Quitting Tobacco: The Endless Cycle

[TitusCrow]

Originally Posted by BadnessNeeds

Please do not generalize. I smoked almost 2 packs a day for over 20 years. Quit cold turkey. Have not had one single drag for 10 years. From the time I was 13 I was never a foot from a cigarette. It was the first thing I did in the morning, and the very last thing I did before I turned my light out to sleep. We all want to be recognized and respected as unique individuals and our problem-solving skills should reflect that.

There is no such thing as "one size fits all".

I think your getting a bit off topic trying to create a rebuttal for something you have easily misinterpretted.

If you had read it correctly you would see that I said " I doubt the lot of them ", not " I know for a fact that all of them ".

The lot of the people that I know were not able to quit cold turkey, they had much more success in slowly cutting back.

Please understand that this is not a debate, this is an opionated thread.

Good day,

[London_Bloke]

You know what? You might be right here - I might be jumping where frog is uncalled for.

I am in enormous pain from a pinched nerve in my neck and it seems to be affecting my mood in ways that I don't realize until after I've jumped down someone's throat or realized that I misunderstood someone utterly and completely and took offense where none was intended.

Sorry ..........

[The Doors]

Originally Posted by BadnessNeeds

You know what? You might be right here - I might be jumping where frog is uncalled for.

I am in enormous pain from a pinched nerve in my neck and it seems to be affecting my mood in ways that I don't realize until after I've jumped down someone's throat or realized that I misunderstood someone utterly and completely and took offense where none was intended.

Sorry ..........

I thought you were only making a simple statement, I personnly didn't take any offense to it and neither did SWIM.

SWIM has been smoking fr about 2years now, sometimes he smoke 4-5cigarettes a day and then other time he stops for 2weeks. He plans on quitting for the new year, the more he smokes the more pointless it seems to him.

[duncdunc68]

In clinical studies for Zyban as an anti-depressant, 30% of the subject group who were smokers gave up(apparently!).

[MadShroomer]

i successfully quit smoking at age 19 after smokeing 1/2 a pack a day since 15 and i did it thanks to free NIcorette gum. my friend had a whole pack of ORANGE flavor and he said there was a tape with a shrink talking on it saying you have to tell your self that your never going to smoke a nother cigarette again! and that is the key right there. I was down to 4-5 cigaretts a day and was sick and tired of killing my self and not even getting a buzz from it. Have 2 grand parents die of cigarette related illness (cancer and heart failure) and a 3rd to some rare "lung cancer" and he didn't even smoke my grandma did! so i'm giving friends gum and letting them know how to quit
it does work
i was doing 2-3 pieces of gum instead fo 4-5 cigs
plus the gum gives you a 1 hour dose that beats having to repeatedly light one up. DO IT DO IT!

[Forthesevenlakes]

the nicorette gum can really help with the physical cravings for nicotine and giving one something to do with the mouth. however, SWIM found that it is sometimes difficult to taper off the gum, many lab rats he knows did not taper off in the way that is reccomended by the manufacturers, and just ended up chewing nicotine gum indefinitely. so be sure that if one uses nicotine gum or similar replacements, to keep a calendar and note what points that one should cut down on their intake, SWIM thinks that lowering the amount of gum per day weekly or biweekly should do it.

[MadShroomer]

Yes SWIM agrees, SWIM only chewed 3 pieces a day at first and 2 when he ran out and decided that would be the best time to "stop" but SWIM's grandma was addicted to the gum after she quit smoking and SWIM agrees that for heavy users this might be a problem. Make sure you listen to the tape/cd that comes with it with the Psychologist dude telling you whats up. And follow the directions

[Bajeda]

Hello everyone. Drank a couple caipiriñña's (brazillian drink with almost all rum that you can't taste the alcohol at all!) with a number of other drinks so I'm quite out there. Happy New Years!

Had a free cuban cigar at New Years but am out of smoking atm. Its funny, as I forgot how easy it is to not want a cigarette after a few days without one. When drunk its the hardest to avoid one. Still... I have been doing pretty well, and New Years gives just yet another reason to quit. So heres to not smoking after 2006! Keep strong. I feel quite good right now, and don't think I'll start up again after getting back to my normal environment. Good luck to everyone else trying to quit smoking, and keep in mind that things aren't as bad as they seem.

Now off to bed before I'm further tempted!

[MadShroomer]

hope you all made a new year's resolution to stop smoking, my friend and his grandma both are trying that. My friend has nicorette and claims that he will stop once he finishes his carton of marboro reds he got from his mom for christmas. His grandma is apparently going to be taking nicotine pills 10mg each to help her, course she is haven't to have splints put in her arteries because of bad circulation problems as a result of years of smoking....

