Quitting Tobacco: The Endless Cycle

[Bajeda]

I have now just passed my third serious attempt to quit smoking cigarettes. I have been smoking for just over two years now, after starting to compensate for the psyhological cravings for smoke I got after temporarily quitting other substances in the past.


Each time it seems promising, I start cutting down, I reach the date I set out to stop by, and I don't smoke any more. Then something always triggers it back. Either meeting up with old friends, or even worse, going to a place where I have no friends and cigarettes are the easiest way to meet them. Alcohol doesn't help either, but I can usually contain the smoking to just when I am drunk in those situations without starting regularly again.

I think the biggest issue is social rather than physical or inwardly psychological. Cigarettes are a good way to meet people, and they are good when you are extremely bored, so when I go to a new place for a period of time I find myself lighting up just to find new people to chill with. This works too, generally I meet cool people through smoking and they are the types of people who do other fun recreational substances as well. The problem is I can't stop again once Ive started smoking with a new crowd.


In any case, I hope to be able to quit for good once I get back to school and are around my friends who are supporting my efforts, including those who currently smoke. I just wanted to know what the good people of this forum think about quitting tobacco and if they had any particularly good suggestions/advice/experience with regards to quitting that could help my (or others) situation.

Thanks.

[fatal]

ive quit smoking just fine twice. actually by fine i mean agonizingly painful and quite terrible. once was over a ten dollar bet and once was because i am an idiot. i started back up both times. the first was because i only did it for the ten bucks. (two weeks with no smokes) the second was because some people just have the power to make you so fucking frustrated you want to kill something and a ciggarette really helps with that. yea they feel fuckin good. and i like it. i like it alot. the taste too... mmm sweet soothing aromatic rich tobacco. sure are fuckin terrible for ya though huh? too bad that... sure would be cool if they made you more healthy and cured aids and cancer and whatever else... i can dream...

[Bajeda]

I know what you mean. I like smoking but the health issue is really annoying. If only they could invent "cancerless" tobacco..... *sighs*

Still, is there anyone here who has successfully quit smoking tobacco and do they have any suggestions?

[prescription]

haha yup iv been trying to quit as well, the bad thing is that i know i wasnt addicted until i started to smoke regularly and now its hard to stop, its become a part of my routine and my life feels oddly empty withought cigarettes, oh well at least i have several friends who are supporting me and hopefully i can stop smoking during the week as i know that quitting smoking while drunk is damn near impossible.
Well good luck to everyone attempting to quit cigarettes, its a hard process but i want my damn fitness back

[Bajeda]

Shit......

Its pretty much official now. I am physically addicted again, which means that next time I quit I get the couple days of "fun" to go through before dealing with the psychological stuff again. I was sort of hoping to just wing it until the summer is over and I move again so I could just cut it straight out.


A major problem for me is obtaining cigarettes. Sometimes when I want a cig but don't want to start again I just bum off of people. I did this for some time, but its hard to keep bumming forever, even at the rate of one a day. Especially if you are around the same people. They tell me not to worry about it but I always end up feeling bad and buying a pack.

They don't sell looseys around here so if I want a cig I have to buy a whole pack, and at that point I end up smoking more than I want to. Its a vicious cycle....

Originally Posted by prescription

haha yup iv been trying to quit as well, the bad thing is that i know i wasnt addicted until i started to smoke regularly and now its hard to stop, its become a part of my routine and my life feels oddly empty withought cigarettes, oh well at least i have several friends who are supporting me and hopefully i can stop smoking during the week as i know that quitting smoking while drunk is damn near impossible.
Well good luck to everyone attempting to quit cigarettes, its a hard process but i want my damn fitness back

One thing I have noticed is that when I get cravings for a smoke and then go for a run or use the elliptical trainer I feel much better, and dont get cravings for a while. Working out helps alot as I don't think about it and don't feel like it afterwards. The problem is that with my job I am really exhausted when I get home so I have only been working out on the weekends. This is painful as I was a competitive cross-country runner for six years....

