Giving up smoking cigarettes

[Jargo]

Well, after roughly 17 years as a smoker I finally found a way to start quitting the disgusting habit. Both my partner and I smoke but it's got too expensive and our health has been suffering lately. So we decided enough was enough and set about making a plan to quit. Just giving up cold didn't work at all and neither did the patches or the gum. So we decided to wean ourselves off the dreaded cancer sticks.

We have a weekly sheet of boxes that we have to check every time we have a cigarette and write down the times we smoked them. We allowed ourselves a fortnight to drop down by one cigarette. next fortnight we drop down by another and so on. We've gone from 15 a day to seven already and so far I'm ok on the withdrawal symptoms, but it's getting tougher.

It might not seem like we're heavy smokers but doctors say even three a day is heavy. It takes three months to get the toxins out of your system and three years to get the craving out.

So far since we started the plan I've only weakened twice and gone over the daily alloted amount. I felt real guilt for it and it strengthened my resolve to do better. Might sound silly but this is really hard. 17 years is a long time to be a smoker, my partner has been a smoker for 31 years. It's not a habit after that long it's a life thing. I get up and have a ciggie for breakfast, I can't go to bed without first having a ciggie. Every time I eat or stop doing anything I get strong cravings to reach for the packet. tough tough tough. I hope to have cracked this by the fall ready for a smoke free xmas.
I'm also looking forward to a nicotine free house and clothes. Everything smells bad when you smoke. Food tastes like poo. People stand a few feet away from you because you smell. There's a need to slope off for a crafty ciggie every so often and not having a ciggie makes you cranky and bad tempered. The worst thing for me is that without cigarettes I get violent rages and violent with things and people. This drug has taken hold of my life and I don't want it any more. I'd like to be able to breath again, smell things again, be clean again.

As I progress and drop more cigarettes from my day I'm likely to get really grumpy and I wanted to take this opportunity to say that if I say anything sarcastic to people, I don't really mean it. I'll try to stay away from here if I get grumpy but there may be the odd post that flares up like Oscar the grouch. Please don't take anything I say personally. Just having a bad day with this quitting will be what it is.

Thanks.
Andy.

[Beast]

Good for you Emporer Jargo. My great great grandmother who raised me, smoked from the time she was 14, up until about 4-5 years ago. She will be celebrating her 83rd birthday this year and is still as healthy as a horse. She's even better after she ditched the cigarette habit. She was smoking around a pack a day or so, up until she quit. Again, I applaud your dedication, and don't worry about being a little crabbier for a while. I don't think we will even notice.

MTFBWY and HH!!

Jar Jar Binks

[QLD]

Good luck! I applaud your efforts!

[Deoxyribonucleic]

Hey Jargo...I saw this post and couldn't help but reply to you! First, although I don't KNOW you, I'm proud of anyone who quits being that I just quit 4 months and exactly 3 weeks ago today! I smoked for about 15 years and quit once 2 years ago for a bit but this time is the real thing! I can give you some advice and of course you will do with it as you please...as you, I LOVE SMOKING...always will and it WAS part of my life...that is the trick...to make it less and less a part of your life. What I did first was use nicotine gum...the unbrand name because it's cheaper and works just the same. I'll tell you it REALLY helped with the cravings which is what gets you in trouble in the first place...we get the cravings and then give into them. I did NOT use it for 3 full months as they say you should, believeing that maybe for some they need it that long but to me, the more I'd use it, the more dependant I'd be on IT. So I used it for about 3 weeks and then during the last week of using it, I interchanged it with regular gum (big red 'cause it's got GREAT flavor hehe) and then after not using the nic gum anymore, I chewed normal gum lots and then discovered sun flower seeds which I must say have been a GOD SEND (still in their shell of course)...they really really really help with the oral fixation that I had with smoking and give me something to do with my mouth and hands. I have been eating a bit more than usual and have gained about 15 pounds but I only weighed 110 anyhoo and am 5' 5.75" so it's not so bad and it was helpful. Just two weeks ago I started exercising, riding bikes etc. (since you can only do one thing at a time ie: quitting smoking) and now I can breath so easy and I feel SO GOOD after exercising. I rarely think of having a ciggie now especially after exercising. Although we are of course different people and have different needs, the addiction to nicotine is the same for all of us and yes I was quite the b**ch for a couple of weeks but that nic gum also helped with that and I also had to deal with my partner still smoking so at least you and your partner are doing it together. I hope this will help in anyway you quitting...just know that you as a person are WAY more powerful than some stupid drug to run your life and after the worst is over, you won't get those heart attacks from "Merde...where are my cigarrettes?" or "Damn, I'm almost out of smokes!" etc. AND what's best...you will have more money for STAR WARS FIGS. That's what I did..I replaced buying a pack of smokes (about $5.25 here in So. California) with buying a star wars figure which turns out to be a good way to build armies Anyhoo, I'll shut up now and I wish you and your partner my absolute best! Again I know that we don't know each other BUT, we already have star wars in common so that's cool so if ever you wanna type/talk please feel free!

