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Aaaaand I horribly failed my current attempt at quitting smoking. I hate stress, I really do.
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- CommentAuthorVerissimus
- CommentTimeMar 16th 2010
Ah it's not easy. You just have to be ready for it I guess. I never thought I'd stop smoking, then one day I got so sick of it I stopped. Never smoked one since that day, and that's about 15 years ago.
I'm happy to be rid of it. The first few years I still had the urge every now and then. -
Day 1 of the champix today, and I've decided to blog it, both as something to do to distract me briefly from smoking, and as evidence if the pills make me go insane and butcher someone! :)
Farewell to Tabs -
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CommentAuthoragentarsenic
- CommentTimeMar 17th 2010
I broke down and bought a pack after switching from 2nd to 3rd shift. I needed the nicotine for it's stimulant effects. I....I haven't done well since. I want to not smoke again, but first this sleeping business must be sorted. -
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I'm going to be adding some botanicals into my diet - just got some kava kava extract, and am waiting on some kratom. I'm hoping that the combined stimulant/relaxant effect of these sorts of herbals might provide an effective substitute for the nicotine.
Basically, the methadone approach to cigs. -
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CommentAuthorRachæl Tyrell
- CommentTimeMar 17th 2010
Goddamn, if I could afford it, I'd buy the blu electronic thingee.
i'd quit only once in my life. I lived with a 2 pack a day smoker, and we were terribly broke. We'd not be able to afford dog food or cat food often, and he'd often leave for 12 hours at a time when I'd have no money, and two cigarettes to my name. I was tired of having nic fits so often because of his asshole-ness, and I felt it was truly despicable for he and I to spent so much daily on smokes instead of keeping our pets on proper diets. So... one day I quit. Cold turkey.
Spite is what did it. Spite is some seriously powerful stuff. He continued to smoke two packs a day, and neither of us left the apartment very often. It lasted over a year, until I moved on my own and ended in a sexual friendship with someone who smoked relatively infrequently. That before bed and then post sex cigarette became ritual.
One cigarette a day (if that) soon turned into 2 packs a week once I was kicked out of my home, moved to the middle of suburban nowhere with my old Aunt who smokes a pack a day, and got my heart broken. I listen to my Aunt hack and sputter and cough all day, and in her sleep, and she smells like SHIT from her chain smoking in her car and refusal to open the windows more than an inch. When I first moved here, she actually turned me off smoking entirely, and I stopped for weeks. But the stress of everything... brought me right back.
I... really should stop. After medical bills, I only have maybe $100 a month to live on, which goes towards food mostly, or should. It's not a physical addiction. I don't smoke frequently enough to have nic-fits anymore. I still only smoke four cigarettes a day, generally. Those cigarettes are all.... cathartic. A moment to step outside in the night quiet. They are all to stop myself from some terrible mental state, to feel (ironically enough) cleansed.
I've got vein issues in my legs, which I'm only now about to go to a doctor for. I started getting great pain in my right leg in my early 20's, around the same time I started getting big blue varicose viens right below the inside of the knee. It always aches.
It's so stupid, smoking.
But... people get drunk, knowing it's of little benefit, and will hurt the next day. I smoke, because the pressure in my chest will explode right now if I don't. It's a silly thing to base one's emotional control on, but if it works, it works. -
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I quit five years ago, used them nicotine patches. They are effective at removing chemical cravings, so if you can get your head right, can really help.
My skin was quite sensitive to them, so itchy as hell when you first slapped them on, I looked like I'd been attacked by a giant octopus I had so many red rings all over my back and shoulders.
Prior to using the patches I found it useful to convince myself that I was only going to give up the daily smoking and that if I was at a party or something and felt like a smoke, well I'd just have one or two and not worry about it too much. I also started hand rolling cigarettes, then only smoking outside - everything I could do to make having a ciggy a pain in the arse.
Seems to have worked for me, I don't smoke now at all, although I do still get the occasional craving. And you do save a load of cash folks. Worked out I've probably saved upwards of £5000 GBP that I would have spent on ciggys over the last 5 years - although what I've done with that cash fuck knows... -
- CommentAuthorVerissimus
- CommentTimeMar 18th 2010
I listen to my Aunt hack and sputter and cough all day, and in her sleep, and she smells like SHIT from her chain smoking in her car and refusal to open the windows more than an inch.
God yes. My father still chain smokes, now I love the man, but he stinks like old tobacco that has been fermenting in a stagnant pond during a a muggy week in summer. And I just can't bring myself to tell him!
It's not a particularly pleasant addiction. And quitting will only get harder as you get older. -
Ex-smoker for about 10 years, and although I really detest smoking now, mentally I'd still like a cig at times.