Still, to anyone else trying to quit, try working out more. It takes effort and motivation, but helps with the cravings and you'll feel better too! Plus when you try smoking again after working out for a while it feels really nasty so it makes it harder to start again (though not THAT hard unfortunately )

[Forthesevenlakes]

maybe what swibajeda could do is when he feels compelled to buy a pack, to take one cigarette out, and give the rest of the pack to a trusted friend who could then ration them out to swibaj at a predetermined rate. maybe a few a day, and then scaling back over days until its about at 1 a day for a while, this should make the physical aspect a bit easier to quit.

then on a day that swibaj has decided beforehand, quit altogether and inform swiys friends that you are quitting, and that youd appreciate if they helped out by not bumming any and to keep tabs on swiy when he's drinking or otherwise messed up, because that's usually when its the easiest to slip up and rationalize having 'just one' cigarette.

if the physical cravings are extremely intense, consider using nicotine gum. it helps with the withdrawals.

swim has heard of a drug that blocks the effects of nicotine at the acetylcholine receptors. patients in this treatment are given the drug and allowed to smoke as much as they want. since the effects are prevented, the patients actually un-learn the previously learned reinforcing pleasure of cigarettes, and they no longer feel the urge to smoke because they have essentially "learned" that the very act of smoking does not provide a rewarding feeling. swim would have to look in some files of his to find out what the name of this treatment is, but he found it an interesting approach to quitting.

on the plus side, if swiy doesnt quit, he is at least preventing himself from ever getting alzheimer's =]

[Sky Walker]

Originally Posted by Bajeda

I know what you mean. I like smoking but the health issue is really annoying. If only they could invent "cancerless" tobacco..... *sighs*

Still, is there anyone here who has successfully quit smoking tobacco and do they have any suggestions?

I can't quite tell if your being sarcastic or not but in all seriousness, if your looking for a cancerless smoke look not further than marijuana. If you feel that weed won't quite satisfy your cravings then acquire some liquid nicotine and add a few drops to your cancerless marijuana cigarette, roll up and enjoy. Unless of course you don't enjoy marijuana, if this is the case get yourself some legal herbal smoking mixture add your liquid nicotine drops and smoke up your healthier cigarette.

[fatal]

i think i would challenge that inhaling any smoke product can and will cause cancer by way of random genetic mutations and other such nasty things. the whole codon deletion thing is a real killer. also adding nicoteine to anything will instantly make it carcinogenic as nicoteine is a carcinogen. thusly marijuana is not cancerless and nothing with nicoteine in or on it will ever be healthy to use. also pure nicoteine is fairly potent so id be careful playing around with that stuff...

[snapper]

The only way to quit smoking is toss all cigarettes and never light another one. I smoked for about 20 years before stopping and have, aside from a few short lapses, quit for over 5 years. The cravings never go away, and the process is always agonizing. All attempts were made with nicotine patches which help separate the physical and psychological withdrawals and taper slowly. Change contexts as best you can (I quit right after a move to a new area - less triggers and other smokers). Become antisocial, then you don't need to meet anyone anymore smokers. Never date or live with a smoker or you are screwed before you start.
Nicotine is also quite the poison and I noted during my lapses just how much of a poison it is. It's hard to have any perspective when you start and continue to smoke, however, but if you stop for a few months, the difference is noticable..

Snapper

Reputation Comments on this post:

good advice, thanks

[Sky Walker]

Originally Posted by fatal

i think i would challenge that inhaling any smoke product can and will cause cancer by way of random genetic mutations and other such nasty things. the whole codon deletion thing is a real killer. also adding nicoteine to anything will instantly make it carcinogenic as nicoteine is a carcinogen. thusly marijuana is not cancerless and nothing with nicoteine in or on it will ever be healthy to use. also pure nicoteine is fairly potent so id be careful playing around with that stuff...