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!!!!

[Eternal Padawan]

Congratulations on your increased income, jargo. I have never picked up a cigarette or drank any kind of alcohol, so I'm happy to see when someone gives up the ffff.....ags... Someone once told me if you switch to a disgusting brand that you absolutley loathe the taste, you'll quit in no time...don't know if that's true or not.

Anyway. Cheers. and Good Luck.

[Jargo]

Thanks for the support and advice guys. Deoxyribonucleic,
I tried the gum thing but I started to smoke with it. It really made no difference to me - Unfortunately.

EP, I tried smoking really cheapo Portugese brands with asbestos filters and paper that looks like toilet paper and a tar level of 389.23 or something stupid. gave me a sore throat and a headache but didn't stop the cravings.

I worked out that the worst times are right after food and as I get up and when I go to bed. All's I have to do is to try to stretch the time when I have the first ciggie of the day to meet the middle one, and the last ciggie of the day the opposite direction. The aim is to end up only smoking in the early evening and then to try to cut that out too. but all the while, like musical chairs, I reduce by one cigarette a fortnight.

To try to quell the mouth cravings I started to eat crackers. dry crackers. The more you have to chew something the more you beat the craving aparently. Trouble is the fat content of crackers. Thank god it's summer and I can go on long walks to burn the fat off.

Actually I beat the alcohol a few years back after seeing first hand what that stuff does to people. Lost three family members through alcohol abuse. It gave two heart disease and one sclerosis of the liver. Not nice. I gave up alcohol overnight. Wish in a sense that I'd witnessed lung cancer first hand too. Not in a bad way, I wouldn't wish that kind of pain or suffering on anyone. But if I'd known that experience years ago after I started to smoke I'd have given up straightaway instead of taking years off my life and blackening my own lungs with tar and other disgusting chemicals.

But on the bright side, there is the money saved from not smoking. works out at £816.00 a year for the two of us at our current rate of smoking. that'd be about 1,230 US Dollars. That's a lot of stuff we could have been buying over the years, a lot of vacations we could have had or investments we could have made.
In a way when I look back all I see is opportunities going up in smoke - literally. And I only started to smoke because my best friend wanted me to so we'd look 'cool'...... D'OH!!!

Y'know now I think about it, the reason I came up with this quitting plan is that when my partner and I both smoke together the dog gets up and walks to the back door and nudges it with his nose. Which is his way of saying open the door.
It was the dog saying the house was too smokey for him that made me realise how bad things had got.
A dogs nose is fifty times more sensitive than a human nose. what the hell have I been doing to that poor animal all this time? Poor wee lamb.......

[Hasbro'sBountyHunter]

Tha'sa good approach to a healthy life. Now if I can only convince my pals to so smokin.

[bigbarada]

Good luck, Jargo, we're all rooting for ya!

[LTBasker]

G'luck Jargo, I know how bad smoking can be - my mom's smoked for a long time. It's kinda shocking when you take a picture down that's been hanging up for awhile on a "white wall" and see the shade differences on the wall space behind the picture compared to the surrounding area.

[RAVAZ]

Bravo! Beat the addiction!

I've tried and done many things in my 28 years of experience. I'm happy to say the only thing I ever got addicted to was comics, toys, rock N roll, and my fiance. Life is good!