Well, here I go again. Trying to quit smoking. Been at it 35 years now. Longest I ever managed was 3 months. Felt terrible. :-)
Anyway, this time I'm not doing the "cold turkey". I've got myself one of those "inhalators" it's a little plastic imitation ciggy into which you put a capsule and suck on it.
Third day...
Seems quite good, haven't wanted to kill anyone yet.
Anyone else tried them?
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No - I had the willpower to stop and stayed stopped.
Those plastic things make you look like a complete div.
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I may have to revise part of my above statement just for you !
:-)
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An inhalor. No, I have not tried them. Try telling yourself "The very next one will kill me". If you pick one up, say it out loud - "This cigarette will kill me". Believe it, and think of all that you have to lose.
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Thanks FT. I'll try that. In the past, I've always kept an unopened pack as a sort of security blanket. I know that sounds daft but some smokers will understand what I mean. This time though, I've not got any stashed away. Just my little placcy job. So far so good...
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Thanks Stu, although it's not luck I need, there's only one person in control of this process and I think it's time ( this time ! ) Don't care if I do look like a div for a few weeks if it helps to get me where I want to be...
:-)
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i quit when they went to £2 a packet about 20 years ago
threw the packet away i had in my pocket
never looked back
you just need the will
one of the best reasons apart from not killing yourself is you can taste things again after a few weeks like you never while previously sticking some leaves in your mouth and setting fire to couldnt
oh and as zero says those sticks are for wonkers and women
;-)
bon apetite..............
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>In the past, I've always kept an unopened pack as a sort of security blanket
thats not a security blanket, its an excuse to fail. If you havent got any you cant smoke them, and that means going to the newsagent or pub and admitting being a failure.
There is only one way to stop, and that is you really have to want to.
I was a 30 a day man for 35 years.
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Ta BB. I'm already trying to work out what my £6.29 per day saving will be spent on in a year's time....
:-)
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£2k a year will buy something very nice !
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More like £2400 once the 20% VAT kicks in. Flippin' 'eck...
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I found giving them up relatively easy - I just didn't buy any more. At £6.29 a packet
it shouldn't be too difficult.
£6.29 - strewth!
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I study medicine see, + illness/wellness, pills potions, complimentary/alternative meds.
Have done for nigh on 10 years now.
Knew years ago that smokers were *less* likely to suffer from certain diseases, such as ulcerative colitis.
My ole brother gave up the weed a couple of years ago after a lifetime puffing roll ups (golden virgins)
He contracted ulcerative colitis (nasty, nasty, nasty dis-ease)
Treated by quacks with anti-inflamms etc (no relief)
I decided, being he was suffereing sooooooooo much, to advise him to have a few (5) cigs per day.
He is OK now.
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I did read many moons ago of a doctor who prescribed several cigarettes a day for one of his patients, but I can't remember what ailment is was supposed to treat.
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...Third day...
I thought one or two of your posts over the weekend were a bit tetchy.
When I quit I banged a bit of weight on, so my advice would be to make yourself even more miserable by eating at least as carefully as you do now.
In your favour is you are not averse to some exercise.
Against you is the time of the year, although I understand some of you keen mountain bikers don't worry too much about a bit of wind, rain, cold, ice, snow....
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"When I quit I banged a bit of weight on"
Diabetes or emphysema. Choices, choices...
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...Diabetes or emphysema. Choices, choices...
Many a true word said by a man in cowboy boots.
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I was a 40 a day confirmed addict, and spending every penny I earned. In desperation I had three sessions (at weekly intervals) with a hypnotherapist. At the end of the first session he said that I could carry on smoking but I would no longer light a cigarette purely out of habit. At the end of the second session he said that I was now a non-smoker and would have no desire to smoke. At that point I thought I'd wasted my money but he was right. At the end of the third session he said that I was now someone who had never smoked.
I have no hesitation in recommending hypnotherapy. It works by the fact that a hypnotherapist can put thoughts into your subconcious mind, but you can't.
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Thanks L'es. I'll see how I get on with my little dummy first but I might give the hypnotherapy a go if I'm struggling. Remarkably enough, 72 hours in, I feel fine so far. Quite smugly so in fact but we'll see...