Firstly, marijuana smoking DOES NOT cause cancer;

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...rijuana+cancer


And secondly,

Originally Posted by wikipedia

"The currently available literature indicates that nicotine, on its own, does not promote the development of cancer in healthy tissue and has no mutagenic properties."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Toxicology

As you can see, a marijuana cigarette with some nicotine drops in it is a lot healthier than a dirty tobacco filled fag. Remember that word, DIRTY, use it on your quest to quit smoking tobacco, often, every time you see or smell or even hear about a cigarette, keep telling yourself how dirty and nasty it really is, when you catch a whiff of smoke, give your gag reflex a little exercise as if the smell is about to make you sick. It soon will as long as you react that way every time you encounter the nasty shit. Well, that's what worked for me after 7 years of smoking it, give it a go. I do however still smoke the odd (tobacco) blunt wrap but I just discovered, Sweet Palm Blunt Wraps "an all natural, non-tobacco leaf that burns slowly and evenly" so I'll finally be free of tobacco forever, yay!!!

[thadj]

What you can try is avoid "smoking situations" for a week. Then after you are not physically addicted anymore, start slowly. Go home early when going out, force yourself not to smoke, drink more, spend some more money or whatever. Also, reinforce your non-smoking before by giving yourself something else you like.

Just my 2 cents. I've stopped 5 months now but have smoked on some occasions. Hopefully I will maintain.

[snapper]

I would be careful about assuming that marijuana smoke does not cause cancer. One study is really no proof of anything. It is clearly less carcinogenic than tobacco, but that does not mean it is not.
Nicotine does not directly cause cancer, but it constricts blood flow to smaller vessels, being a potent vesicant, and though this mechanism can indirectly predispose one to tumors. The radioactive polonium 210 in tobacco probably causes a lot of the lung tumors found in cigarette smoke, though the vasoconstrictive properties do not help. Sorta like exploding depleted uranium and aerosolizing the radioactive particles...

Snapper

Reputation Comments on this post:

Damn. Snapper, you have some of the best unvarnished descriptions of drugs ever seen. Your wry take on tobacco and als...

[Beeker]

It took me 10-15 tries to finally drop tobacco for good.

6 weeks of wanting and the patch is what I went threw to quit. Extremely hard substance to quit, Tobacco.

[Bajeda]

Two things I wanted to add to this thread. One I found and the other I remembered that I hadn't posted.



The first... I found some of these to be quite helpful in trying to quit (a process I am still undergoing at the moment though so I'll have to see just how helpful they are in the long term).