[grandbaby]

"I am not sure Zyban was available back when I quit, but if it had been, I think I would have gladly accepted any help offered."

Any help offered is big-time. Rock that addiction with everything you've got and anything anyone else will give you.

Me, I fucked up my big quit - made it six weeks and began chipping, kidding myself I coudl have one here and there. Then crashed horribly when thrown into a stressful work situation that threw my sleep cycle way out of whack. Very easy, in those situations, to rationalize.

Went full-on back to smoking for a couple of months. Boy, did they ever fly by! Quit again recently with much success (two on new year's eve my only slips, otherwise tobacco free since Xmas). Not feeling as cockily confident as before; much more fragile about the whole thing; but still good. Taking it one day at a time, and enjoying those moments where you realize you've gone hours and hours without even thinking about a smoke.

Keep strong, my fiends. I mean, friends..

Reputation Comments on this post:

Honesty hurts, and your honesty makes me proud and leads me to believe you will achieve this goal you've set for your se...

[London_Bloke]

Keep it up Grandbaby - you're doing great. I know how hard it is and I also how how a little bit of success gets ya to feeling a little "saucy" and cocky and you forget who's driving the addiction bus. You start thinking YOU are the one driving... and you're not. Your just a passenger being taken for the shittiest kind of sightseeing tour and there's no way to stop it, until you get real and decide that you either are or are NOT one of those lucky people who really can have just one. I know they are out there - even met one or two along the way - but one thing in common they had is that they were never hard-core 2 pack a day smokers. They can have a few with a drink, and that's the way smoking has always been for themn - something to do occasionally when having a beer. But that doesn't describe us, does it?

By acknowledging your fragility, you also realize that it needs your constant protection. That's a good thing to know about yourself. Not everything about us comes from a position of strength and fortitude. We have to accept the limitations of our fragility and use it to our advantage.

Keep going.... you have created another chance for yourself and you're WAY smarter than you were a few weeks back. I'm in your corner, cheering away for you!

[Forthesevenlakes]

Originally Posted by BadnessNeeds

By acknowledging your fragility, you also realize that it needs your constant protection. That's a good think to know about yourself. Not everything about us comes from a position of strength and fortitude. We have to accept the limitations of our fragility and use it to our advantage.

I like the point made here quite a bit. Many times when trying to quit a substance, especially one as ubiquitous and omnipresent as tobacco, it's easy to fall into one of two mindsets. One may begin thinking, "ah, I've been a non-smoker for a couple of weeks, i've definitely proven that I don't need to smoke!" and thus risk testing one's fortitude by having "just one more". Or, one can end up making a half-assed attempt to quit by sometimes going a day or two without smoking, but frequently bumming smokes or buying a pack while thinking, "quitting is so hard to do, but I'm really trying!" SWIM has seen plenty of lab rats fall into either of these two categories.

Badness' paragraph illustrates a happy medium, whereby one acknowledges that its hard to steer clear of tobacco, but that this difficulty reinforces the need to be honest with one's self and ensure that this fragility doesn't necessarily lead to smoking again. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" is the phrase that comes to mind here, and although I don't think Wendell Phillips was thinking about smoking when he said this, I think it applies to quitting cigarettes quite nicely =]

[monkeygone2heaven]

there appear to be 2 extremes of people when it comes to smoking and in my experience quitting techniques differ between them

1) those who quit for a week, maybe even a month and then will start again. these people tend to be the same people who, if they have to be houseguests at their parents' house and can't smoke there, or are hospitalized, will be able to last one night without...
2) those who will break their leg trying to smoke on the roof the night at their parents' and run away from the hospital afterwards because the craving is too much!

me and my dad one of those 2's. my mum and sis are 1's. i quit smoking Jan 4th 2001 (6 years, yeah!!), my father quit 10 years ago. my sister and mum smoke on and off.

did i never smoke in 6 years? you bet i did. i did smoke one. i had another one month later, another in a week. then i had about a pack in one night in a week... in about a month i was back to my 2 packs a day. i quit again, in disgust, after 2 months of that.

i think it's important to realise whether you're one of those people who can have a cig here and there, or whether you are terribly addicted to this stuff. there's all sorts with nicotine. i'm not going to tell anyone what to do after the variety of smokers i have seen.

