Smoking

[nocheese4u]

Anyone quit? How did you do it? I have quit alot of stuff already but that monkey is stubborn! I quit before for two years (started back when I got a horrible job). I don't think I could go through that withdrawl for two months again!

[Godless]

I tried and failed several times. I finally quit cold turkey after I returned from my most recent deployment overseas. I took my Army uniform off and suddenly my life got a lot less stressful. No cravings, no withdrawal. It was the weirdest thing.

It seems like your main trigger is the same as mine, stress. My advice would be to either try to reduce the amount of stress in your life (not always possible, I know) or find a different way to cope.

[HEthePrimate]

I've never smoked, but my sister did for a long time. She was never able to quit for her own benefit, but when she got pregnant, she thought of the baby developing inside her, and out of love for the baby, she quit smoking.

My stepmother quit smoking when she converted to the Church. She is convinced that God helped her, that she would not have been able to without his help. She still has a pretty deep voice for a woman, and sometimes sings the tenor part!

Even though I've never smoked, I have had other bad habits to overcome, and yeah, stress is a big contributor to the problem. That, and boredom. So finding harmless ways to deal with stress can help.

Good luck!

[nocheese4u]

I will try to get pregnant! lol I don't know getting rid of boredom seems like a good idea. I have tried. I had a job to kill the time, but I did not exspress a positive enough attitude about wiping off stickers. I really, really want construction season to start. I don't do good sitting at home collecting unemployment! I have been looking for work to kill the time. I did very well on my interview to get in the apprenticeship school here.

[Godless]

Originally Posted by HEthePrimate

I've never smoked, but my sister did for a long time. She was never able to quit for her own benefit, but when she got pregnant, she thought of the baby developing inside her, and out of love for the baby, she quit smoking.

I was in a similar situation. To this day, I don't care about the personal health benefits of quitting. My fiance has asthma, and one of her biggest triggers is cigarette smoke. That was a huge motivation for me, and the aforementioned return from deployment provided ideal circumstances.

[bytor2112]

Easy...I stopped drinking alcohol

[Eowyn]

My nephew just quit by working out every time he had the urge to smoke. Cold turkey!

[Forget-Me-Not]

I quit using nicotine gum. It was very much easier for me than when I quit before cold turkey. I also quit with a quit smoking buddy and we were there for each other constantly encouraging each other. I had almost weaned myself off the gum, too, was down to only a couple pieces a day, and probably could have easily gone to regular gum for a little while at that point, but then had a crisis in my life and began binge smoking. A few days here, a few there, but eventually was back to fully smoking more than twice as much as before I quit. The gum and the patches can be helpful, but you still have the habit of smoking itself to resist and overcome, and using them you're still keeping yourself addicted to nicotine. However, there are worse things about smoking than just the nicotine alone, so you need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of supplemental nicotine. I've read that tapering off to quit is the most effective in the long run, but it takes discipline that I didn't have. Not smoking and using supplemental nicotine worked much better for me. Unfortunately, now I must start all over again.

[FunkyTown]

My Grandpa quit smoking. He smoked for 30 years, then one day he looked at his cigarette, said "I don't think I'm going to smoke any more." and then never did.

[MorningStar]

My aunt quit cold turkey after her stroke. She can't stand to be around cigarettes now. I wonder what makes the difference between those who struggle for years to quit and those who have just had enough? My cousin's wife smoked through her whole pregnancy about every 10 minutes and she said that was "cutting back". I met another woman who had stopped for her whole pregnancy and asked during a class if it was OK to resume smoking after the baby was born. I had to resist the urge to ask her, "Why the heck would you start up again after you already made it through the withdrawals?!"

Our teenage neighbor started smoking even after she watched our other neighbor struggle to get up the stairs every day with her emphysema. She also was in the beginning stages of heart failure and there was nothing she could do to reverse it. I just don't understand why people start smoking these days. It's expensive, it makes you reek, and you might die.