Freedom's Quitting Tips

2. Quit cold turkey. In the long run it’s the easiest, quickest, least expensive and most effective technique of smoking cessation. There are over one billion "comfortable" ex-smokers on earth today and almost all of them quit cold turkey.
3. Our minds will quickly forget most of the reasons that made us want to quit smoking. Take the time now to write yourself a loving letter that will fully remind you of all your reasons for quitting. Keep your reasons letter with you and read it often.
4. Get rid of all your cigarettes. All of them! Tell friends and family that you’ve started a new nicotine free life. Commit completely to your healing!
5. Quit smoking one day at a time. Do not concern yourself with next year, next month, next week or even tomorrow. Concentrate on not smoking from the time you wake-up until you go to sleep. Be patient with your healing. Baby steps!
6. Attitude is extremely important because we are what we think! If we allow our mind to dwell upon negative thoughts like "quitting is hard" and that we’re "depriving ourselves of smoking" we can make ourselves miserable. If we allow our mind to dwell upon positive notions like our freedom and healing are wonderful and glorious, or that we’re doing ourselves a favor, our journey home can be awesome.
7. Be proud of yourself for not smoking! Don’t rely upon others for your self pride or lien upon them to hard to support your quest for freedom! Trust in you!
8. Symptoms such as headache, inability to concentrate, dizziness, time perception distortions and the ubiquitous sweet tooth encountered by many, can be the result of a blood sugar drop that occurs after quitting. Help your body adjust by avoiding white sugar products and by putting small amounts of food (fuel) into your body at least every three hours. Always leave room for more food but never allow yourself to feel hungry. Get your sugar from juices and fruits (cranberry juice is excellent).
9. Be aware that many routine situations will trigger a crave for nicotine. Situations which may trigger a response include: after meals, talking on the phone, driving, drinking, reading, coffee, alcohol, setting in a bar or pub, social events with smoking friends, or even activities like card games. Try to maintain your normal routine while quitting. If any event seems to tough, leave it and go back to it later. Do not feel you must give up any activity forever. Everything you did as a smoker, you will learn to do at least as well, and maybe better, as an ex-smoker.
10. Drink plenty of fruit juice the first three days. It not only helps flush nicotine from your system it will also help raise your blood sugar level. Also, divide your body weight by two. Use the resulting number as the number of ounces of daily water that your body and lungs need for proper healing and flushing.
11. To help avoid weight gain, eat vegetables and fruit instead of candies and pastries. Celery and carrots can be used safely as short-term substitutes for cigarettes. Smoking was your bodies old cue that your meal had ended. Find a new cue.
12. If you are concerned about weight gain, do some moderate form of regular exercise. If you have not been exercising regularly, consult your physician for a practical exercise program which is safe for you.
13. If you encounter a crisis, (e.g. a flat tire, flood, blizzard, family illness, finances) while quitting, remember, smoking is no solution. Smoking will just complicate the original situation while creating another crisis - full and complete nicotine relapse.
14. Be honest! Truly see yourself as "addicted to nicotine" because you are! Just one puff and you will either immediately or shortly thereafter experience full and complete relapse back to your prior level of nicotine use or higher. Don’t look at it as taking just "ONE" puff, look at it as taking them all back. Picture them all.
15. Don’t debate with yourself how much you want a "cigarette." You don’t crave a cigarette any more than the heroin addict craves a needle. The cigarette and needle are simply drug delivery devices. What you want is the drug inside.
16. Save the money you usually spend on cigarettes and buy yourself something you really want after a week or a month. Save for a year and you can treat yourself to a vacation.
17. Practice deep breathing exercises when you have a craving. Breathe slowly and deeply into the bottom of each lung while clearing your mind of needless chatter.
18. Visualize the challenges ahead (stress, tremendous joy, weight gain, boredom, an accident, a serious illness, the death of a loved one, a funeral, financial problems, the end of a relationship, drinking, extended periods of time around a smoker) and picture yourself successfully overcoming each of them.
19. Climb out of your deep smoker’s rut and begin living your new life. Engage in activities that require more than an hour to complete and challenge your new body.
20. Ask yourself how you’d feel about going back to your old level of consumption. Quitting smoking is one of the few propositions in the world where being 99% successful means 100% defeat. It’s an all or nothing proposition. If you decide you really want to smoke, please promise yourself that you’ll come to the board and give the group a chance to work its magic. If feels almost like a slap in the face when a member is bold enough to post after relapse but not courageous enough to post while in crisis. What good is support for a smoker? None!
21. Remember that there are only two good reasons to take a puff once you quit. You decide you want to go back to your old level of consumption until smoking cripples and then kills you, or, you decide you really enjoy withdrawal and you want to make it last forever. As long as neither of these options appeal to you - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

The second thing is Midwakh. It is a very concentrated form of tobacco that is popular in the United Arab Emirates. You can think of it as "tobacco extract" almost. I know alot of Saudis who have quit by switching from cigarettes to smoking midwakh. Basically you smoke it like salvia, killing the bowl at once and holding it in. You get an insane nicotine rush. I'm talking intense. If you don't smoke it can be overpowering. I've smoked it before while drunk and almost passed out it is so intense. After smoking a bowl of midwakh you don't feel any need to have a cigarette for a while. It basically fills your need for nicotine for the next 3-6 hours depending on how addicted you are. By doing this you can deal with the psychological problem of quitting before you have to deal with the physical withdrawal. Once you have no cravings for cigarettes you can then quit smoking midwakh, which is just as hard physically but is much easier psychologicaly as you smoke it out of a pipe only a few times per day. I knew some people who quit tobacco in this way, though somehow I forgot about it over time.


