Giving up smoking

burtie

burtie

burtie

Soldato
Joined
16 Dec 2005
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2,790
Well i`m 32 in october and yesterday i made my choice to finally to give up smoking,i`ve tried before but failed because i think i did not really want to stop,i`m using NRT at the moment.

Anyone here given up that can give me some advice or tips on giving up that would be great thanks.

burtie
 
i wanna give up smoking as well but got 32 x 50G old holborns to finish off first :eek:

it's easy to give up when you are ready, if you're enjoying to smoke then it's the problem :(

good luck
 
It's slow suicide..

Make a concious desicion to give up and stick to it.

It's physical in terms of addiction, but psychological in terms of habit.

Everytime you light up, get someone to slap you hard in the face or kick you where it hurts. See how you feel in 2 weeks.

Good luck.
 
Get yourself a really nasty snotty cold/flue chesty cough thing (a week os so of using public transport ought to do it) that should give you the kickstart you need for the first 2 or 3 weeks as you'll feel too ill to even think about smoking without exploding into a bustabloodvessel coughing fit :rolleyes:
After you recover from the extra bounty gift of using the bus every day then it's just a matter of continuing not smoking.
I'm not actually suggesting people really go out and try this... but I'm recovering from a nasty cold and haven't smoked for nearly a month now. Don't really miss it.
I always found the 'habit' more of a problem than any feeling of addiction to nicotine :(
 
As a non-smoker, this one's easy!

Focus on all the negative aspects of smoking... The stale smell of your clothes, your breath smelling like an ashtray, the discomfort you cause to others around you, the dirty sluttering cough you fell you should share with other people, the pain you'll cause your family when you contact lung cancer...

Then focus on the positive aspects... the money you'll save & how you'll spend it - work out how much you'll save over 2 years. Think about how much healthier you'll feel.

Alright, to keep your mind off smoking... certain things trigger smoking. If you have a cig with your morning coffee, try drinking tea instead.
Drink more water and be more active. Stress can trigger smoking so if you feel better you're less likely to smoke. The change in your routine will also help you cut out cigarettes from your routine.
Even one cig is enough to make you fall off the bandwagon so once you've made the decision to quit don't buy any more cigs, not even for emergencies.

Oh, and good luck!
 
The worst part of quitting is kicking the actual habbit of smoking. One of the tricks I used, was whenever I felt the craving coming on, i'd eat an apple to keep my hands and mouth busy. Did mean I ate 20 apples a day for a 3-4 weeks, but thats not a bad thing. :)
 
Cold turkey and a friend/fiancee/partner who is also wanting to give up :)

Two and a half years ago my fiancee and I were both smokers.
We would get through a pack of 20 a day, sometimes more (those people who always answer less than 20 when asked how much they smoke - don't kid yourselves, I did for ages!).
I was 28, she was 29.
We both looked at two things, firstly the amount of money we were spending on cigarettes.
We were about to move in together into a rented flat and we couldn't help feeling that a vast chunk of that rent we could make by simily stopping smoking.
Secondly our health - those horrible coughs, the out of breath etc.

So we decided we would stop.
We decided one week that we would stop the following week.
At midnight on the Saturday we had our final cigarette and we then burnt what we had left of our current packs of 20 (about half a dozen each).
Because there were two of us neither of us wanted to cave in first and neither of us wanted to look like a failure to the other.
The first few days were horrible, the end of week one not exactly great.
However here we both are two and a half years later.
We did not lapse once (well I know for fact I didn't and I've got no reason not to believe my fiancee).
It didn't cost us anything in gum, patches etc (which can be as expensive as the cigarettes your trying to give up).

Good luck.
Oh - to see how worthwhile it all is.
Within 7-10 days your taste will be something like 10x better.
So eat your favourite meal about two weeks after you've stopped and enjoy an amazing new taste.
After a week spend a little bit of time (just a few minutes) around some smokers and realise just how much they smell and then realise that as long as you're a smoker you smelt just as bad!
 
After smoking for over 35 years and having two heart attacks ...... I still smoked (clever eh?) ..... until I used Zyban tablets; they block the receptors in the brain, so that you don't get a buzz from the Nicotine.
You still really have to want to stop but once the physical craving of the body has been overcome it's a piece of cake.

I now treat it like being an alcoholic ....... ie I can't just have one (much as I'd still like to sometimes) as I know that I'd be back to 50 a day within a couple of weeks.

All the non smokers out there have NO idea, though they do enjoy a good moan/rant, there's already been one who can't resist telling you how bad you are, I'm sure that they'll be more before this thread dies.

Get the mind set right and you have got it whipped!


Good luck.
 
wesley said:
i wanna give up smoking as well but got 32 x 50G old holborns to finish off first :eek:

it's easy to give up when you are ready, if you're enjoying to smoke then it's the problem :(

good luck
Click to expand...

you see, thats where you are going wrong...

if you want to stop, just STOP...dont finish off what you have left...dont cut down, dont only smoke socially, dont smoke other peoples.

just stop.

tried to quit a number of times, and this is the only thing that worked. hypnosis, nicorette patches, nicotine gum- its all gimmicky rubbish designed to seperate you from your money.

if you want to quit smoking, all you have to do is stop. plain and simple.
 