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That advert with the fat oozing out of the arteries showing you what smoking doing to your insides is quite a nice image to think of when you feel like a cigarette. I don't think smokers really want to give up and don't really believe it will kill them which is why they're so weak willed at quitting.
Also try and imagine a cigarette is a dried up cat turd. Don't think you'll want that in your mouth :)
I've never understood why anyone wants to set fire to dried leaves inches from their own face. Beats me totally.
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Oh for heaven's sake. Don't listen to these born-again non-smokers, or anti-smokers who have never smoked. Their tooth-gnashing idiocies make them sound like fundamentalist Muslim clerics recommending limb-lopping and stoning for things that aren't even crimes.
Good luck though Humph. It can be quite difficult as some of us know. The best aids in my experience are nicotine chewing gum and snuff. Neither is ideal though. Zyban worked too, but only for a couple of weeks.
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"I've never understood why anyone wants to set fire to dried leaves inches from their own face. Beats me totally."
I've never understood why anyone would want to shovel burgers, chips, cakes, saturated fats, fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolate into their enormous cake-holes and then wobble around the streets where I have to look at them.
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Think you will find not all non-smokers are fat, junk food guzzling hippos. Infact, a walk down the high street shows many of the aforementioned hippos smoking :-) maybe one is supposed to cancel the other out if it really does ruduce appetite...
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...I've never understood why anyone would want to shovel burgers, chips, cakes, saturated fats, fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolate into their enormous cake-holes and then wobble around the streets where I have to look at them...
BBD,
All that statement demonstrates is your lack of understanding.
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"All that statement demonstrates is your lack of understanding."
Sorry, I'm certainly not trying to offend members who can't keep their hands out of the biscuit tin.
I'm merely saying, in very general terms, that before anyone starts ranting about how obnoxious and harmful it is to smoke, just have a quick squeeze of your waistline and wonder whether there isn't something unhealthy you should be cutting down on yourself. And if so, how easy do you think it would be to give it up?
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My mum gave up 17 years ago with patches. To this day she says just one would be a slippery slope. Im glad ive never smoked in my life. One of my more notable acheivements!
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I think that part of my trouble is that while smoking may well have already affected my health in some way, it has not yet manifested itself in any way I can measure. I've always been pretty active and otherwise fairly fit. I've also enjoyed almost every cigarette I've ever had. Not justifying anything here you understand. Quite the contrary.
As for not understanding the attraction. I guess the same could be said for alcohol or any other drug really. The thing is, they are all pleasureable to some of their users. That's why they use them.
Anyway, not arguing the rights or wrongs at all. Just feel ready to not smoke any more.
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>> I think that part of my trouble is that while smoking may well have already
>> affected my health in some way, it has not yet manifested itself in any way
>> I can measure.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that 26 years after giving up the chance of you getting lung cancer is no greater than for someone who has never smoked. Fortunately it's now 30 years since I gave up. I'm not being smug, just thankful.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Mon 22 Nov 10 at 15:05
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>> I don't think smokers really want to give up and don't really believe
>> it will kill them which is why they're so weak willed at quitting.
>>
>> Also try and imagine a cigarette is a dried up cat turd. Don't think you'll
>> want that in your mouth :)
>>
>> I've never understood why anyone wants to set fire to dried leaves inches from their
>> own face. Beats me totally.
>>
It's clear to me that you've never smoked, or at least not for long enough to become addicted. I started smoking in the days when it was "cool" to smoke. All the big film stars smoked. Nobody said it was harmful. Filter tips barely existed. Cigarettes like Capstan Full Strength would probably now be banned. You can't explain an addiction to someone who has never been addicted. You can't explain withdrawal symptoms which would all but make you kill to get another cigarette.
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I smoked for many years, 20 years ago I had a pulmonary embolism after surgery. It nearly killed me, and made me realise how important lungs are. I have not touched a cigarette since.
I would not recommend it as a way of stopping, but you get the drift.
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>> You can't explain withdrawal symptoms ...
I have previously tried to rationalise withdrawal synptoms. "Know thine enemy" and all that. Clearly, in the case of an addict the brain thinks it needs the drug. The feelings of deprivation can only be likened to those of extreme thirst or hunger until the mind is re-trained.
