One day at a time. Every time you want a cigarette but don't give in, you have built strength. Use that strength to better resist the next urge. Really internalize that what you are doing is strong and powerful. Each victory accumulates and supports those to come.
thanks ^^
I stopped a pack and a half a day habit of ~10 years cold turkey. It was either food or smokes.
As others have said, there is no effective short cut. Ultimately, it is all will power. At least it is easier now. When I quit, EVERYONE smoked.
there is no effective short cut
As someone who quit by switching to vape pens, I strongly disagree. There are multiple studies that show a success rate of greater than 60% when using vaping as a smoking cessation device. The next closest method is 3%. 3 fucking percent! Guess who owns those methods? It's the tobacco companies.
I quitted few years ago already. I bought a pack of those peppermint like pills that contain nicotine to help stopping. They tasted so horribly bad I just had like 2 of them and quit smoking cold. So maybe go get some of those disgusting pills.
Other people have tried gum and not had it help them. I find it pretty helpful for me so far. I'm now two weeks in and I only chew 2 pieces a day now. Only have it when smelling others' cigarette smoke triggers my cravings. Overall, I'm gonna try to quit the gum by the end of next week.
I will note that I seem to have way easier of a time with nicotine withdrawal than other people I've talked to.
If you have children, remind yourself that you want to be around for as many of their achievements as possible.
Pretty old video now but it explains why you smoke and helps to stop.
Probably safer to use qbittorrent's built in search to find it.
Both my parents were longtime smokers, my dad quit cold Turkey after 25 years. My mum quit cold turkey after about 45. They both seemed fine with it, maybe some nicorette gum at first but they dropped that quickly. With my dad having 20 years smoke free ahead of my mom, his health is way better. He is active. My mom needed some heartwork done.
Talk about placement
I hear sucking on a lollipop can help.
I used chantix back in the day, but it also required me basically not leaving the house for a month to really get there. When and where I quit for the first time (I would later start dating a smoker and relapse, then quit again), smoking was still allowed indoors and I had a huge association with drinking and smoking. Same for certain other places and situations. I basically had to do everything I could to avoid those. It got easier with time.
I quit smoking successfully a few years ago, after at least a dozen unsuccessful attempts.
Here's what was different the time I succeeded:
I changed my mindset. Basically, I told myself that I won't ever smoke a single cigarette again in my life, no matter how shitty that makes me feel.
The trigger for that mindset was a common cold that left me breathless for 4 weeks.
And the key to success was the realization that:
1.) I'm not addicted to cigarettes, I'm addicted to nicotine
2.) Nicotine by itself isn't all that harmful
3.) Whenever I have a craving, I can just chew a nicotine chewing gum
4.) Nicotine by itself isn't even that addictive
So I bought a whole lot of nicotine gum, and whenever I felt the slightest craving I popped one in.
After about 2 weeks the cravings subsided (cause nicotine isn't actually what makes you addicted).
I used nicotine pouches for a year then cold turkeyed at day 365
I read Allen Carr's book "easy way to quit smoking without willpower" and took a drug called Chantix (prescription drug here in Sweden and my first doctor didn't want to prescribe it because all I needed was willpower according to him). The book helped with the habits, the drug removed the cravings and I've been cigarette free since then. It was my third or fourth attempt, and it was BY FAR the easiest. Ignore everyone telling you to quit cold turkey, to have willpower or whatever else, and get Champix prescribed to you.
might consider that, thank you
You already have! Congratulations! That last one, was the last one. Throw away the rest, you're done.
Get yourself a good nicotine vape rig. The kind that has a big tank so it'll last all day and you can use whichever flavoured vape liquid you like best. Switch to that 100% of the time, right away, no exceptions. Don't worry about how to quit vaping until you've gone without smoking for at least a few months.
It'll be hard, but not nearly as bad as it is if you try to quit both smoking and nicotine at the same time.
Two ways.
- Get a crutch and pretend you quit.
This can either be vaping, snus, nicotine pouches, the patch, anything.
- Cold Turkey
Quitting one morning by just never smoking that day.
That's all I know.
I tried quitting a number of times. Not easy, and demoralizing when you fail. You may have to try several times too.
When I finally did quit I had decided to put off my first cigarette in the morning as long as possible, reasoning that sleep was the longest I'd go without nicotine. One day I went the whole day.
A friend quit at the same time as me, using the gum. Six months later she was still using it, and gave up and started smoking again.
Probably helps that I had quit drinking by then as well. Pretty hard to drink and not smoke, for me.
Quitting isn’t very hard if you've got a valid reason, determination and, most importantly, you set your mind properly. Don’t do “strong will” quitting where you force yourself to go through painful experience of quitting, but you don’t fully understand why you have to. Your mindset is the key - if you start to truly believe you don’t need tobacco and there’s not much that you sacrifice by quitting, it comes naturally and you can call yourself a non-smoker from day 1. You must be certain that there won’t be any reasons to feel there is something missing, you no longer have your daily ritual, you don’t have chat with smoking coworkers or you don’t know what to do with your hands. No matter how hard it sounds to imagine now, as a non-smoker you cannot care less. The typical imagination on how hard it is to change habits or how nothing is the same after that change, you must remember that your mind projects that to you in a very hyperbolic way. Same goes as the physical aspect of nicotine addiction - some say that your body would absolutely freak out if you suddenly remove nicotine from it. For the most part, this is utter bullshit. Yes, you can totally perceive nicotine hunger, but it’s there only for as long as there’s some nicotine left in your body. You only need 10-14 days to get rid of all of the nicotine and that’s it. In practice the hunger isn’t even as bad as smokers typically make it out to be. The mental addiction is much harder, because if you stay addicted and keep feeling as you were robbed out of something you liked, you can go back to it even after long time, even if cigarettes taste like shit and make you sick to the stomach and you want to vomit and poo at the same time.
