Quitting smoking

[ILoveLife]

Woah, thanks you guys.

about a drug called tabex

There's a men's aftershave here with that name too. :)
Thanks Joey.

post-its that said, "Breathing....is not overrated." "You are worth the effort." "Your lungs, and everyone else's, will thank you."

Post its are a good idea.

crafty shit that I enjoyed doing

Also a good idea.

more nature time

Yess

3 days on benzos, sleeping = my fav way to quit.

:roflmao: doable. Away from anyone so I don't bite their heads off.

taking a few minutes every hour or two to regulate my breathing & ground/center

This is interesting. I have these Tibetan breathing exercises book that I wasn't able to do completely due to needing cigarette breaks.

Thanks everyone!

 

[honeymask]

I think that most smokers have anxiety issues, and anxiety issues make it really hard to quit. I am battling the same thing right now. I am on my last pack but I always end up going back because when I don't have them, my panic attacks seem more severe.

I know someone mentioned the Allan Carr book, I am reading it now and highly recommend it. I am not finished with it but so far it has been helpful in changing the way I view cigs. There is nothing they are doing that is helping me.

NRTs don't really work for me, but what kept me off for four months was light yoga, spending time in nature, drinking lemon water (the citrus tastes bad with a cig, not sure why but that helped me) and reminding myself of my reasons to quit. Every time I would go out to smoke the last ones in my pack before my quit, I had to ask myself: am I really enjoying this? And the answer was almost always no.

Best of luck to you, know that you aren't alone in this ❤

 

[lovak]

I want to quit aswell. I have problems with my gums, if it gets worse my teeth wil eventually fall out. This is actually the first 'real' consequence of smoking I've encountered. Ofcourse there were some discomforts, nicotine stains on my teeth, having to smoke during a nice conversation, always smell, the anxiety of wether or not I have enough cigarettes, the usual.
But this scared me big time. I've tried to quit many, many times. But I'm so done with it.
I do think about quitting a lot, but I'm concerned as to how it will effect my anxiety issues, as I'm already in a bad place. On the other hand... how worse can it get? I'm already constantly cranky and snapping at my husband, I don't leave the house, I'm panicking all the time... It's not like smokes are the thing that keep me functioning right now. I'm not functioning as is.
So I think I'll just try it. Everytime I want to smoke, I'll tell myself to reconsider 15 minutes later. We'll see how it goes.
I have the allen carr book on my ereader, I even have an allen carr game for my 3DS, that I bought because it said: 3 years and older. Thought that was hilarious. But it might come in handy now.

 

[shimmerz]

I have a friend who asked me to make this for them in order to support the oral and hand issues having to do with quitting. They seemed to work very well for him.

Quit Sticks Nix Nicotine the Natural Way

 

[blackemerald1]

Hey @Sietz and all, so I gave up smoking almost twelve months ago. I didn't write it down but it might be more I'm not completely sure. Financial and health being the main reasons. All of the panic about running out and them being smelly etc., and also a really big issue with me was not being able to control myself sufficiently to chose not to smoke. I just didn't like the fact that Nicotine had a hold on me like it did. And I had been smoking long enough.

I wasn't smoking a lot. About 4 a day usually though if I had a melt down it would be a lot more. I had all these 'rules' where I would and would not smoke which helped me reduce but never really helped me stop completely.

I had tried various other methods of not smoking like, not smoking and failed. :rolleyes: So this reinforced my sense of failure even more and really pissed me off.

So I had a talk to my GP and she was really keen to help. (Of course). I didn't discuss it with anyone else because I didn't want to be dammed to hell for failing and I was reasonably sure I would fail. :sorry:

I started with high dose patches on a prescription and a small inhaler which have a little cartridge in it to assist in easing out of the hand and panic symptoms/cravings. So I stayed on that for about a month and then dropped down in strength, stayed on them for a few weeks and then dropped to the lowest patches but I forgot to put them on so that was a waste of money.

Theoretically I think the three levels of patches are meant to be used for three months at each stage. But I didn't.

I have a cousin who wants to quit so I am going to give her all of my spare patches and cartridges - might as well - it would be a shame to waste them and the quitting regime may work for her too.

I'm not saying it was easy and there were a few white knuckle moments when the cravings really bit me very hard.

I left half a packet of cigarettes outside on a table for the moment when I did cave in and started smoking again because I was fairly certain I would. And...disappoint myself again.

I also munched on raw carrot, celery and drank lots of water. Still do but not because I want a smoke.

So that's my story about stopping smokes. So far I'm okay with it but I know that if I even had one cigarette I would be a full on smoker again. So it's easy for me to not want to go back to that. :)

 

[ILoveLife]

That's great b!
I signed up for something called a daily diary, really helps keep myself accountable.
I've been successfully reducing 1 cigarette a day this past week, then as per advice of T, stop reducing when the feeling of wanting to smoke more returns, then continue reducing when it goes away. :)

I was at 20 cigarettes again, and now I'm 16. Hopefully today will be 15.

 

[blackemerald1]

Oh well done there @Sietz - if that works for you do it that way for sure :)