Topic: Who wants to quit smoking cigarettes? Lets quit together.

[Frankencake]

I have an idea.  I want to quit and you know you want to quit.  How about we use this thread as a kind of smokers anonymous meeting place?  We would need to have a start date and allow others to join and drop out as they need.  It would be nice to have a support network here for this.  Rather than join the American Cancer Society site I figure we could do it here.  Any takers? 

[bikerboycb650]

Either they don't smoke, or no one wants to quit.

[droopy]

Either they don't smoke, or no one wants to quit.

I quit 5 1/2 years ago 

[rhos1355]

I smoked for 16 years. During that time I stopped for 19 months, after 2 of my mates and myself bet each other (over copious glasses of wine) that from the next day the first one to smoke another cigarette would have to pay the other 2 the equivalent of $1000.00!! If there's one thing people don't know about me is how tight I am with money. Man, that was a challenge enough to stop me for 19 months.
Try that with a couple of mates.

Unfortunately I relapsed and continued puffing away at my coffin nails until 1995 when I lost 3 really good friends to cancer; an uncle, an ex-girlfriend and a childhood friend.
All of them were smokers.
Gave me the heebie-jeebies, that did. Desperate to stop until I caught bronchitis real bad and couldn't face a ciggie for 10 days. That was the catalyst. Just carried on until to-day.

[demon78]

Went cold turkey after smoking a pack, pack and a half for 30 years, god was that tough, I don't know if drug addiction is worse but you'd walk past some one smoking for months afterward and the craving would sink it's needles in you, it took at least 3 years for the craving to go away. Now I can't stand the smell of the things, almost as bad as a diesel truck, with the asthma I've got now, if I hadn't stopped so many years ago I would've been a prime target for lung cancer, butts weren't the only thing that was a problem, sand blasting without breathing protection, metallizing the same, working in smoky bike shops (2 strokes), A/C engine test cells, compressor changes in fridges (running F12 through flame) etc, now of course I live in a place with, possibly 100 trees around me and that helps (and I'm going to plant more next year once the house is done) more oxygen. I'm not very coherent this morning, sorry.
Bill the demon.

[alltherightpills]

It's been 4 weeks today since I've had one.  I got into a research study at the University of Iowa that looks at controlling weight gain and lowering blood pressure after quitting.  They gave me 6 weeks worth of patches for free and they're paying me to quit! 

It's been important for me to couch quitting into a larger lifestyle change.  Since I've quit, I've been going to the gym 3 times/week (doing cardio workouts and weightlifting) and my wife and I have decided to essentially become vegetarians for the summer.  We are trying to eat meat once per week.  I live a block away from the farmer's market in town, so twice a week I can just walk over there and get the best produce I've ever had.  We're trying to eliminate as much science from our food as possible.  Since quitting I've lost between 5 and 8 pounds and about 2.5 inches off my waist.

Also, tell all your friends that you are quitting and that they can't bum you smokes. 

[lynchj]

There was a post about quitting not too long ago
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=17879.0

I've been butt free since April 1st of this year, it was brutal for a couple weeks but now I really have no desire to start again (after 25+ years of smoking). I feel so much better too and it really didn't take that long to start feeling better

You CAN do it, you just have to want to really badly. For me, a spot on my lung that showed up in a CT scan did it. No guarantee that quitting it will make it go away but I had to try.

[Laminar]

It's been 4 weeks today since I've had one.  I got into a research study at the University of Iowa that looks at controlling weight gain and lowering blood pressure after quitting.  They gave me 6 weeks worth of patches for free and they're paying me to quit! 

It's been important for me to couch quitting into a larger lifestyle change.  Since I've quit, I've been going to the gym 3 times/week (doing cardio workouts and weightlifting) and my wife and I have decided to essentially become vegetarians for the summer.  We are trying to eat meat once per week.  I live a block away from the farmer's market in town, so twice a week I can just walk over there and get the best produce I've ever had.  We're trying to eliminate as much science from our food as possible.  Since quitting I've lost between 5 and 8 pounds and about 2.5 inches off my waist.

That's interesting - wouldn't a significant diet/exercise change throw off the results of the study?

[Blasbo]

I can't join you but I can encourage you. I lost my Dad to lung cancer and my father in law to bronchitis. Both were heavy smokers from a young age.
I was lucky. I smoked for a few months at 16. One day after smoking several filterless cigarettes I passed out, hit my head on a doorknob and had to have 6 stitches! Never had the desire after that. 
Don't substitute smokeless tobacco though. Some friends and I did it at school and couldn't spit. Learned how to hold it in so I could do it anywhere. Took 17 years to get rid of that habit!

[rhos1355]

............One day after smoking several filterless cigarettes I passed out, hit my head on a doorknob and had to have 6 stitches! Never had the desire after that. 

A bit extreme but effective

[Skonnie Boy]

Thinking about quitting.  Just thinking.  Maybe.  Might not be so bad.

DON'T #$%*ING HURRY ME.  GOD WHY ALL THE PRESSURE.  LEAVE ME ALONE.

Its cool.  Good idea.  Next week, maybe?  Its on.

[tramp]

i was 5yrs old watching my old man smoke
he gave me his butt and said " try one thier great, inhale really deep"
just about died from it
he looked at me and said "don't be stupid like me, never smoke"
and i didn't

[Caaveman82]

I'm quitting cold turkey, tomorrow.

[rhos1355]

Good luck, Caave, watch out for the 3 week mark.
Up to then you feel really, really stimulated by your new found will-power (of course, you know it's always been there, but y'know, just had to prove it) then you start thinking "oh wtf, I'm dreaming about smoking every night, I stare at people when they light up, and maybe, just maybe I have time to quit later on. I just proved I can do it!!
That's what I used to call "hitting the wall" when quitting.


oh, just remembered, it lasts about 6 months.

