Anyone given up smoking?

3 weeks ago I decided to give up smoking after 30 + years of being a nicotine addict.

I decided to go cold turkey and just stop, and so far I have managed OK, except I feel like shit.

So it turns out, all the withdrawl symptoms you can get, I have got .

Seems like it is anything from 4 - 8 weeks and possibly longer before I start feeling something like near normal again.

Any advice or tips from anyone who has gone through it? I know in the long term I will feel the full benefit, but at the moment I feel like cr@p, and strangely enough I have not really missed the actual smoking which has surprised me.

 

Can't give you much advice as stiil addicted to the odd red or two, but good luck.

 

Finally gave up in 1999 aged 34 after first starting aged 9 Initially I took some liquid nicotine tablet, but soon gave them up and went on to big standard small chewing gums, you know the hard coated ones. Apart from that I just stayed away from the pub for a month and didn't tell anyone I was quitting.

15 and a bit years later I still think of myself as a smoker who doesn't smoke, and even now I occasionally have the urge for a smoke. Sometimes it is situational, but others it just the smell of a ciggie as someone sparks up. I just choose not to have one myself

 

inhalator from the chemist helped me quit 3 years ago all the best

 

Always like to be of help

 

I quit smoking over 2 Years ago. I did it by reading Allen Carr's Easy Way to quit smoking. I know you may think that it's impossible that a book could help but read the reviews on Amazon.

I haven't even wanted one since I scrunched my fags up. It costs less than a pack of fags and will take you a couple of nights to read.

What have you got to lose?

 

Worked for me as well.

 

I gave up 11 years ago, cold turkey and no problems, however I had switched to ultra lite a few years before so that might have helped?

 

I gave up then started again, I really enjoy smoking when having a beer, so for me it went hand in hand.
I do not smoke in the house or in front of my kids who have no idea that I smoke, I don't smoke on holiday either and this can be quite a stretch at 4 weeks abroad!!
For me having a casual smoke at home in my garage or friends place does me fine.
I have no fear of health worries knowing that both my parents smoked like chimneys and are both alive at the age of 81 and 83 and still smoke!!
Having a smoke in the big scheme of things like obesity and stress and bad eating go hand in hand but if you are willing to balance all of them then hell yes have a smoke and feel better, because when I am sitting in traffic all day on my motorbike behind cars which still pollute I blow my nose and the black shit that comes out is far worse than having a few smokes in the evening.

 

I went cold turkey 30 years ago after smoking up to 80 Marlboro a day. Best thing I've ever done and well worth the grief.
I would never, ever put a cigarette in my mouth again.

 

Well done to everyone who has given up smoking. I work in a Head and Neck cancer unit and the biggest cause of cancer is smoking! Of course if you don't smoke you can still be unlucky. Come and work with me for a Thursday afternoon, tell someone they have cancer and see the devastating effect it has on them and partners/ relatives. If you need help to stop smoking there are lots of smoking cessation clinics around which offer loads of help and support. Good luck to you all. Oh. And coming from Yorkshire it gives you a few extra bob in your pocket too !!

 

Hi, well done, keep it up! I gave up after 15-20 day for 20 years, 4 years ago now. I read the Allan Carr Easyway to stop smoking and it is really good even to read before or after stopping smoking as it helps with the illusions nicotine creates due an addiction like... How does it relax you when it is a stimulant? It is only relieving nicotine cravings The most important thing is not to question your decision, and not have a drag of any cigarette else you will start again.
The grotty feeling is just the tar and toxins in your lungs and vines clearing itself and the the little hairs in your airways regrowing after they shrunk away from the smoke, they are there is protect you against inhaling dust etc. also you will notice your gums bleed more as the capillaries come back to the surface.
Hope this helps, and celebrate being free of addicted to nicotine and feel sorry for all the smokers that stand outside the pub smoking, and always thinking about there next one, slaves to nicotine. Finally all vaporisers and nicotine replacement is just for people to continue being addicted to something else.

 

I also don't like spending me money if i can help it, with cancer sticks at around £8 per pack x365 days = almost £3k a year, that's 18 track days or a new bike every 4th year, plus better health, easy incentive to stop smoking

 

I hope you'll take this as the light-hearted ribbing that it's meant to be but......