can tell you what i did: i smoked 2 packs for 12 years and quit cold turkey just one attempt, no nicorette, cutting dow etc. because I'D HAD IT WITH CIGARETTES. if you come to that point, you'll do it.

it was not the amount i smoked which made me a heavy smoker, it was the fact that cigarettes were my priority. i was never without a pack at 3 am looking for an open store. because i would make sure i had spares. i would not visit people who would not let me smoke in their houses, i would not go to places where i coud not smoke... finally, i had enough of being a slave to it!! the 2 month stint back to smoking was not even enjoyable. i felt trapped. it's not worth it for me.

it's entirely possible that we are physiologically different kind of addicts to nicotine since there are different nicotine receptor subtypes and their predominance is genetically determined.

some advice to anyone who thinks they may be a similar smoker to me:

--- QUIT fully, moderation will not work for you. you can't be a casual smoker.
--- BUT quit when you're ready and truly willing. you can't do it for someone else for example.
--- Get help in whichever way helps you but take responsibility.
--- I'd strongly suggest cold turkey, why prolong the pain?

Advice for everyone:
--- REMEMBER 72-96 HOURS AND THE physical NICOTINE ADDICTION IS OVER. YOU CAN LAST THAT LONG. Anyone can last that long. Pretend you're a stubborn bull.
--- After that the psychological part depends on how long you smoked and is no piece of cake. But clean yourself off the nicotine first. One step at a time.
--- For the first 4 days "detox", tell everyone you know to be patient or stay away. Allow yourself to be lazy, bitchy, hungry, ANYTHING. Expect symptoms to decrease over days 3 and 4.
--- 5th morning, feel proud that you went through WITHDRAWAL. Reward yourself with something non-smoking related.
--- From now on, each time you want to smoke remember: It will ruin all the cells which have adapted to a new, nicotine-free life! And they will go back to square ONE. NOT WORTH IT.

There are many additional tips incl. above for dealing with the later stages of quitting. Mine are more of a motivation for the withdrawal. I find the 4 days very empowering personally.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great post, monkey.

[Bajeda]

Well, I haven't been completely without cigarettes for a long period of time yet but I haven't been in the habit of using them for a little while either.

What makes this so great is that I've been back in my usual environment surrounded by my usual friends (smoking and non) and I'm still not relapsing.


I quit smoking for 10 entire days starting December 21st, then came back and had a few cigarettes a week since. This past weekend was a bit of a slip up with alcohol being consumed and I smoked 5-6 or maybe a few more cigarettes, but since coming back from skiing that weekend I haven't had another as of yet. Cigarettes simply taste bad to me now, and unless I'm drunk or something I don't have an urge to smoke them. I said I wasn't going to buy a pack but slipped up this weekend but now am even further committed to not buying one. My friends have bummed me my small amount I've been smokind and are tiring of that (telling some of them i'm quitting and not asking for them helps) so my urge to smoke around them (which was the hardest part) is going down.

I'm not completely free yet, but I feel much better and things seem to be keeping on improving as I further commit myself to this.

Good luck to anyone else who is still on the hard road off of smoking.

[London_Bloke]

Good job, Baj!

[Flimmar]

One of SWIM's friends spent his whole weekend just smoking like a mad and tripping, and all the - help me here, don't know the word - the filters with the remaining tobacco he put in a jar and filled it with water. It was really disgusting to look at, and even worse to smell. He stopped smoking that monday.

[Bajeda]

^^^^^^^

Either "butts" or "roaches" is the word you are looking for, depending on if he smoked store bought cigarettes or hand rolled ones.

[Toma]

The shock that helped me quit tobacco after 5 years of smoking was when I started jogging every morning after a long sedentary period. My body had managed to adapt to smoking about half a pack a day without much complaining, but physical exertion added to that was too much. The first day I tried to run to a local park and back, I realised how much harm the coffin nails (as they are sometimes called around here) had done. After running half a km I was literally suffocating, and at the end I felt my lungs as if they were filled with soot. After going through this, and afterwards every time after intense physical effort, the mere smell of tobacco made me want to puke. My body couldn't tolerate smoking and exercising at the same time, and by choosing the latter I managed to get rid of tobacco. And in the following weeks I was amazed at how much better I felt and how much more energy I had, mental as well as physical.

Weird though, later I found I had been addicted not to nicotine, but to the act of smoking. Even now when sitting in a pub with smokers, I get the urge to light a cigarette -- I reach for it, put it between my lips and when I sense the smell I gross out and put it back in the pack. Whereas in my smoking years I would often go from smoking 10-20 cigarettes a day to taking breaks from a few days to a few months, during which I felt no urge to light up.

