Smoking Cessation Thread?
 

Would anyone be interested in this?

I'm not real sure how it would/could work.
-exsmokers could leave tips
-we could drop in for encouragement instead of a puff
-we could post each day of clean breathing

I'm currently in a very drawn out and contaminated quit using Champix and Allen Carr's book.

Please leave your thoughts and I'll mull it over with the other mods if it looks like there's interest.

What worked for me is the patch. Also, I wore a rubber band around my wrist and snapped it whenever I thought about having one. My wrist was swollen but then I focused on that, and not smoking. LOL

i'm interested...i would love to quit smoking...and maybe get hubby to quit (again)...i joined quitnet and put in the info..and i could start saving almost $1600/yr by me quitting (and probably almost double that for hubby).....we need the help...and i dont wanna gain a lot of weight doing it like i have before.
thanks for the offer of a new thread.

Dang! I don't know if I'm ready to take that step yet - just getting rolling with the change in my relationship with food and positively paranoid about anything that might get in the way of the better bod. Been feeling decidedly hypocritical though - posting all over the place about getting healthy but still lighting up :smoking:. Kind of felt like it was my "dirty little secret" - and here you come along a drag it out of me ;)

So, Susan, I clicked the link you posted in the other thread with Mr. Carr's book and skimmed the first few pages. I like the part about "Continue to smoke until you finish the book" :D Has the book been any help/comfort to you? If yes, I may have to go buy my own copy - although I'm honestly surprised MIL hasn't already given it to me.

I guess this means you can count me in :yikes: (she says while secretly hoping the mods will decide this is a weight loss forum not a quit smoking forum :o )

I think that this topic does go hand in hand with weight loss because lots of people do gain weight when quitting smoking. I did and it was one of the reasons - scratch that - excuses I used for pushing my quit out longer than I should have.

It was rough but I am coming up on 4 years quit.

Would be glad to offer tips and support if you decide to do a separate thread - I got lots of support here when I finally decided to toss the cigs.

Good luck Susan and ArmyWife. You just have to take it a day at a time. Eventually it does get better.

And Quitnet is a great site. These stats kept me motivated:
1457 days, 21 hours, 46 minutes and 10 seconds smoke free.

43737 cigarettes not smoked. (yep, 43 THOUSAND cigarettes - betcha didn't think you smoked that much, did yah? :no: )

$10,060.20 and 11 months, 4 days, 2 hours of your life saved.

Love the stats there HAPPY2BEME! ~ I quit 11 years ago this coming August...for me that would be...are you ready for this...

200,750!...yep...at 2.5 packs a day...which meant I did smoke 365,000!....

so sad....ouch!

But even if folks like Yoyo weren't ready yet, they could join the thread at any time, right?
We might positively influence some when we're on page seven!

Above everything, YOU have to be ready to do this yourself. Quitting because someone pushes you into it or guilts you out just doesn't work.

For me, I did alot of research and reading before I actually decided on a quit method and a quit date.

I think it might even help someone like Yoyo who is thinking about it but not quite ready yet - even if it's just from a lurking prospective.

And sometimes we can learn something from someone else's failed attempts. I think there are different kinds of smokers with different personality types - the same thing does not work for everyone.

Congrats on 11 years quit Gary! Isn't it amazing when you add up all the numbers? I think the amount of cigarettes not smoked is far more impressive than the money one can say they saved. Although I do wish I had put that 10grand in a mayonaise jar or something :lol:

Susan - what do you mean by a contaminated quit? What are you struggling with?

I tried to quit Mar 5th. Oh a puff here and cigarette there. I've never stopped for an entire week yet. All in all, I'm pretty happy to have cut back that much but ... it's got to end!

Heya Susan :hug:

it's great to see that you are ready to tackle this! As I said in your other thread a few days ago - quitting smoking was probably the best choice I've made for myself, pretty much exactly 4 years ago. And I used to be a hardcore identity smoker, I couldn't imagine that not smoking would ever be normal for me. Well, it is! It can be done! You can do it! And best of all, you already are familiar with tools and strategies for life style changes - a lot of what works with weight and fitness management can also be applied to smoking cessation.

So - to Susan and others who are struggling - what exactly do you think makes you struggle the most? Is it just the physical craving, or is it more of a mental or emotional problem? Or the habit itself? Sometimes it really helps to isolate these aspects even though of course they go hand in hand...

well i thin for me, i use it as a stress reliever, esp while hubby was deployed for 15 months and i was here managing our life/family (two small kids and a dog)...and it was a excuse to go out side for a break from the stress of always dealing with kids 24/7 and bills and mounting debts..etc. and plus most of our friends/neighbors smoke so it makes me want to smoke more. i honestly tried to quit while he was gone, esp after he was able to quit smoking while in iraq for over two months just before coming home....but i couldnt handle the quiting then, i wasnt ready to do i was doing it for him....so when he saw me at my breaking point of stress with the kids and neighbors and stuff he okay'ed me to go buy a pack...whick led to more packs...and eventually (against his own will since he had worked so very hard), he started back....so now we buy the carton because its much cheaper than individual packs...and since he smokes just over a pack a day and i am usually at a pack or just under the carton doesnt last long....but when you compare buying one pack for $4.30 or a carton (of 10 packs) for only $33.54 - the savings are good, esp with coupons ;) but that's no excuse.....it's getting expensive and i have better uses for that money....and i'm slowly getting to where i dont want to smoke anymore, maybe the wellbutrin xl is slowly kicking in now.