For anyone who has never experienced withdrawal symptoms try to imagine that you have not had anything to eat or drink for days, perhaps weeks. You are outrageously thirsty or hungry. You feel weak, disoriented and frankly ill. You know that food and drink is available. It's all around you and you are allowed to buy it but you are forcing yourself not to. That's pretty much how it feels.
But....I'm doing fine for now !
:-)
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Caffeine withdrawl is pretty horrid, i usually feel ill for 3-4 days if I just cut it out, blinding headaches and looking longingly at coffee jars and coke cans. Its weird the draw to just have one ( which always leads to rather more than one ), so I can certainly sympathise, although Im sure smoking is much worse.
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Good luck with it Humph, although I don't fit the full description BBD gave, I know I eat too much and I know I eat too much of the wrong thing.
I am surrounded by healthy eating advice, I witness every day people who may wish they had lived different aspects of their lives differently and now its too late for them, but I still do not have the will power to change my eating habits.
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This is what I don't understand about you Humph. You're into mountain biking right? Somehow I can't imagine you hurtling down a forest track with all the bright gear on and a fag hanging out of your mouth. It does not compute.
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>> It does not compute.
Heh heh. I wonder if he's ever tried smoking while riding a bike. No one who has ever tries it again, just as no one who has once done it will cycle up a steep hill close behind a large diesel vehicle. I know what I'm talking about here because I have tried it.
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On the contrary AC. I'm ashamed to admit that I have indeed smoked while on my bike. As you say, it's not recommended ! I've smoked while skiing too. come to think of it, I've smoked while doing most things at one time or another. Not good really.
Corax, the thing is, I don't excercise to keep fit, never have done. I excercise because I enjoy it. Odd I know !
:-)
Anyway, still fine....
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I can never work out how I used to work ioth a fag dangling from my lip.
One eye screwed up to prevent the smoke getting in it.
Like Humph there is NOTHING I haven't done with a fag in my gob.
Yes including that.
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>> Yes including that.
Did that need willpower too Zero? Just checking.
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"Yes including that."
Lucky you didn't set fire to the magazine.
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...Lucky you didn't set fire to the magazine...
H&E?
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So to the ones who have successfully given up, how did you do it and what prompted you?
Everyone knows its bad for you, did you go through the stage of "well I won't be dictated to" first? Did something happen to a friend or relative that prompted it? Or maybe a visit to the doctor with an unrelated scare?
We are often told, you need to want to do it or it won't work. While you smoke, you know its bad for you but you still do it. I have one friend who just woke up one morning and decided no more. Now it may well be he had planned it all along but he managed to stick it out.
My mum and dad gave up in their 30s and put the money saved away until my dad could buy some decent photography equipment and set himself up with a casual job.
When I was 19, one of my friends died of cancer, her closest friends smoked then and that wasn't enough to make them give up.
One of my friends has a part time job and her hubby is a close to 60 a day smoker. She was shocked when I said that if he gave up fags, she could give up working and they would not be any worse off financially!
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>> So to the ones who have successfully given up, how did you do it and
>> what prompted you?
>>
See my 14:58 post above.
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My father who had been a very heavy smoker all his adult life died when he was 60 from heart/lung failure. His heart had became enlarged through working harder and harder trying to keep his damaged lungs working till it had grown to the point where it couldn't pump poperly as it was pressing against his rib cage etc. This in turn caused his lungs to start filling with fluid which meant for the last 2 years of his life he was unable to lay down and had to sleep in a chair. He spent his last few months in hospital where they inserted drain tubes into his lungs, and the fluid which was coming out was like liquid tar, it was the most disgusting sight i have ever seen. When the end did come it was pretty horrific.
I had given up smoking cigarettes about 10 years earlier when i was 27, but had still smoked the occaisional cigar, but having seen him literally "drown" i even knocked them on the head.
Last edited by: AndyP on Mon 22 Nov 10 at 20:35
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>> When the end did come
>> it was pretty horrific.
That's shocking AndyP. It always amazes me how long the human body can put up with that kind of abuse before giving up. It's incredible really.