The effort has to be intense though -- I've talked to another guy who said he too quit smoking after joining a martial arts club with intense training, but after adapting to the effort after a few months, he resumed the habit.

[Jatelka]

To be honest, SWIJ has been avoiding this thread like the plague (trying not to set herself up for a fall you see)!

However she is delighted (and amazed) to announce that it is now 3 weeks since she last had a cigarette.

She did ask her GP for Bupropion (Zyban) in the end. Side effects wise it hasn't been too bad: Slightly dry mouth, vaguely anxious (but that could also have been physical withdrawal), which settled within 2 weeks.

SWIJ has felt no desire to smoke. None whatsoever. It's really very strange. Something that has been a part of her life for so long and no cravings whatsoever.

OK, so there were the first 72 hours of physical withdrawal, but as others have mentioned (although SWIJ always would have disagreed) they really are relatively mild, dealable with and short-lived: Maybe with her previous attempts she was confusing psychological cravings for physical symptoms?

The desperate craving/yearning/obsessional thinking is completely absent this time. She has even been to the pub, which caused a relapse every previous time! She is due to stop the Zyban within the next week, and she will see what happens then.

For the first time ever she really begins to think that this is (finally) possible: A non-smoker. Maybe she should change her profile details?

[Nicaine]

Originally Posted by Jatelka

She did ask her GP for Bupropion (Zyban) in the end. Side effects wise it hasn't been too bad: Slightly dry mouth, vaguely anxious (but that could also have been physical withdrawal), which settled within 2 weeks.

SWIJ has felt no desire to smoke. None whatsoever. It's really very strange. Something that has been a part of her life for so long and no cravings whatsoever.

OK, so there were the first 72 hours of physical withdrawal, but as others have mentioned (although SWIJ always would have disagreed) they really are relatively mild, dealable with and short-lived: Maybe with her previous attempts she was confusing psychological cravings for physical symptoms?

More likely the bupropion helped a lot. Some people report no (or only minor) benefits, while others are surprised to find themselves spontaneously quitting while taking bupropion for other reasons.

My guess is that SWIY falls more into the latter category, i.e. it took away nearly 100% of the physical symptoms. In SWIM's case, he's somewhere in the middle... he believes it helped moderately, but the first three days still weren't easy. He dropped the bupropion after 10 days or so (which you aren't supposed to do) and things really were no harder afterward.

[London_Bloke]

Yaaaaay Jatelka!!!!

[Bajeda]

Nice job Jatelka! Keep focused and prepare yourself for when you stop the Zyban just in case you get some urges rising up again. You've come this far now it would be a shame to light up again, under whatever circumstances.

Good luck and keep going strong.

[Jatelka]

OK, so it's Day 2 without the Zyban. There is still no craving for cigarettes (which is good).

What is less good is that there doesn't seem to be any craving for anything else either! SWIJ's libido is currently non-existant, which is unusual and rather alarming. Zyban also makes alcohol taste vaguely weird (which may or may not be a good thing). SWIJ just feels rather "blunted".

Another thing she hadn't really considered (although she spends much of her time in LSD reminding peeps of this very fact) is that Bupropion has effects on serotonin, which means that there's no other fun stuff for quite some time too!

She has felt quite anxious for the last 48 hours. Sort of non-specific/free-floating. She is unsure whether this is related to 1) Life Events, 2) No Libido or 3) Stopping the Zyban (which she has done sooner than recommended).

On the upside: SWIJ and her house no longer stink of tobacco smoke! Her skin is clearer! She's finally managed to get rid of her yellow fingers (although the tooth thing will take a little longer). Not to mention the little jar in the kitchen that now has enough in it to finance at least 2 very extravagant pairs of heels (or a couple of bottles of Krug )

Don't get her wrong, she realises she's doing well, she just wishes she felt better generally so she could bask in her new found freedom!

[London_Bloke]

Unfortunately, Zyban/Wellbutrin/Bupropion is in that lovely class of new generation selective catecholamine reuptake inhibitors and works on the dopamine and norepinephrine receptors, so you're taking a hit on all levels. What freaks me out about it is there is a final metabolite that no one know what the half life is. Hmmmm....

But look who I'm telling this to? You know all this stuff.....

[Bajeda]

The important thing now for swiJ is to avoid any temptation to have a cigarette whatsoever, and try to occupy herself with other things that can help relax her (ease her anxiety perhaps) and keep her distracted from the things bothering her that would possibly put the thought of having a cigarette into her head.

Keep strong Jatelka.