The habit ... without a doubt!
In the car, on the phone, with coffee, at break ....

We are actually (in a perverse way) very fortunate in Canada. There is almost no place to smoke any more. The few folks I hang with who do smoke, don't do so in their homes. I can go a long long time without seeing or smelling a cigarette.

In reality, a lot of my habits have been rearranged for me, over the last few years.

My biggy? I've always been a goody-two-shoes. All along folks are surprised that Susan smokes?!? Even when quitting, I get some kind of odd thrill from sneaking one or two and getting away with it.

BTW ... I'm 24 hours again. :D

I absolutely second what happy2Bme said about different smoker personalities and the importance of reading and learning about different strategies and the physical, mental and emotional roadblocks other smokers had to face!

@ArmyWife:

On the stress relief issue... you may already know that, but what really clicked with me was that the stress relief we feel by smoking a cigarette actually only relieves the stress of nicotine withdrawal - the stress you put on top of all your other stress all the time you're not actively smoking. Nicotine from a cigarette satisfies for about 30 min. (not too sure about the exact numbers here, but really not very long), and after that your body is in withdrawal.

So I realized that whether I smoked a pack a day or two cigarettes a day or not at all - my body would spend a lot of time in withdrawal any of those ways, but with quitting completely, the physical withdrawal will end as soon as all the nicotine has left your body.

Of course, the ritual of it - the smoke break that buys you some time for yourself - is in itself relaxing and stress relieving as well. But what is stopping you from just taking those five minutes anyway, to step outside and take some deep breaths... I called them my "non-smoking breaks" :D. It might feel strange at first - to really just claim that time for yourself rather than for your habit - but then that's what it was about in the first place, right? Time for yourself - time to unwind - time to relax... maybe find a mantra or affirmation or isometric exercise or breathing ritual... whatever seems to work best.

Originally Posted by SusanB:
BTW ... I'm 24 hours again. :D

:carrot: Yay! Way to go! :carrot:

You know, most people say quitting cold turkey is easiest, and I tend to agree, as it at least deals with the physical withdrawal fast and leaves "only" (haha) the habitual and emotional aspects to deal with.

But quitting in stops and starts is not to be discounted either, if cold turkey doesn't work for you. You can think of it as training a muscle that grows stronger as your quitting times grow longer.

Susan, you said that it's definitely habit for you, and I'm sure that's true for many smokers. Certain actions have just become deeply anchored to smoking and thus will give you that reflex of craving a cigarette.

There are several ways of tackling this problem. First of all, awareness is good - see which situations (or emotions) trigger the habit the most. Then, for some situations it might be a good idea to switch them around a bit if possible, at least for some weeks. If you usually drink coffee at a certain time, switch to tea and vice versa. For being on the phone, have a pad and pencil ready and engage in some serious doodling - or move around when you're usually sitting down, and vice versa.

Find stuff for your hands to do - I got back into playing guitar a lot (and testing my newly nonsmoky voice ;)), friends of mine got into knitting... a friend who is into healing gemstones gave me some worry stones - I kept them in my pockets and played with them when I was nervous.

For those situations that you can't or won't change - simply try to live through them full of awareness for the craving and see how this anchoring will decrease every time you live through this situation without smoking. The first few times are tough, but it gets easier. You may find that in later weeks and months, a craving will suddenly crop up, and it's because you find yourself in a situation you haven't "de-anchored" yet - if you quit in winter, it might be the first time you sit on a patio in the warm sun, or at the beach, or with your first iced coffee of the year... while the stuff you do every day have become completely normal non-smoking activities.

I also hear you on the rebel aspect - I was and am "such a nice girl" most of the time. I guess it's just time to find a less self-destructive form of rebelliousness... :D

Argh, that was long... stop me if I'm babbling too much... :^:

I think this is a great idea and just what I was looking for.Getting my mind set for giving up a pack a day habit. My biggest fear is putting on the weight that I have already lost. I have given up before, for about 18months. Using patches,Oh my gosh you guys only pay $4.30 a pack. the packs of 20 over here are $10.20. And that's one heap of $$$$$'s over a year.
I will keep an beady little eye on this thread over the next few days while I slowly cut down and dig those patches from out of my dresser.
thanks