I quit about 3 weeks ago and have had the occasional smoke, normally when I'm out drinking in town :( I won't lie to you, it is hard to quit and people who have never smoked cannot understand this, they think it's simply a case of stopping when it's not. For me the worst part of quitting was the habit of smoking, there were certain times when I'd have a smoke like after a meal and that was the worst part.

Good luck anyway dude.
 
messiah khan said:
The worst part of quitting is kicking the actual habbit of smoking. One of the tricks I used, was whenever I felt the craving coming on, i'd eat an apple to keep my hands and mouth busy. Did mean I ate 20 apples a day for a 3-4 weeks, but thats not a bad thing. :)
Click to expand...

This worked for me too, except a different fruit each time. People said my skin was amazingly healthy. Went through a small green-grocers though!

The physical additction 'goes' in 3 days, the physcological takes ages to beat - a month or 2 for me. The first week was hell though - I was very, very twitchy which annoyed my work colleagues. After that it got better - choose peaceful, stressless, quiet couple of months.

Read Alan Carr's book as well - changes your perspective about smoking a little and deals with the physcological aspect quite well.
 
If your thinking about giving up your on your way.

You do need to want to, not because others want you to, and not just for money, you need to want to give up.

I've tried to stop 3 times, and on the 3rd time i suceeded.

1st time was with Zyban, and i did it for my family (as a member had died)

I lasted 13 months, but never felt like i cracked it. Always felt like a smoker who was on a break. I couldn't even touch alcohol as i knew a ciggy was waiting for me.

In fact, that was my downfall this time.

A year or so later i tried again, and again on zyban but again i wasn't ready, and this time i was doing it for the money. I literally waited for any excuse to light up again, i lasted 2 months.

So 1st time i did it for my family, i lasted 13 months.

Second time for money, i lasted 2 months.

This time.

Well, i quit for both those reasons this time. But i also quit for my health, and for myself. I'd had enough of being trapped by this horrible habit and i wanted out.

The day i went for our second scan (me & the lass), and found out i was having a baby boy, i stopped. That was about 7months ago, but this time i've been out drinking, in some states as well, and gone nowhere near a ciggy.

I did it as well on will power, and that alone, and for me its the only way.

I feel immense pride in stopping without aid, and i think its helped keep away from them, because you know what you've achieved is something canny good really, and it was you, the same you that got addicted managed to stop it as well.

This is why i feel like a non smoker now. I can sit in smokey rooms, i can get plastered or even go for a couple (as that's where the biggest craving hits, a couple of pints in when you 1st go out) it doesn't bother me.

Do it man, you can, even if you cheat a couple of times early on, it doesn't matter, just keep trying. After a week by yourself, your determination will overtake any craving and beat it hands down. No longer will you be forking out for something you dont want, smell disgusting, damage your health and by looking at the clock every 5mins waiting for your next cig.

How time flies when you dont smoke.
 
burtieb1 said:
Thanks very much all for the ideas and good lucks,i`m defo going to crack it this time :D
Click to expand...

That's what we want to hear!

If you start being critical of smokers, smell, cost, health, etc, then that will reinforce all the negative sides of it. You'll be more of a hypocrite quitting and starting again, so stay quit!

When you feel like a smoke, just associate it with something really, really painful and bad, like a bad memory or Cher.

I gave up the smokes after leaving university and also have not touched a drop of alcohol since May last year. I'm 26 now. You need to look long term and remember, you'll turn into Dot Cotton if you continue.

It's all psychological. Reprogram yourself to better yourself.
 
I hope you do suceed, my mum is going to give up when she goes on holiday next week with my nan.
I really do hope she quits, everytime that i've tried to get her to quit she gives me an earfull of how she'll "give up when shes ready".
I thought my grandad dying of lung cancer would have made her quit, i'm still shocked today that she hasn't.
 
Somone I know is off to see a Hypnotist this evening to try and give up that way.

£85 for the session and she wont charge you if she doesnt think it will work.

Will see how he lasts for the next few weeks then I may go myself.

If you manage to quit then £85 will be made back in no time.
 
robmiller said:
I should imagine a good motivation is money--wait 'til VIRII comes in here and pastes the calculation of how much he's saved since quitting :)
Click to expand...

One year, eight months, two weeks, three days, 3 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds. 12502 cigarettes not smoked, saving £3,019.21. Life saved: 6 weeks, 1 day, 9 hours, 50 minutes.

Read "the easy way to stop smoking" by Allan Carr.
It'll really help without trying to scare you or telling you how bad you smell, it just helps you reassess why you are smoking.

3 grand saved ..... hmmm new bedroom telly then muahahahahaha.
 
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