So I try to stop smoking - by lunchtime I'm shaking like a sh*tting dog - but I got some Nicotine Replacement therapy, which included a dummy cigarette with a capsule of nicotine in it. After sucking on it for 10 minutes until I had Keef Richards cheekbones, I figured this ain't working. I'll pass that toy on.
The lozenges are pretty good but the chewing gum blows my head off. But nothing beats rolling a cigarette, licking the paper, popping it in your mouth, striking the match and sucking down that first long drag of smoke. Then the next. then the next, then the next.......
sound familiar eh...........like nuthin beats opening the cooler, pulling out the bottle, loosening the cap and then that first long pull on a bottle of ice cold beer on a hot day, then another, then another, then another...........
Run the video to the end, in both cases, see where it goes....
I can stop smoking, I do it every night, I can stay stopped because I know I am powerless over tobacco, just like I'm powerless over alcohol.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
Visualize being free from having to buy them...free from your clothes stinking...you can date whomever and not have to be like "I smoke is that okay?"...you don't have to take time out to go outside all the time at gatherings. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be free of cigarette addiction. Don't give up no matter what. Use the same tools of AA like you are suggesting. Also, you know not to romanticize a drink, so don't romanticize cigarettes.
You are all like "nothing beats rolling them up..." Um...nothing beats NOT HAVING TO DO THAT. It's a pain in the ass habit and it sucks.
Focus on reality and it will get your through your cravings. 2 or 3 more days and you will feel so much better.
I still vote cold turkey...why prolong withdrawal? Did you ween off alcohol? I doubt it.
-- Edited by pinkchip on Tuesday 29th of March 2011 01:10:08 PM
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I've had the best success-meaning quite smoking for the longest period of time with the patches -They keep a steady supply of nicotine coming in. I use gum on top of that. when it gets really bad. Good luck and keep trying.
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"Many of us tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."
Hey Bill, I quit smokinq lonq term a couple of times. This time for 21 years. One of the best methods is to proqress to liqhter ciqarettes for a couple weeks and pick a day to quit.
Buy a carton of Liqht filtered ciqarettes, smoke the carton tryinq to limit yourself to half of the number you used to smoke. Finish the carton, then buy carton of "ultra liqht" ciqarettes.
Aqain limit the number smoked per day, less and less per day, then quit on the predetermined date. By this time the residual level of nicotine in your system will should be reduced by
say 80% and the physical urqe won't be kickinq your @$$ nearly as bad. Then you'll be dealinq mostly with the mental addiction. Write down all the reasons that you want to quit. You should
have dozens. Keep it out where you can see it. You can do it. Btw, I quit drinkinq, druqs, smokinq, and beinq married on the same day 7/'89. qit-r-done!
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 29th of March 2011 06:04:15 PM
For what it's worth, nicotine withdrawal is as potent, and in some folks even more so, than withdrawal from coke. Don't beat yourself up for that which you are powerless over. Sound familiar? Do we crap on ourselves if the disease of alcoholism reactivates after a period of remission...yeah, we do....should we? NO. You said it---start again, anger won't help. Maybe try the plain sugarless gum (NOT the nicotine gum)--it really will help to chew the heck out of it when the craving hits.
You are trying and that is courageous of you, dont stop trying !!
Im a smoker too. 30+ yrs of the same brand.
I have the desire, just cant muster up the willingness. I want to quit, I hate smoking, but Im afraid .. of many things.
My sponsor tells me she knows many who have quit and they used the steps of AA. I am without doubt it would work .. If and when I become willing to work it, just like the booze.
StPeteDean .. your approach sounds a little strange to me .. buying a couple cartons and cutting back from there ? Not to mention expensive cuz a carton of my cigarettes is like 65.00.
I am currently paying 7.00 a pack and smoking at least a pack a day. wow, thats 210.00 a month.
I fear Id have to be shipped off to a desserted island somewhere for at least 3 months if I quit, cuz nobody would be able to tolerate me, nor me them ... lol.
HC, you can call it anthinq you want, I call it successful lol. When I quit ciqs were $1 a pack and a carton was $8. I swore that when ciqs reached a dollar a pack I would quit and I did. I'll bet that between quitinq drinkinq druqs and ciqs, for 21 years, I've saved $300,000 just in product alone, and maybe double that in savinqs for associated leqal, medical, insurance, court fees...
I've been thinking, always a dangerous occupation, and come up wi this.
I went to the stop smoking clinic where they did me a carbon monoxide check and found that after just 27 hours without a smoke, I had the CO levels of a non smoker! This is like an alkie being told his liver is fine. Then I got the NRT products, one of which was a dummy cigarette - this is like having non alcoholic wine - and the nicotine lozenges - like having magic pills.