I always have problems with working out how much I smoked when registering with doctors. Smoked about 5 a day for 3 years at college, and a pack on Friday, Saturday night. Could go through the summer without touching any during the week until Friday down the pub. At Uni probably upped to 10 a day, or more if doing field work (christ that was a nice feeling)
Ramped down after Uni so only really smoking in pubs, "properly" gave up when I moved to London. Probably had 2/3 a year to kill the craving every now and then. Smoking ban put a stop to that.
Definitely the head that's the hardest. -
If you don't have a reason to quit, you're not going to. Every American has seen millions of commercials (which seem to have gone out of vogue lately, thank FUCK) filled with hard-bodied, no-talent actors telling us how many babies are stabbed in the eyes by cigarettes every minute and demonstrating how good their clean lungs make them at rollerblade-basketball or some such shit. And we get the same song and dance from militant non-smokers - see highly accurate Bill Hicks impersonation above. Statistics are not reasons. These things do not help you quit. Nobody ever quit any drug because people were pricks to them for years. You quit for you and your people - that's it. A.
B: The reason gum/patches/hypnosis/exorcism by the Ten-Eyed Men of the Empty Quarter only works for some people is because you're the one quitting. These things can help, but you can't expect - with any part of your mind - that it's just going to fix you. You don't get to just swallow something or listen dozily to a Garrison Keillor soundalike for an hour and have it reboot part of your brain; it's still your decision, and without that element, you're going to wake up happy and refreshed, peel off the patch and light right the fuck up.
Little story.
A little over a year ago, on my birthday, I decided that it was time to knock it the hell off. I have a girlfriend now, we plan to marry, I want to be here for a long time, etc. So, I had a reason. Note: a related motive was money: No cigs = less expenses = more money = shorter path to the white picket fence. If I used the patch or the gum and it didn't take, that (sizable) expenditure was for nothing. Then I get to thinking: What am I fighting? It's just me I've got to get over.
So, I built my own quitting method. My big deal, I realized, wasn't about nicotine anyway; for me, it was oral fixation and ritual, so that was what I used to quit. I loaded my pouch with my last twenty cigarettes (yes, I had a belt pouch specifically for my cigarettes, with a lighter-scabbard along the side). For each one I smoked, I recorded my thoughts on it in a notebook (sadly, now lost). My girlfriend, a non-smoker herself, actually had one with me towards the end. She was unimpressed. I smoked my last down to the filter, and put it down in the tray, gently, and watched it go out. My girlfriend bought me a package of wooden dowels and cut them to an appropriate length. I chewed on them for five days to handle the oral end of things. And that was that.
A few months later I had four hand-rolled cigarettes at a party, because I wanted to. I enjoyed them. This did not start a downward spiral of addiction; I just had four cigarettes. I chose not to make a big deal out of them. Haven't wanted any since. Cigarettes have no power of their own. I am not trying to call you a big girl's blouse if you find quitting difficult. Just stop thinking of cigarettes as magical rods that brighten your eyes and heal your twisted heart. You are not in an epic battle for your very soul. You are ceasing to burn plants in your mouth.
(Final note: I smoked Camels. My girlfriend bought the dowels in the exact diameter of a Virginia Slim. My friends congratulated me on my quit by saying, "You've come a long way baby.") -
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CommentAuthorJeff Owens
- CommentTimeMar 25th 2010
I smoked my last down to the filter, and put it down in the tray, gently, and watched it go out.
This is easily my favorite thing in this thread. Makes me wish I had done it that way. -
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yes, I had a belt pouch specifically for my cigarettes, with a lighter-scabbard along the side
At the very least, quitting cigerettes saved you from wearing a belt pouch... -
Well, apart from the fact that it appears I am the WORST blogger in the world, my other news is that I smoked my last cigarette 3 days ago. Early days, I know, but mentally, I've quit.
I failed to update my Champix blog, as ironically the day after I started I was struck down by a bout of feeble-lung, and by the time I was over that, the urge to blog had faded . However, I would recommend trying the Champix to anyone - the only side-effect I've had is about five minutes of nausea when taking the morning tablet. Other than that, not a thing apart from the fact that I've FINALLY stopped smoking. -
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CommentAuthorRachæl Tyrell
- CommentTimeMar 29th 2010
I've discovered a way to reinforce my smoking less: buying cigarettes that are not my specific brand of choice. It's far easier to put out a cigarette half way through and teach my brain that it just isn't something that I want when it's of a different taste and feel. -
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Rachael Noel Tyrell:
I've discovered a way to reinforce my smoking less: buying cigarettes that are not my specific brand of choice.
True, that can work to make you smoke less, unless you get used to the new brand. If you choose to quit though, I wouldn't recommend that as a method. In college, I had exactly this exchange with five different people:
"Wait, you smoke Parliaments?"
"I know, they taste like cardboard that hates its job. They make me enjoy smoking less so it's easier to quit."
"How long have you been smoking them?"
"Two and a half years."