Stop Smoking Forum - I Am Quiting


I Am Quiting

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shari37

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 May 2006
Posts: 22

I Am Quiting Posted: 05-12-06 14:25pm


First off just want to say I hope its not dangerous to quit cold turkey :lol: I will be quiting on may 21. I am going to try the pick a date thing once again.. This time iam just going to cut down little by little until the q-day.. I hope those of you who posted here survived... Its a habbit I have had since 16 and have only quit once for about 6 months. Now in my late 30s I feel like garbage even though I am very active, I still feel crappy.. If you all have some info for the big day I would appreciate any and all shari37

Spirit

Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Canada

Posted: 05-14-06 07:48am


Any advice?Not really, what you gonna say anyway?This addiction is our doing and we gotta dig our selves out of the hole or wes gonna end up in a hole, eh? Getting more nervous?Big days coming!I always flake out at the last moment. Maybe if you get your known stresses out of the way before than it'll help ease the load. Get some bubble bath, pamper yourself, walk in the park and a whole day of distractions. I'll do it soon, 43 and getting heart palpitations and I know it's effecting my sleep......Hard to sleep when you feel like you just ran the marathon. :)

shari37

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 May 2006
Posts: 22

Spirit Posted: 05-15-06 10:46am


Yeh I know its a self inflicted hazard that only we can fix... I have said I was quiting so many times so im not nervous at all. The presure is on this time as my 10 and 5 yr old boys really want me to do this. I should want to do this... Im a real a$$$ when I dont have smokes :evil: so staying busy is going to be the best for me. No more coffee though. That will be almost as hard as know smoking :lol: shari

Spirit

Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Canada

Posted: 05-16-06 05:43am


Don't feel bad, we're all a$$$ when we don't smoke, ha. I tried the whole "i'm serious this time" and told everyone including my children......In the hopes of them being supportive and actually behaving better during the stressful first few days........Of course you know what's gonna happen, kids sense weakness and that's when they go in for the "kill", lol. I've done it so many times that noone believes me anymore......Heck I don't even believe me. But I gotta do it, the racing heart is scaring me. How do you know you smoke too much??? * you light up a smoke when you already got one burning. * on more than one occasion you've almost burned the house down. * other smokers ask you, "didn't you just smoke one?" * you wish you could invent a time machine.....Go back in time......And smack yourself in your young head. * when you run out of smokes........You look around for anything and wonder if you can smoke that? :)

Observer

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 17 May 2006
Posts: 4
Location: EU

Support Team Posted: 05-17-06 05:39am


Today I have come here to join your support team: to listen to and to tell what i/we going to do or already have done for that big q-day... Slowly or quickly... Step by step or at once... I think we can do it - everyone by its own way... Also we can help each other to make this date closer and make smoking the past as we will stay smokers our hole life but not smoking pehaps...

Spirit

Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Canada

Posted: 05-17-06 05:54am


Hi, well the first thing i'm going to do is to start counting my smokes. I know it's almost a pack a day, however I want an accurate amount so I can cut back even by just one smoke/day. We should use this as a sort of public diary to put in writing our successes and failures no matter how big or small. :)

Mia-Carina13

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 02 May 2006
Posts: 2
Location: Canada

I Quit Smoking, Try This Posted: 05-17-06 07:07am


I am on my third day of no cigarettes. I have been smoking since I was 16 years old and now 33 years old. I tried ( well not really) quitting through every avenue but I did not want it bad enough. Well this was my first mother's day this year and I had been preping myself mentally for my quit day on mother's day. I do realize that there are many different kinds of smokers out there, I was really addicted. Anyway I have finally quit and this is how I am doing it. I really hope it helps anyone. Please do the research. I was smoking aprox 10 cigs a day. I am on the 21 mg patch and cut it in half and I am also taking a dietary supplement called "sulfonil" it is only sold in the states, but I got from my naturopath after an an attempt to quit with accupuncture and these pills. I still smoked after and kept the pills. Now I am combining the patch and the pills. Do your research, you can buy them over the internet. The pills really do work. You take 5 pills a day. Trust me this works with the addiction in the brain. I can't believe how easy it is. Please try this. I have caused myself so much stress over quitting and my husband has been trying to get me to quit since I met him 11 years ago. He broke down crying yesterday, because I have finally quit. That gives me encourgement.

shari37

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 May 2006
Posts: 22

Posted: 05-17-06 23:14pm


I think I will go for the gum. I know its not a good sign if im already thinking about failing.. Im going to go as long as I can before I grab the gum :) iam not sure about the patch, but will read up on it.. I know of one person(friend) who was able to quit with the gum and she didnt give up her coffee.. She gets up every morning and has her coffee and almond flavor gum. Its working for her and her doc says chew as much as you want. Im sure now she will have to wean herself off the gum. Wow by reading my post, I think I might be more addicted to my morning coffee... Spirit thats a good idea on keeping a diary.Will do shari