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As a sixty + a day addict ,started in 1948 when in National Service in RAF, who gave up smoking more times than I can recall, the problems that you encounter in normal existence crop up and it was too easy to find the good intentions burning to ashes at some time of crisis. I succeeded in quitting for good by catching pneumonia which turned to pleurisy. In bed either at home or in hospital for six weeks. Medico said as he discharged me "Give it up"
The long break took me through the worst stages of withdrawal and I have not smoked since.
I try my very best to support anyone giving up smoking. Its just necessary to extoll the benefits of not smoking which unfortunately do take some time to appear. The sense of smell and taste do return and its when they do and you can detect smoke at 50 paces or heaven forbid a smoker sitting within range of your nostrils,you realise how vile you smelt to other people when you were a smoker.
Humph was 1962 when i gave up. Even now a whiff of smoke triggers a long repressed desire which I cannot give way to as I am sure I would be hooked again.
All the best with your endeavours
Phil I
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Phil l, that is so true.
Smoke at 50 paces, certainly.
Thing is when your smoking you do not smell it.
Actually you cant really smell or taste anything when you smoke.
For me the only downside to giving up is the smell of changing a babies nappy (never smelt it when I was smoking). urgh
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Mon 22 Nov 10 at 22:34
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My father died of lung cancer when I was 30, he was 50 and a smoker.
I had been smoking for 15 years by then. Did I stop? Nope, I just carried on, 30 a day as per normal.
Then I decided, one day 20 years later, I wanted to give it up. So I did. There and then.
I am glad I did, the only place i really got a craving was down the pub with a pint.
You cant do that now, so its not a problem. I see them all huddling outside in the cold and rain, and I think. Mugs!
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My wife gave up smoking just before she met me, 10 years ago. She'd smoked for 10 years and just decided to stop. She admits to still having cravings but these days hates the smell. Her parents are visiting at the moment and her Dad still smokes, which involves him going into the garden and lighting up in the middle of the gale force winds we're experiencing at the moment. He comes back in looking bemused and weather beaten.
I do actually smoke periodically. Sometimes, on a nice Summer day, I'll stop the car at a service area buy a pack of Marlboro Lights (5 Euros here), light up and sit in the sun smoking and meditating about the world. Then I'll light up a second one, feel mildly sick and throw the rest of the pack in the bin. I've no idea how anyone can get addicted to it, but they have my deepest sympathy.
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Haven't read any of the posts except No.1
My Dad gave up in about 1985 aged 57 ish and stopped overnight. I would have bet my everything that he couldn't have done it, but he did. I have never smoked and I hate it with a passion, but I admire, if that is the right word, anyone who can get over an addiction like that.
M.
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>>
>> I do actually smoke periodically.
Me too. Used to get through 30 Marlborough a day when I was tussling with the ancient computers of 35 years ago ; everyone smoked everywhere then. Mrs H and I stopped when she was expecting our first but I enjoy the odd cigar or roll-up and always have a couple on National No-smoking Day. I guess I'm lucky enough not to have an addictive personality. It's splendid to have a smoke and a pint outside on a warm summer evening.
When I go for my annual checkup the nurse insists that I am a smoker but then marks the box that says I've stopped.
I wish Humph the strength of purpose he needs to get through the challenge.
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>>but I enjoy the odd cigar or roll-up and always have a couple on (((National No-smoking Day))). I guess I'm lucky enough not to have an addictive personality. It's splendid to have a smoke and a pint outside on a warm summer evening.
Well done you! - a few roll ups now and again won't do you any harm, its the addiction that does the damage, as in - waking up in the morning and stuffing a gasper in your mouth before even having breakfast.
I gave up 20 years ago, I simply said to myself "who's the guv'nor here, me or Nico Tene?
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>>
>> I am glad I did, the only place i really got a craving was down
>> the pub with a pint.
>>
I still smoke (roll-ups with filters) and I can understand that. The smoking ban in pubs has saved me a lot of money, though..... I buy bottled beer and smoke at home!
Tried quitting years ago, I simply
a) Don't have the willpower.
b) Enjoy a smoke.
c) Don't see the advantage in being ninety, healthy in body but blighted by Alzheimers.
d) Enjoy irritating health nazis and born-again non-smokers.
