I just wanted to know the best method to use. I quit back in 2000 using the gum, seemed to work back then but not so great now. I'm going to try the lozenges when I wake up tommorow(today?). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ed

 

When I quite the fourth and final time, I cheated. Not cheating by smoking, but cheating by getting around the withdrawal.

I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia & ordered to three days bed-rest on strong medication. I slept through the worst part.

A month later I met the woman who would become my wife. She happens to be allergic to cigarette smoke. By coincidence, she also happens to be a former staff member of the first OHSU Lung Health Study. She's a PhD Psychologist with specialty in Health Psychology, and they had hired her to aid in smoking cessation for persons with extremely bad lung health. Granted, the people where highly motivated to quit, but her patients had an 80%+ success rate at quitting for good.

She says the cycles run in three's. First one is three hours. Gotta have a smoke after three hours! Next one is three days. Gonna kill someone if I don't get a smoke after three days!. Then there's three weeks, then three months. Three months is the stumbling block for a lot of folk, because after three months one's friends are no longer supportive and congratulating. After all, it's been three whole months, right? Again I was lucky: At my three month point, I had this hot buxom redhead engaging me with activities pleasurable than tobacco.

I had cravings on and off for a couple of years. Sometimes they were pretty bad. (I was working in a factory with smokers, and the whole place was a smoking OK area.) Breathing exercises at the time of craving helped. Knowing my wife would kill me if I started again helped even more.

My cravings are down to one every couple of years now, and they are very mild and very brief. Somewhere along the line I began to find the smell of cigarette smoke quite offensive. I'm confident I can stay off the things forever.

I guess this counts as a success.

 

The bulk of addiction, is psychological. You have to make that mental choice for yourself. The lung problems was a good motivator, married to a non-smoker is another, both help reinforce your desire to stop. You still crave, because the choice really wasn't entirely your own. If you got divorced, and the doctors could repair your lungs, you might start smoking again. It's not the tobacco, or anything else that people get addicted to, these are usually removed from the body in a few days.

Yes, I do smoke. Not a real heavy smoker, less than a pack per day. I stopped smoking entirely at work, when the government started herding smokers into designated areas. It just became inconvenient and uncomfortable. I can still go out to my car, but I get 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch, more important things to do, and I get no pleasure from hurrying through anything. Don't seem to have much trouble waiting 8-12 hours to light up on my way home from work. Been about 9 years or so, don't know anyone else that does this. Most of the smokers put the cigarette before all else. Some of my co-workers can barely go two hours.

Basically, if you really want to quit, just stop. Might be rough for a few days, everybody, and everything around you will remind you of smoking. It's something you have to do for yourself, or you will eventual fail (again). Some say you need the support of your family and friends, but I don't think that works. You are just swapping on addiction for another. When the attention, praise and comforting words stop, you'll usually turn back to the old behavior. A lot of people gain weight after quitting, swapping food for cigarettes (food tastes better and gives pleasure). If you want to really quit, do it for yourself, by yourself, just stop and stick to it. Find a diversion to take it's place if you must, like start a new hobby. You'll spend your cigarette money on the tools and materials, and the smoking time on learning new skills.

 

My uncle was a 2-3 pk/day smoker for years. He quit using Chantix. And one of my father's best friends has been smoking more than a pk/day for years. He also used Chantix to quit. I think my uncle has about 6-7 mos. and my Dad's friend has 3 or 4.

Hope that helps.

 

The bulk of addiction, is psychological.

Isn't that true.

I am lucky enough to have never been curious to try cigarettes so cannot empathise with anyone who "suffers" from the issue of smoking, however I have several friends who smoke and want to give up. Strangely they have no problem not smoking, but smoke from habit. Whether it is a cig with a brew or with a pint, smoking is more habitual than anything. Break the habitual behaviour and you break the smoking habit. Not that easy I know.

My brother and missus have both given up just by stopping - yes, sadly that easily. I have a friend who gave up after hypnotherapy which convinced her that cigarette smoke smelt like crap. A few beers later and the "brain-rewiring" couldn't break the habit of a lifetime. I know people who tried patches and they became very "ratty", I know several people who tried other medicinal methods and they didn't work.

From what I'm led to believe the way to quit smoking is to wean yourself off them slowly. If you smoked 20 a day try and drop to 10 a day and see how it goes. When 10 a day is the norm try and drop to 5 a day. And so on. If you relapse, the disappointment is only minimal as you haven't tried to change too much. I think the problem is most people want to wipe the addiction from the record immediately without any recourse.

Dave

 

I my self have gone the route of using Chantix. A few thing I will tell you about this, 1. The doctor who prescribed it to me said that of the people he prescribed it to 80% quit smoking for 3 months or more. 2. It can make you queasy or sick to your stomach(was sick for 30-45 minutes every time I took it). And it was costing me $140 dollars a month. But it does work. What it does is turn off the pleasure center in the brain that gives you a "buzz" from the nicotine. So even if you smoke you will not feel a buzz from the smoke. This is the main reason I put them down (you get nothing out of it why bother). But stay with it for at least 3-4 months, and if you do go back to smoking try quitting again. Most "quitters" take between 3-4 time's to quit before they break the habit for good. Most of all don't be hard on yourself, you can do it. Good Luck

 

I am a bonehead in that area. I used the nicoderm method around christmas Y2K, while suffering a nice case of upper-resp. infection / bronchitis.
That presented no problem, it was entirely too easy to quit. It lasted three years.

I got stupid one day, and rolled some of a workmates' Kodiak snuff into a cigarette. It went from there to flavored cigars - One a day..... Patch didn't seem to cut it the second time around.
Now I'm just plain sick and tired of it, and IF I can get my sig. others to just plain S.T.F.U. about it, I think I can walk away from them. Lord knows I have plenty else to occupy "idle" time.