You may want to note that while I refer to smoking midwakh, midwakh is actually the name for the pipe. The tobacco itself is called dokha.

I don't think you can purchase this online in any way. Maybe there is a company in Dubai that would take an order and send it to you though that would take some research and couldn't be discussed here.

Still, just in case anyone here goes to the Middle-East, lives in the Middle-East, or knows someone who goes to the Middle-East. Midwakh is an alternative way to quitting smoking cigarettes than cold turkey and I've seen it used with quite a bit of success.

Now I just need to go back to the U.A.E. for a short visit...

[Forthesevenlakes]

how is swiBaj doin with the quit attempt? swiFTSL is on day 2 or 3. its hard to tell. he's fighting his cravings with liberal amounts of nicotine gum, as well as some dxm and tramadol. yes, he knows that he posted that opiates make him smoke more, but for some reason tramadol affects him in a similar fashion to dxm. he stops craving much of anything (even more opiates), and is content to do whatever the day requires him to do.

its a funny thing though, dxm. swim has been looking, and there are NO studies that have been done looking at its effect on nicotine craving. even subtrip doses (30 mg) seem to kill the psychological craving for swim.

obviously with all the dxm side effects, its not a long-term solution, but maybe something to keep in mind when the cravings get particularly bad.

but the taking it a day at a time thing, thats really the truth. it gets too daunting when swim tries to picture a year from now having not smoked.

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by forthesevenlakes

how is swiBaj doin with the quit attempt? swiFTSL is on day 2 or 3. its hard to tell. he's fighting his cravings with liberal amounts of nicotine gum, as well as some dxm and tramadol. yes, he knows that he posted that opiates make him smoke more, but for some reason tramadol affects him in a similar fashion to dxm. he stops craving much of anything (even more opiates), and is content to do whatever the day requires him to do.

I'm struggling but am still committed to quitting. I just need to psychologically prepare myself for the final departure. I've tried quitting times before but this upcoming one feels different. I don't feel any regrets going into it.

Once I move away from here back to where I was living before I will try to leave the smoking behind. That helps alot (changing locations) and since I know lots of people where I'm going it will help me not want to start again (usually I start smoking again to meet people).

You may want to check out www.whyquit.com . Its quite biased of course, but then again it is from a guy who runs quit smoking clinics. The information is fairly good if not excessively reiterated and there are some interesting tidbits. It definitely seems like cold turkey is the way to go so if swiFTSL can get rid of the nicotine gum he may be able to shorten withdrawal symptoms.

As for withdrawal symptoms, I find that the most intense effects only last a few days and then begin to taper off. After that comes the really hard part (in my opinion), psychological cravings.

Originally Posted by forthesevenlakes

its a funny thing though, dxm. swim has been looking, and there are NO studies that have been done looking at its effect on nicotine craving. even subtrip doses (30 mg) seem to kill the psychological craving for swim.

obviously with all the dxm side effects, its not a long-term solution, but maybe something to keep in mind when the cravings get particularly bad.

Actually thats interesting, I think I saw an article on DXM's ability to help people fight certain types of addiction, particularly meth. I think nicotine was mentioned as well. I'll search again and if I find something I'll upload it and post the link here. Thanks for reminding me.

[Forthesevenlakes]

by all means, post that link if swiy can find it. dxm seems to have potential with combatting cravings for alot of more "body high" drugs...amphetamines, nicotine, alcohol, opiates, etc.

oddly enough swim doesnt really get physical withdrawal symptoms with nicotine. he certainly doesnt nic fit or go crazy if he hasnt had his nicotine fix. he just psychologically craves them. but swiBaj is right, the sooner off the gum, the better!

[Bajeda]

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/loc...d=929&catid=50

Apparently DXM does help with problems of addiction. Not enough info at the moment to really do anything with though.

There were some other articles but they were very technical so I didn't do anything with them. I'll do some research and look at them again and see if they have anything more to say on the matter.

