Quitting smoking

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

"Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times." - Mark Twain

I agree with this man.

I cannot quit smoking, it is too f*ckin difficult. As hard as I'll try it comes back... I've been smoking for 3 years now

Camel Non filters, even worse. I'll finish a pack in a day and a half, one the weekends when im drinking, a pack a night.

after 5 seconds of doing something intense, I'll get tired. Not sex, but more like rapid foot movements or punching someone. I'll breathe heavily for the next 10-15 seconds until I get my breath back..

This is stressing... I got in a fist fight not to long ago and beat the hell out of the guy but after I was feeling like sh!t...

It felt like I just ran 10 miles in an hour.. I couldnt move, I was fatigued. I even threw up after.

I need your guys help.. I need to quit asap! Does the nicotine gum work? The patches?

Save my fu*kin lungs!

 

[Mr. Wolf]

You're a whiner, you can put on a too-too and do tricks for $20 each.. Exactly what have you done to quit?


I mean, other than make excuses.. So convenient.. I can't quit it always comes back, what's the point..

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

I've tried not buying them anymore. but somehow a cigarette ended up in my hand once again

but thats why im asking you guys for your suggestions on what I can do to kick the habit!

p.s.

mark twain was a whiner too?

 

[[S]alvatore]

I think hypnosis & patches & all that bull$hit is useless, if anything it is placebo. When I quit, I just did it cold turkey. Yes I had cravings, but I manned up and avoided cigarettes. You just do it.

 

[Last Man Standing]

Don't buy them!!

 

[Brules Rules]

It is hard to quit! I've been smoking for about 15 years. I've tried a few times, but I always end up lighting up when I go out to a bar or something. I hate how I end up losing count and smoke like a pack and half over the course of a few hours. Then I wake up the next morning with my lungs screaming at me to stop!

The worst part is, whenever I do stop for a while my body starts craving them. I don't mean in a "need something to do with my hands" kind of way. It's more like I become irrate, and my chest starts to hurt after a few weeks. Some people say the anxiety attacks they get afterwards aren't even worth it.

 

[joekerr31]

i recently quit after 14 years of smoking. i smoked every single day over those 14 years. even when i had the worst flu you can imagine i had at least ONE cigarette on that day. even when i tried quitting the longest i could go was 18 hours (and that included the 8 hours i slept the night before), so really only 10 conscious hours!

all that said, i haven't had a smoke in a month and a half now!

how did i do it? cold turkey.

i've tried patches, gum, inhaler, chantix, and nothing worked (although the chantix worked, i had side effects so i had to stop taking it).

so i went cold turkey and just decided to suffer through it. the first three days are hell - headaches, fever, chills, insane appetite, obsessive thoughts about smoking, oversleeping / insomnia, pains in my rib cage, collar bone, etc. really strange feeling in my lungs and my diaphram (hard to explain, but very strange feeling), odd fluctuations in energy from lethargy to short bursts of mania and consitpation.


no wonder most people never get through the first three days. now, after day three the headache, fever, chills, insomnia and some of the pains go away.

but the obsessive thoughts, pain in my rib cage, and strange feeling in my lungs and diaphram lasted about two weeks.

once you get in to your third week of a quit, the only thing left to deal with is the mental (not physiological) desire to smoke. you'll start thinking 'yay i did it! and if i did it, that means i could do it again. which means i could go and smoke and id be able to stop again!"

this is how an addict thinks. 'one more hit ain't going to kill me' type of thinking. or youll want to see if you are stronger than the smoke now and youll smoke just to quit to see if you can do it again. but you are playing wiht fire, because every time you light back up you are going to have to go through withdrawal all over (perhaps less intense than the first time you quit, but its still going to happen).

anyway, there is no easy way to quit smoking. the reality is that you have to suck it up and go through 3 days of utter hell, 2 weeks of minor hell and then months of dealing with pesky cravings here and there.

but you will never be able to quit so long as you think that cigarettes are helping you cope with life. thats why i smoked for 14 years. i honestly thought that I functioned better with nicotine in my system. the reality was though that i was an addict.

now that im smoke free for almost 2 months, i realize now that its actually EASIER to cope with life as a non smoker because i have more energy and im living a healthier lifestyle.

sure, all smokers know that smoking kills you, but we dont really care about that. what we care about is that smoking helps us feel 'good' even when life is stressful. the key to quitting is to realize that the 'good' feeling you get is an illusion - its the addiction. you dont smoke to feel good now, you smoke to feel normal. like a heroin junkie after a while of using has to shoot up just to feel normal.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

It's much harder to "kick" a habbit than it is to "replace" a habbit.

 

[joekerr31]

The worst part is, whenever I do stop for a while my body starts craving them. I don't mean in a "need something to do with my hands" kind of way. It's more like I become irrate, and my chest starts to hurt after a few weeks. Some people say the anxiety attacks they get afterwards aren't even worth it.

i believe there is more to the smoking addiction that just the addiction to nicotine. of the 4000+ plus other chemicals in a cigarette, i bet at least a few of them are addictive also.

i do believe that smoking is a bit of an anesthetic (ie. pain killer). since i've quit i've noticed little aches and pains here and there that i never noticed before.

but none the less, im still way better off. i never use to run, now im jogging 4 times a week and enjoying it!