Guest

Posted: 05-18-06 08:21am


Good for you mia! Remind the hubby to remain supportive, sometimes they forget and after all the drama of quitting your right back where you started. :) shari, I chew gum at work(thank goodness I don't work in an office atmosphere, that probably won't go over to well!). I also carry a small bottle of mouthwash, to wash out the residue..............Probs with dental.......Missing a few teeth in the back(no I don't look funny yet,lol). Counted the smokes yesterday......18-19?.....Gonna try for 17 today! :)

shari37

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 May 2006
Posts: 22

Posted: 05-18-06 10:41am


Guest, I know what you mean about the dental thing.. I have a bottom partial for my back teeth.. Most gum sticks to partials,dentures ect.. Does the gum help you with the cravings??? Thats great you are cutting back on smokes..That part is not working well for me..So sunday is going to be hard for me.. Cold turkey I guess.. I thought I would be able to cut back until the big day.. Shari

Guest

Just Do It! Posted: 05-18-06 21:00pm


I quit smoking last july and am still going strong! It's not as big a deal as you fear. Not to make light or diminish the effort you will put in or the apprehension you feel, but you'll see once you really do it that you will still live without ciggies. Before I quit (even up to a week beforehand) I did not want to stop. I "liked it" too much and honestly thought I enjoyed doing it. I then read this book and it really helped me. My boss read it, stopped smoking and recommended it to me about a month earlier but I had no real interest until I saw it in a second hand book store and bought it thinking, what the hell...If it works, then good. If not, no harm done, eh? shrug i read it and decided to quit. I was still scared though. My main fear was that I simply wouldn't enjoy my life as much without cigarettes. Like i'd be constantly bored or restless and just like a big thing would be missing, leaving a hole in me somewhere. And that did happen, I did feel that way but only for about 2 weeks or so. The actual physical cravings weren't really a problem. I thought at one stage (between days 1-4) a sort of skin crawling sensation but i'm not sure if that was in my mind or not. Sounds more like drugs than cigarette withdrawal to me, but who knows. Anyway...When, in the following days and weeks, I felt I wanted to smoke, I just told myself no. There is no point. You would get nothing from it now as the nicotine is out of your system after 3-7 days, so you'd just feel sick. Any emotional gain you'd get from it would be fake. Like, you make yourself addicted to something so you can then use it later to ease boredom or stress or enhance relaxation, but it's not real. How can inhaling smoke from a stick of paper and chemicals really make you feel any of this? It's just that your physical addiction which produces the physical feelings when you smoke (which results from the relief from cravings & withdrawal symptoms. This is why we smoke every few hours or so...The nicotine is draining from our bodies and we have mild cravings so we light up again...So all the pleasant feeling is when you smoke is because you've now relieved the craving from the previous cigarette you had) you associate these physical feelings with a pleasant emotional feeling. I mean, for me. I still miss sitting out on my balcony having a smoke during my favourite tv show. This is the only time I really miss it, and I just can't understand why because I mean, I can still sit out there, can't i? How could holding a cigarette make it any different? And the answer is that it's the physical feelings combined with the relaxation and also now a so-called fond memory that makes me pine for this sort of cigarette. Nothing else. So I know that actually having one won't help me lose that feeling. It'll just make me feel sick. So yeah, anyway (sorry to blab on so much!) whenever i'd want a ciggie in the early days, i'd say to myself no, there's no point. Even if you had one (which I refused to do), what's it going to accomplish? You will (a) feel nauseated, (b) feel guilty, (c) feel exactly the same except for those 2 negative feelings, (d) be right back where you were to begin with - wanting to quit and going great until you screwed up and had a ciggie for no reason (as per the above), so all you'd have to be doing is going right back to where you were before and not having one. Like, the only way to ever get the feeling back is if you are addicted again. And you don't want that. If you did, you'd never feel that back of your mind constant vague nagging and guilty and stressed and scared feeling that you should really quit one day... Anyway...That is all. Good luck!

Spirit

Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy

Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Canada

Posted: 05-19-06 05:56am

shari37 wrote:

guest, I know what you mean about the dental thing.. I have a bottom partial for my back teeth.. Most gum sticks to partials,dentures ect..

Does the gum help you with the cravings???
Thats great you are cutting back on smokes..That part is not working well for me..So sunday is going to be hard for me.. Cold turkey I guess.. I thought I would be able to cut back until the big day..
Shari

actually that was me(spirit)..................Sometimes I forget to :oops: login. I think we got to stop beating ourselves up.........There's enough people in our lifes doing it. Don't want to discourage you but when I set a date I get all nervous and become lawyer-like............."well I said I was going quit on sunday but I didn't say which sunday!?" ..............
........That's me always looking for a loophole.

And to answer your question.........Nah the gum doesn't really help........It's a temporary distraction. :)