I’ve quit smoking multiple times, sadly you can go back to it after some time if you decide to experiment with it to maybe teach yourself to be “casual smoker” (which you won’t be, believe me), or like in my case smoking weed mixed with tobacco has put me right back in nicotine addiction. I’ve quit smoking 2 years ago now, I was sick of that shit.
First time I quit i was sick and cigarettes tasted awful for a week, so I figured if I had already gone a week without I might as well quit. Whenever I got a craving I thought about how disgusting they tasted with a cold, and imagined spongey lungs filling with black tar till I gave myself a shiver of disgust.
I started up again years later while traveling, then quit for good while visiting my parents for 2 months - I know I'm too embarrassed to smoke around my parents.
Nicotine pouches
I had tried multiple times previously, but when I stopped using snus (tobacco in pouches you put under your lip) for good these are things that helped me succeed:
-
I actually wanted to quit (this is the most important one. If you just feel like you should quit and don't actually want to. It's gonna be really rough).
-
I set a deadline for myself. For me, that deadline was during a family vacation so I planned for myself to get through the last box of snus before the vacation was over. I had a single box of snus that was already opened and a week long vacation (a single box used to last me maybe 2 days normally). This made me ration it out so I had a natural decrease in amounts used before I quit.
-
I distracted myself from things that would normally make me want to grab a snus. Some were harder to avoid like when having morning coffee or when I had just eaten a large meal, but those could be substituted with chewing gum, breath mints, etc. I had also just recently started dating again at the time, so my daily routine was almost always different from the norm, which made ignoring the cravings a lot simpler.
And honestly, from there it was just staying true to my goal and making sure to be proud of every milestone. Even now, 5 years later, I made sure to be proud of being 5 years clean.
And you will think about it every now and then. Especially in situations where you normally go for a smoke, your brain will occasionally go back to "ahh, shit, a smoke would be nice now". I still have those moments when I have stressful situations, have been out drinking, or just randomly from time to time.
If you really want to quit, you can do it! I believe in you!
I think it depends what your goal is. If you want a less painful quit wheen yourself off it. If you want to be off them ASAP then cold turkey.
From my experience, I would say it really depends on what kind of smoker you are.
I smoked on and off for over twenty years. I made strong associations with cigarettes in my college years. It was a way to get away, to be different, to meet new people, to relax, etc. Sometimes I smoked two packs a day, but more often a pack a week. I smoked the most while driving or after work or at the bar. My friends at the bar smoked, my girlfriends smoked, my coworkers smoked.
I read long ago that, for some people, nicotine fits like a puzzle piece into a receptor in their bodies. I believe I lack this receptor that causes biological addition and my smoking was due more to Pavlovian conditioning. I never had a morning craving. I never got "the shakes". I quit over a dozen times, sometimes for more than a year.
When I was finally ready, and I have to emphasize that you need to be ready, I actually went out of my way to not have a cigarette while doing the things I strongly associated with smoking. I knew I was ready and it was going to stick because I quit over the course of "Beer Week" (Beer Week is when all the bars in the city have beer specials and events and serve one-off or collaboration beers from around the world). It was the worst time to quit but also the best time to quit. It was a challenge. When my friends at the bar all went out for a smoke, I joined them - without a smoke. When I was done eating dinner, I'd go outside and just sit and think without the cigarette. I even went for a drive with a cigarette in my hand and pretended to smoke it without lighting it up.
Being ready to quit isn't about knowing it's bad for you. To be really honest with you, I quit because I was flirting with a super cute girl who happened to be a doctor (I still remember her name - Rose. Because Rose + Doctor Who). Everything was going great then I interrupted her so I could go outside for a cigarette. The disappointment felt by the both of us when I returned was the gut punch I needed. I still have that pack of cigarettes that I only had three smokes out of.
I've not had a single urge to smoke for nine and a half years now.
Or you could try hypnotherapy. Worked for my mom after smoking for over 45 years.
Find other ways to cope when you get the urge, ie vape etc
Or big balls daddy cold turkey it
I'm neither an expert nor do I smoke. But from what I heard, quitting smoking has two major points- one being the nicotine addiction your body has built up. The second one being your 'emotional addiction', I.e being used to smoking as a tool to decompress, socialize, take a break, fight boredom etc. which is embedded in your routines - this one might be harder to fight. Maybe try to identify those things and find alternatives, start installing different ways to cope and simultaneously take care of your bodily addiction via gums, patches, whatever is the right way for you.
Read or listen to Allen Carr - how to stop smoking. There's an audiobook on torrents.
This might help https://www.artofliving.org/in-en/happiness-program
Nicotine patches. It gives your brain what it wants with little to no adverse effects
I went cold turkey with the help of Wellbutrin. Best of luck!
I quit cold turkey about 5 months ago after smoking for a decade. Might start again, might not. I still get cravings. If I do start again I'm going to make myself learn to roll them by hand instead of buying packs so that it's cheaper and takes more conscious effort.
Just stop doing it. You won't quit until you really want to stop, and then it's actually kind of easy. You hear this from a lot of people who quit, that all the circumstances and programs and nicotine substitutes are kind of secondary to the mental aspect of it.
running is what did it for me
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