Wrong......wrong.....wrong......wrong

You don't enjoy smoking. You enjoy the relief from the symptoms of nicotine withdrawl, not the fag itself. Fags taste disgusting. They make your clothes stink and basically have no redeeming features. I always wondered why I really enjoyed a ciggie with a beer. Or a coffee. Or a Coke........it's because the delicious liquid is washing the awful taste of the fag out of your gob. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

You should have worries of health problems. Smoking is ludicrous but as smokers we always focus on the couple of people we know who've dodged the bullet. Not all the people we know who it's killed. Even I used to say, "My mate's Dad smoked until he was 88 and he was fine!", all the while ignoring that my own 30-a-day Dad had a massive heart attack at the age of 64 which killed him. I even lit up as they were carrying his body out of the door.....ya know.......for "stress". And I continued to smoke for a further 15 years. All the while ignoring feeling like cr*p of a morning.........the slightly elevated blood pressure.........the panic everytime I found a dark mark or lump on my tongue or something.

Fair enough, obesity, traffic fumes, plane crashes, syphillis and ebola could all strike you down before smoking gets you but don't kid yourself. Smoking utterly ruins your health.

Even I used to say, "yeah but you could get run over by a bus tomorrow!", but that's not a good analogy. Getting run over by a bus is an unfortunate accident. The risks from smoking are known. It's more akin to standing in a bus lane wearing a blindfold and then getting run over by a bus

As smokers we all live in denial. We all know that it's f*cking up our health but we all carry on regardless and keep repeating the "it'll be fine......it'll be fine" mantra.

Chances are it won't be.

And it's not even difficult to quit. Seriously. I found it completely easy and two years later I wouldn't thank you for one.

Free yourself. Read Allen Carr's book. It costs next to nowt. What have you got to lose?

 

The mechanics of smoking are,

You first try it, it's awful. Because it actually is awful.

You persist with it and eventually become addicted (well done you).

You get withdrawls once the nicotine wears off and then smoke to feel as normal as non-smokers feel all the time.

To use Allen Carr's analogy. It's like wearing tight shoes just to enjoy the relief of taking them off for 15 minutes before putting them back on again and waiting for the next 15 minute break.

That's where the confusion lies. We smokers think that the cigarette is adding relaxation when in fact it's taking it away to begin with and then adding it back when you smoke.

It's an odd notion that's sold to smokers that it's relaxing. It raises your blood pressure........how's that supposed to equate to relaxation??

 

I think all smokers (and I include myself in that) should take a tour of Lung Cancer ward... the effects are staggering, and the speed with which it can ruin your life is breathtaking.

My mum has smoked averagely (8-10 a day) for 50 years. 6 months ago she was happily trotting round the garden chasing my kids, waterpistol in one hand, fag in the other... now she is terminally ill and bed-ridden, lost her hair due to chemotherapy, paralysed down her left-hand side due to a massive stroke (caused by the cancer), connected to an oxygen machine 24/7 and being fed through a tube as the stroke means she cannot safely eat.

On the other side of the coin, my partners father has smoked like a trooper (20 a day) for over 50 years, and apart from having lost most of his teeth due to smoking-induced gum disease, is in fine fettle!

Problem with smoking is, there is no way of knowing which path you will end up taking.

 

I celebrated my first anniversary of being a non smoker last week. I used an audio book by Allen Carr, I had almost no cravings when I stopped. It changed my psychology, empowered me etc. no silly scare tactics. Anyone who wants a copy PM me your email address and I'll share it on Dropbox with you.

 

Exactly this. I was surprised that there weren't any scare tactics.

It just made me realise WHY I was smoking and why it wasn't difficult to stop.

I tried to quit cold-turkey the week before I read Allen Carr and failed miserably. I was climbing the walls. Read the book and quit COMPLETELY easily. No problem at all.

Yet supposedly I should've been suffering from the same nightmarish withdrawl symptoms that I had the week before, right??

Except that I wasn't because the physical withdrawl symptoms are actually very slight. The main problem is in your head. You convince yourself that you've given up something wonderful that you love when in fact you haven't. You've quit paying to be a slave and slowly murder yourself