to. Like it was mentioned before, it is mostly mental. (And from what I have read, you ARE mental so... )

Stay strong.

J_K_M_A_N

[boykster]

I quit using nicorette gum, then promptly became addicted to the gum. Its been a couple of years since I quit smoking,and unlike Bones, I DO feel the health differences.  My lungs feel MUCH better in the morning, I have much more endurance/stamina when it comes to cardio type exercise, etc.

I do get occasional cravings, and like bones, have had a social smoke on occasion, but haven't reverted back to the habit.  The hardest times for me used to be business trips....but I even licked that one....

good luck!

[vader]

All I can say is good  lucky.  I have never once put a cigarette in mouth so I can't understand the temptation.  Now if it's anything like eating a box of Crunch Berries in a day, then I can understand.

It's all good in the long run though.  You'll be fine once you get over that 5 year hump

[shardian]

I don't smoke, but I do chew my nails and pop my knuckles religiously. I was actually able to quit chewing my nails for like 6 months once, but a few weeks before I got married, I started again. Now if only there were quitting aids for my habits...

[fredster]

Have one little smoke, just one.  What could it hurt?

[FrizzleFried]

Bastard!

 

8 days and counting...

 

[FrizzleFried]

<censored by saint>

Hmm...i'm curious was to what I said to require censoring manually?

[CheffoJeffo]

<censored by saint>

Hmm...i'm curious was to what I said to require censoring manually?

Something about NASA ?

 

Cheers

[FrizzleFried]

 

[CheffoJeffo]

Here's something that might help with your willpower ...

Just imagine the grief that I'll give you if you give in !!

In all seriousness, stay with it.

I'll even lay off of NASA for a while (it'll give me chance to work on some projects).

Cheers.

[FrizzleFried]

Welp Cheffo,

I'll be damned if I go back.  I simply WILL NOT go through the hell that has been the last 8 days FOR NOTHING.   Actually,  it has started to get a little easier.   This morning I felt friggin' GREAT until my 800# provider decided to screw up and send all my incoming work phone calls to my voicemail,  which was a huge headache...and dealing with the tech support in Pakistan made it worse. 

If I said I didn't want to smoke right now I'd be a big fat ole' lyin' bastage.... but I think the worst is over...but i'm NOT letting my guard down.

[koz319]

Good job man! It should just keep getting easier. 

I smoked for about 4 years (I guess thats not that long compared to most smokers).   Quit about 12 years ago.

It sounds kind of stupid, but one thing that helped a little bit was instead of telling people that I quit smoking, I'd tell them I don't smoke.   When I quit, I worked in a bar, and I swear if I told a smoker I quit, they would spend the rest of the night trying to recruit me back to the team.  If I just told them I don't smoke, they left me alone.  (Saying ' I don't smoke' repeatedly may have helped reinforce it as well, who knows?  Oh, and a cup of coffee made a half decent replacement for the after dinner puff.  )


Stay with(out) it!

[FrizzleFried]

Thanks...but I have to watch the Coffee too.  I was up to 5 pots a day for a while there and I have since limited myself to a single pot in the morning...and maybe a pot in the evening during the weekend...

[ChadTower]

5 POTS OF COFFEE A DAY?!

WTF!  I'm surprised you haven't ended up in the ER with a heart murmur.  That's got to be like 2 gallons of coffee.

[FrizzleFried]

Well...I usually got through about 3/4 of the pot before they got nasty...but yah...it was getting bad...I was staying up all night...on WORK NIGHTS,  etc.

I kicked that habit about 6 months back.   

It was easy (but damn,  I was used to staying up to 2AM then getting up at 7AM for work...now I have to be in bed by midnight and I sleep to 7:30AM...and I still feel tired.  Argh...

[ChadTower]

I know that feeling, definitely.  I suffer from pretty bad sleep apnea, my whole life is spent hoping for the equivalent of 3 hours of good sleep in any given night.

[FrizzleFried]

I know that feeling, definitely.  I suffer from pretty bad sleep apnea, my whole life is spent hoping for the equivalent of 3 hours of good sleep in any given night.