When the jitters hit and by 12 noon I was shaking like a sh1tting dog, I tried the dummy cig. Totally unstaitsfactory because there was next to no nicotine there and no taste, no sensation. The lozenges stopped the jitters. (but they're a sod to light!)
So I went out last night to a meeting and on the way bought half an ounce of tobacco and a packet of papers. I really enjoyed rolling a fat one in the car in a deserted parking spot. This is like sneaking out with a small bottle of vodka round the back of the convenience store and saying I'll just have one slug.
I lit it up and dragged that first lungful in. It did taste good. Then another and another and another and I didn't taste them, didn't get the hit. Like what happens after the first mouthful of booze. It hits the spot then nuthin but I can't stop.
So it's 4 am. I've just blown my nose and the mucus has gone from clear to brown already, after two big fat roll ups. My mouth tastes like a bear has shat in it. My breath stinks, my fingers stink, my clothes stink, my house stinks, I'm farting like the fairy queen in a panto (enter fairy queen stage left, belching, farting and heavy with child) and I'm not asleep and the jitters are kicked in. The remains of the tobacco are in my neighbours bin, along wi the papers and filters. I'm sucking a nicotine lozenge because yes I'm shaking and itching.
I wonder if the NRT is a good idea.
I want to quit smoking because:
I don't want to pay any more tax to the Tory Government than I have to. My clothes stink. My breath stinks. I get short of breath. I want to have more endurance in bed. I want better physical performance in bed (improved blood flow - know what I mean) I want to be able to run, especially up hill, I don't want to spend so much time standing in the smokers ghetto at work, in hotels and at restaurants. I don't want to have to apologise (sorry, just nipping out for a smoke or hey, I smoke is that OK?) I want to save £30 a week and spend it on something or someone else or even on me. (blimey, that's £1560 a year, that's 15000 miles of motorbike petrol, tha's like 2 years of motorbike riding, 5 weeks in tenerife, luxury flights to australia, a 10 year old Toyota Lucida, the cost of my divorce process plus a few bob left over, upto 300 CDs, a 15 year old Guzzi Le Mans, a quarter of my rent,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,arse to this, why am I burning so much money every week?
I'm going to print the above paragraph off and post it all over my house.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
just kinda FYI, you talking about this has made me put quitting smoking on the table for the first time in years
I quit smoking on my first "birthday" a few years later I had gone back to college (I was a paramedic/fireman but was going to pre-med, maybe go on to become an MD) and bought tickets to a Rolling Stones Concert on Halloween, that came with a bus ride to and from the concert with the ticket, I show up to the bus wearing my wildland firefighter turnouts as a costume, and it was 50 people I used to party with, I knew everyone, it was a double decker bus and I went up to the top, everyone had coolers and battery powered blenders, there martini's, shots, margaritas, and the moment the bus started rolling the mirrors came out, the lines appeared and visibility dropped to about 5 feet because of all the pot smoke, I cracked the window to get some fresh air and the bus driver got on the intercom and said "Shut the window, don't you know that's illegal???"
By the time I got off the bus I was shaking like a dog shitting peach pits, I looked around for something bad to do where I wouldn't have to raise my hand but couldn't find anyone to have sex with (found someone in the concert but by then it was too late), and saw a guy walk by smoking a cigarette and asked him for one
had one the next day
and the next
then I bought a pack, smoked 2 threw the pack away
bought a pack been smoking ever since
it's time to stop
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
AA, is a "one day at a time" program. We are granted a daily reprieve, contingent upon our spiritual conditioning. The same thing goes for our other addictions -as well. My sponsor has had similar bouts with smoking and hasn't extinguished that desire either -just yet. He prays that one day it will. I hope you find a healthy alternative to combat those desires -for today.
~God bless~
-- Edited by Mr_David on Wednesday 30th of March 2011 01:01:52 AM
-- Edited by Mr_David on Wednesday 30th of March 2011 02:38:51 AM
Good timing on the post. Thank you for all the contributions. I've had a desire to stop chewing tobacco for awhile now. Just don't have the willingness just yet. I've been praying to God for the willingness. Now this post shows up. I guess this is God working in my life. Time to quite?
Oh Mike B - my dad was a tobacco chewer, snuff taker and smoker. He worked in the coal mines so there was no smoking underground but snuff and black pigtail were heavily used. I tried the black pigtail when I was about 10. Puked up like you wouldn't believe. took me a couple years to master it haha. Also got into the snuff especially at college. thankfully I do neither of those now, in fact don't think you can get black pigtail any more.
My dad succesfully quit when he was my age, having been a smoker for 40 years, same as me. If he could I can.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