[Skonnie Boy]

My GF keeps threatening to go the doctor to get 'scrips for Chantix.  Last time I make drunken promises about quitting anything.

Anybody have experience with it?  Nightmares, that sort of stuff?

[Bob Wessner]

It does have some known side affects. Just let a couple of people who are close to you and know what your "normal behavior" is like, know you are taking it.

[rivetslag]

Good luck, Caave, watch out for the 3 week mark.
Up to then you feel really, really stimulated by your new found will-power (of course, you know it's always been there, but y'know, just had to prove it) then you start thinking "oh wtf, I'm dreaming about smoking every night, I stare at people when they light up, and maybe, just maybe I have time to quit later on. I just proved I can do it!!
That's what I used to call "hitting the wall" when quitting.


oh, just remembered, it lasts about 6 months.

Oh, this is terrible, why did you have to say that, haha (the six months thing). I quit on May 23rd, cold turkey. I still have four Marb Reds in a box (smoked Camel Wides for seven years, but I started on Marbs, and coincidentally quit on them). I'd highly recommend cold turkey, it's easy once you actually make that decision, that you REALLY WANT TO QUIT. For years I'd say, "I can quit, but I don't want to right now", and I suppose that was true, but shame on me for waiting so long.

More to the point, if I may provide one piece of advice to someone who may be going through the same things I did/am: stay away from smokers. Embrace spending time with those non-smokers you formerly felt slightly awkward around, and remove yourself entirely from as many temptations as possible. Try not hitting the bar or any social gathering likely to have a smoker's circle. I always thought I could NEVER EVER drive for more than a few minutes without a smoke, that driving would totally be ruined for me once I couldn't chain smoke the whole way there. It is truly amazing how fast you forget about it though, and you won't even think about a cigarette until you smell one or see someone cheefing a butt somewhere (movies with lots of smoking still give me intense urges to go grab those stale Reds). The two times I have been around a smoker in the past two months of having quit, I had weak moments and bummed one. I'm getting really shy about hanging out with my smoker friends now, at least for now; the ones that aren't considerate enough to try not smoking around me constantly, that is.

Anyways, good luck to anyone trying to quit. Your newfound lung capacity and ESPECIALLY the new world of tastes and smells await you

P.S. yeah, I do still hate anti-smokers. I'll never be one, I'm just encouraging you to do something you already want to!

[toycollector10]

I've been off the damn things for 2 years and 7 months. I used to go down to my local pub 6 or 7 nights a week and smoke with my "crew" and buy beer and maybe play the pokies etc.

Now I don't go to the pub except for maybe once a month or so. I don't play the poker machines or drink as much beer. Maybe those guys were just my "Boozy mates" and I never felt really close to them but we did have a hell of a lot of fun together. A faggin' and a'boozin. Joking and laughing and the like....And smoking and smoking and smoking......

It's just wasting your life away really.

Don't smoke, cut back on the grog. Move on. Get over it. Sermon over!

[rhos1355]

Toycollector, you've just described my Dad off to a 'T'. He made the mistake of thinking his bar mates were true ones, until. Until he was deep in the do-do and he watched them skedaddle. All of them. Maybe skedaddle is the wrong word but they did turn their backs on him. Feckless twats.

[Frankencake]

Last week for 6 days I was a production manager on a stage at a large music festival.  For those of you who do not know what this means, it means lots of stress while being at a large party making sure that everything goes well.  I am still smoking.  Soon I will quit.  It has to happen.  Dad's on O2, looking at heart surgery.  I'd rather wrap a SOHC around a steel girder than go that way.

[ev0lve]

Gawdangit. Alright. Screw you Mark Twain. Make it 101.

There are 18 left in this pack.

[goon 1492]

Gawdangit. Alright. Screw you Mark Twain. Make it 101.

There are 18 left in this pack.

Good luck!
I am just over  a year and a half, glad to see that I can run to the top of the hill on the acre of land that I own and not get winded, but I still wanna smoke once I get to the top...
Green ones are nice everyonce in a while 

[Bryan Boyle]

I have an idea.  I want to quit and you know you want to quit.  How about we use this thread as a kind of smokers anonymous meeting place?  We would need to have a start date and allow others to join and drop out as they need.  It would be nice to have a support network here for this.  Rather than join the American Cancer Society site I figure we could do it here.  Any takers? 

I'm with you, and have been since April 7th, when my lung collapsed.  Happened again on the 11th of this month.  Not Good.  They did some ucky treatment injecting talc into the space between my lungs and the pleura to cause them to become inflamed and adhere so it won't happen again.

Wake up call time, folks.  Have a patch on one arm, and a pile of literature on my desk about what I've gone thru and the bad things that can happen when your lungs collapse.  Have no one to blame but myself.

Give it up.  If not for you, then for those who care about you.  And think of all the gas you can buy with the money you're not spending for smokes.

[mlinder]

I have about 30 cigs left. When they are gone, I'm done smoking. Shouldn't have started again, anyway.

[rivetslag]

As strange as it seems, I think there is something to be said for crumpling up your pack of smokes before you've finished them. I thought to myself numerous times, "I should just let this pack be my last, maybe I'll quit when I've smoked the last one". I have a feeling the time that made the difference, the time I did actually decide to quit smoking, was the one in which I still had four Reds left. I didn't crumple them (I still have them), but I did proactively make the decision to quit. Waiting until the last of a pack is really just procrastination, in my experience. I would just get to the end of a pack, and then avoid even thinking about my previous thoughts to quit. I'd just go buy another pack. We all know how well you succeed at something when you procrastinate

Just sayin'.