DUDE!  I have sleep apnea as well.  GET A CPAP MACHINE!  No ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow---!  I used to piss at least 3 times a night...I'd be lucky to get 2 hours of sleep.  I took the test,  and I was having over 80 attacks each night!   It took me TURNING BLUE one night to get off ---my bottom--- and do something about it.   The doctor said I likely didn't breath for over 5 minutes to turn that shade of blue!   It scared the HELL out of me.

I got a CPAP machine.  It is uncomfortable,  a pain in the ass,   but I CAN SLEEP!  The very first night I used it I SLEPT THROUGH THE ENTIRE NIGHT without getting up to piss or anything!   It was A-FRIGGIN'-MAZING!

I have used my CPAP machine for going on 4 years now,  I have thousands of hours on it,  and I use it every night (except for camping,  I refuse to buy a battery pack for $300 for the damn thing to go camping with).   GET IT!  Trust me...you will FOREVER be changed.

EDIT: My wife just reminded me that another turning point for me was when I fell asleep at the wheel of my truck on the 5 Freeway during rush hour traffic and almost killed myself and 4 other people.   Yup...that was a "WAKE UP" call (no pun intended).

Now,  even though I am tired some mornings...its' NOTHING like the daze i used to live life in...

[shardian]

I know that feeling, definitely.  I suffer from pretty bad sleep apnea, my whole life is spent hoping for the equivalent of 3 hours of good sleep in any given night.

You should definitely look into getting a sleep study done if you haven't before.

[ChadTower]

Been there, done that, have a very nice autoadjusting CPAP with heated humidifier.  It never did help very much.  When I was tested I had something like 160 incidents that night in about 3 hours of test time.  It just didn't help enough to tolerate the issues that come along with it, I was at the 400 hour mark and still hadn't gotten much more than what I'd estimate as a 10-15% difference.

[FrizzleFried]

Other things to look in to:  I had a deviated septum,  had that fixed (damn that sucked,  but it helped a bit).  Have you "Adnoids(sp?)" looked in to...mine were removed...helped a little.

Finally,  there is a surgery to remove excess "fatty tissue" in the neck.  It is supposed to help,  I elected not to do it as the CPAP worked for me.

I also hear there is a pill in clinical study that is supposed to help?

[ChadTower]

The tissue removal surgery has way too low a success rate to be worth trying.  I do not have a deviated septum.

I have a couple of contributing factors:  a thicker than average neck and I'm overweight.  I'm working on the weight issue now and am approaching 20% bodyfat.  I'm going to get myself to 10-15% bodyfat and see how that affects it.  I'm already a little better at around 22% than I was at 24%.

The CPAP actually still sits on a shelf next to my bed.  Sometimes I use it but for the most part it causes as many issues as it may eventually solve.

[_) (V) (-)]

Dude, quitting smoking is easy!
It's that not starting again part that is a Mother F'er

I've quit about 200 times so far, piece of cake.
(Longest was about 1 & 1/2 years.)

I mostly miss the Menthol flavor, sometimes strong mint candy helps with that. I.E. Altoids.


Tip for Shardian, to stop biting fingernails . . .
Less hand washing, more butt scratching.

OK seriously, I found my nail biting thing to be more of a nervous impulse. Any imperfection in the surface causes me to pick at it, then I end up tearing it or trying to bite at it. I now keep one of them little red Swiss army things on my keys and use the file to smooth off the edges or clip the hangnails before I pick at them and make em worse.

[shmokes]

The brain damage that would go along with depriving your brain of oxygen for five minutes straight actally explains a lot about your posts.   

Sleep apnea weirds me out.  I was camping with a friend who was mildly snoring and once every 2-3 minutes he would just stop breathing altogether for about 15-30 seconds, after which he would take a sudden, sharp breath as though his body was panicking (which I suppose it probably was).  It was creepy.  I told him about it the next day.  He obviously didn't know he had sleep apnea and I get the impression that he didn't really believe it.  Oh well.

It's probably a stretch to apply this to sleep apnea, but have any of you with sleep problems tried melatonin?  I used to have serious insomnia problems and since I started taking melatonin I am always asleep within 5-10 minutes of going to bed and I sleep through the night.  The great thing is there are simply no side effects.  No sleeping-pill hangover.  They don't make you feel loopy or weird, or even different in any way.  They don't knock you out, like a sedative.  You just drift into sleep normally, and wake up normally.  It's great.