Since my lifestyle tends to take in motorcycle rallies where I can smoke to my heart's content (so long as it's outside the bar) and my job entails being outside when I'm not driving the truck, it's not too much of a handicap.
I do tend to restrict my smoking at home to one room though, as Mrs. H does not indulge.
Oddly enough i detest the smell of tailor-made cigarettes, but I don't mind roll-ups. I suspect it's the saltpetre in the tailor-mades, that BTW is what keeps them alight. And I have no time for diners who smoke between courses.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Mon 22 Nov 10 at 21:37
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I often wonder how folk who don't smoke cope with a partner who does. Replied to your message 'H', but not pointed at you.
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I should try something similar with Kebabs yet Boots don't sell Kebab patches yet.!!
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Tee Hee - they'd make a fortune out of them !
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>> I suspect it's the saltpetre in the tailor-mades, that BTW is what keeps them alight. And I have no time for diners who smoke between courses.
Saltpetre is a myth Harleyman. Burning rate is adjusted by altering tobacco density and moisture content. Nothing can be added to tobacco in British factories except moisture and tiny amounts of certain named flavourings (basically industrial rum) for some brands. It may well be different abroad though - chocolate can be used as a flavouring in the US for example - and so much snout is illegally smuggled from Camorra-owned factories in the Philippines or China that will forge any brand, not very well, to order that you never really know what you're getting.
I used to agree with you about the inter-course cigarette (where's Zero when you want to spy on him rutting in an alley?) until I noticed the trendy French starting to smoke over the dinner table about thirty years ago. Then I started doing it myself for a while. But I don't really mind that it's now so frowned on. It's a bit gross (like smoking at all really).
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>
>> Saltpetre is a myth Harleyman. Burning rate is adjusted by altering tobacco density and moisture
>> content. Nothing can be added to tobacco in British factories except moisture and tiny amounts
>> of certain named flavourings (basically industrial rum) for some brands.
I bow to your expertise, thank you.
Just as an aside; my chosen poison is "Drum"; at one time the most popular rolling tobacco in the UK although it is only in recent years that it's become "legally" available here, but the "legal" stuff isn't a patch on the same brand of tobacco available in Europe. Do you happen to know if that is because of the said legal restrictions, or is it just that the manufacturers think that, as in many other things, the British can be fobbed off with any old cheap crap that happens to be available?
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>>Just as an aside; my chosen poison is "Drum"; at one time the most popular rolling tobacco in the UK<<
Have you tried this Harleyman ~ www.mystery-mountain.co.uk/default.php?cPath=3
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You can't win... not you personally, just a statement on things in general.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2535353.stm
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>>You can't win... not you personally, just a statement on things in general<<
Well - knock me down with a wet Woodbine, that just about does it for me,
I think I'll go out tomorrow and buy 1/2 oz of Special Nosegay and 2 bottles of Jack Daniels, out of spite.
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>> the British can be fobbed off with any old cheap crap that happens to be available?
I wouldn't say that, no. And I didn't think of saying that pipe tobacco, not to mention plug and twist (sailors' sort of stuff for smoking or chewing) had quite a lot of flavouring in it.
But I am afraid the tobacco market may have shrunk dramatically in all sorts of ways since my time, which ended in 1971 or 2. It still had a traditional side then not just in the absurd attitudes to be met with in the boardroom and elsewhere upstairs, but in the market too.
I notice that there is a plan to sell cigarettes in plain white boxes with health warnings on them, ostensibly to stop children from being attracted by the 'colourful packaging'. I happen to know though that the dwindling band of addicted punters will complain about the product if it doesn't come in the right design of box. You don't have to take my word for it. Wait and see.
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>> a) Don't have the willpower.
Persevere.
>> b) Enjoy a smoke.
I used to.
>> c) Don't see the advantage in being ninety, healthy in body but blighted by Alzheimers.
But then again I didn't see the point in being healthy in mind but having disabling or fatal cardiovascular disease of some sort, or dying slowly from emphysema or some horrible cancer or the other.
>> d) Enjoy irritating health nazis and born-again non-smokers.