[Forthesevenlakes]

hm, if swiy gets the chance, and the articles have at least abstracts online, could he send the links swim's way? he reads alot of articles so he might have a shot at deciphering them.

[IHrtHalucingens]

After ~2 years of smoking consistantly and 4 years periodically SWIM has finally quit smoking cigarettes. He have tried plenty of times before but never had any success until he was put on probation and had to stop smoking pot. It has been just about a month now with no pot and no cigarettes. SWIM bought a pack for his shroom trip because he thought he would want some but at no time did he have the urge to smoke. He has broken his routine of smoking pot and smoking a cigarette right after, which is how he started, and the rest followed. He has no desire to smoke a cigarette at all and even the thought of them is kind of repulsive to him now. SWIM is very glad to have rid himself of the habit and is optomistic about his nicotine free future.

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by forthesevenlakes

hm, if swiy gets the chance, and the articles have at least abstracts online, could he send the links swim's way? he reads alot of articles so he might have a shot at deciphering them.

yeah, Ill post some abstracts sometime tomorrow when I get the chance and I get try and get the full pdfs if people want them.

[Nicaine]

Originally Posted by Bajeda

I just wanted to know what the good people of this forum think about quitting tobacco and if they had any particularly good suggestions/advice/experience with regards to quitting that could help my (or others) situation.

IMO you will have to be at a point where you're willing to draw a mental line that you will not cross. That means a serious decision, somewhere along the lines of somebody who has to decide whether to have their legs amputated to stop the spread of some disease.

To aid in making such a choice, it can help a lot to find a bunch of pics of cancer on the Net and articles about what tobacco can do to you. Do you or do you not want to hear the words "you have lung cancer, and we give you three to five months" from your doctor? It has to sink in that it happens to thousands of people daily and it could happen to you too.

Get some support as well, even if it's just an Internet forum devoted to quitting nicotine. Educate yourself on the specifics of quitting nicotine (whyquit.com has some useful info). The first couple weeks are "easy" though, it's after this that's the tough part (as you likely already know).

[Snowman]

If you try something other than cold turkey you are doomed to fail, if you want to inhale drugs you have to do it pure otherwise you are doomed to fail, a vaporizer might help here. Your will to never again inhale tobacco needs to be just as strong as your will to inhale oxygen, otherwise again you are doomed to fail.

[shiznat]

swim smokes about a half pack a day.swim doesnt inhale deep though just lightly.swim tries to stay aware of this.lung capacity and endurance arent as good as say a long distance runner but still is able to hike,climb and exert physically fairly well.quitting it seems is more of a politically correct thing nowdays.swim enjoys a good smoke as did the american indians and many cultures throughout history.if a person wants to quit because of health reasons then try the patch.smoking though is like anything else.if done in moderation a person can smoke and stay healthy into their 90's.its combinations of alcohol and smoking or any other habit that stresses the immune system that causes harm.some are more prone to get cancer or other diseases simply because of genetics.a good exersize program and gradually reducing nicotine intake can make any swim a winner.if a person is sick of paying 5 bucks a pack to the legal drug dealers then work out,eat right and go on the patch...shiz...ps.smoking had been medically linked to localized pustular psoriasis.a condition that causes small fluid filled blisters to appear on the palms and feet.these dry to form brown spots about the size of freckels that then peel off in silvery flakes.its an adverse reaction to nicotine that causes this.psoriasis can evolve into worse forms.localized pustular psoriatic arthritis will denude bone and joints.um think that might be a reason ta quit...shiz..

[shiznat]

the info on psoratic arthriths is true.once the blisters appear they can be treated with steroids.the arthritis sets in once the nails become involved.ridged,pocked and discolored nails along with the blisters means get to a dermatologist quick! they can prevent joint and bone damage with meds.smoking is definitivly linked to this disorder so keep that in mind.psoriasis is an immune system disfunction so eating right and exersizing will keep it in check.the next step that can evolve is generalized pustular psoriasis.this is very rare thank god.it involves the whole body being covered in puss filled blisters and can kill..shiz..nicotine the other white meat........