I used to smoke. It doesn't bother me if you smoke, or smoke near me. It's up to you.
>> Oddly enough i detest the smell of tailor-made cigarettes, but I don't mind roll-ups.
I suspect it's the additives in "tailor mades". However, there are likely to be additives in folding baccy, or pipe tobacco, and in cigars. Snuff, too.
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>> So to the ones who have successfully given up, how did you do it and
>> what prompted you?
See my post 22nd November timed at 14:48. I was prompted to do it when I found I was just about spending more than I earned. I needed to make a regular reduction in expenditure, and the one thing which stood out was how much I was spending on cigarettes. I was buying a pack of 200 every Friday and 4 packets of 20 during the week.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Tue 23 Nov 10 at 07:26
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>> So to the ones who have successfully given up, how did you do it and
>> what prompted you?
>>
What prompted me was my then 9 year old son and my now Mrs gmac.
I was a three pack a day man then I moved back to the UK just as the price went over £5 a pack.
I tried the patches, they didn't work for me, I found I was smoking three packs of cigs and wearing the patches at the same time.
I went for the kill or cure approach. The day before I gave up, went out and smoked my usual 3 packs, then 2 more packs then a pack of Hamlet cigars. That, combined with a day in the pub watching football, made sure I didn't want another to touch my lips for about three days during which I switched my drinks.
No more coffee in the morning and went from Guinness to lager to break the association.
That was August 2003.
I went through a phase of having the odd cigar on holiday over the following couple of years, I don't even do that now.
For me you either want to give up or you don't.
Whatever works for you Humph, Good Luck !
Last edited by: gmac on Tue 23 Nov 10 at 12:22
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Patches are what did it for me, about 20 years ago - can say that I have not seriously missed'em since
Best of British !
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Giving up smoking must be easy, I've done it myself many times.
Very droll, but I haven't smoked now for a few years.
While plenty of people fail several times, there are lots of people who finally succeed.
Those who do manage to quit are ordinary weak-willed individuals like ourselves.
They are not supermen, so if they can do it, so can you.
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"No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare." Kingsley Amis
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My GP once told me he could keep me alive indefinitely, but I wouldn't enjoy it.
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Look out, look out, there's a Humph D a'Bout ... or not in this case,
Probably nipped out for some Harry Wraggs.
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>> Look out, look out, there's a Humph D a'Bout ... or not in this case,
>>
>> Probably nipped out for some Harry Wraggs.
Yeah, he's got no chance, the willpower of a tin of birds custard.
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...Yeah, he's got no chance, the willpower of a tin of birds custard...
I'm quite partial to Ambrosia ready-made Devon custard.
Six of the yoghurt-pot size for £2 at Asda today.
Bargain.
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>>...Yeah, he's got no chance, the willpower of a tin of birds custard...
He will no doubt be working out in the gym to take his mind off the evil weed.
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>> "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a
>> geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare." Kingsley Amis
>>
My sentiments entirely.
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Weston-super-Mare isn't that bad.
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the pier quit smoking
eventually
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..Weston-super-Mare isn't that bad...
True, and no pleasure is worth dying an early, lingering, painful death for.
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>>True, and no pleasure is worth dying an early, lingering, painful death for.
Quite so. Nearly everyone I know has kicked the habit, but we were all smokers years ago.
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get free help and support here
smokefree.nhs.uk/
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Humph's not looked in so far today, according to his profile.
Come on mate, we're thinking of you.
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He's fallen off the wagon, and gone and bought a packet of Marlboro. Now he is too ashamed to face us.
Told you - he has the will power of a packet of birds custard
or was it ambrosia creamed rice?
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I'm fine ! No problems. Anyway, what's it to you ?
:-)
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>> I'm fine ! No problems. Anyway, what's it to you ?
See? Tetchy, very Tetchy.
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It's another long session in the gym, I'd say.
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He'll only be techy for a year or so, unless he falls off the wagon or gets advise he can't refuse.
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Not tetchy at all ! Who's tetchy ? Nothing to be tetchy about ! Easy this malarky, don't know what all the fuss is about...( oh and you know where you can shove your custard by the way ! )
:-)
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Quitting for good this time? - Hope so... - Zero
