quitting smoking. help???
I smoke cigarettes almost as enthusiastically as I drink tea. I’ve been smoking 3 years now and need to quit. I have a surgery coming up and smoking slows the healing process. Some days I can go the entire day without smoking and some nights, like tonight I can hold off for a few hours before rushing to the store in the dead of night and buy a pack. I’m down to less than half a pack, but I can never seem to drop below 4 or 5 cigarettes in a given day. I’m lost and don’t know what to do to make that final leap. My best friend smokes a pack and a half a day and my mom and my bf’s mom smokes a pack a day so I can’t seem to get away from a cigarette always being available.
Have any of you managed to quit? If so, what did you do? I’m looking for any suggestions! I’m pretty desperate.
The only people I know who’ve quit smoking did it cold turkey – probably not the best advice, and not likely to work if you’re surrounded by smokers. A colleague of mine quit a few months back with the help of a medication prescribed by her doctor but I don’t know the name unfortunately. I do wish you the best of luck though! Maybe the universe will send you some of my aversion to cigarettes to help you out. I have oodles to spare. : )
Oh my heart goes out to you. I know of a program that helps people with addictions of any kind, through nutrition: radiantrecovery.com if you think that may be helpful. Best wishes and I KNOW you can do it!!
I was a pipe smoker for many years and then “cut back” to cigarettes and smoked them for several. Around March (?) I picked up an ecig on a whim and I haven’t smoked a cigarette since. haven’t wanted one. I still vape my ecig, but I’m slowly cutting the nicotine. My doctor says that even if I stayed full strength on the nicotine, it’s such a vast improvement over smoking that she would still be happy for me. She says they don’t like nicotine, but that without all of the other toxins inhaled when smoking, nicotine is in about the same category as caffeine. Not great, but not the worst thing. I would recommend ecigs to ANYONE who is trying to quit. I feel SO much better since giving up cigarettes, and honestly, it wasn’t even that hard.
I’m an ex-smoker, and so is my partner, and we both did it with patches. They worked really well for me, and I have a couple of tips that were helpful:
1) If you’re still having bad cravings after you finish the steps, just stay on step 3 a little longer. It’s better than going back to cigarettes.
2) If you know you’ll be around smokers after you quit, be around them while on the patch. When I quit I was living with two smokers, and I made sure to spend time with them while they were smoking, and I was on the patch. It was good practice for being around them while they were smoking, and I was not!
If you need any more advice or have questions, feel free to PM me. Quitting smoking is tough but the best thing I’ve ever done for my body.
Thanks everyone for your advice. I am going to do a bit of research and then give something a shot.
Can you smoke tea? This guy did and it’s pretty funny. http://chill.com/Tealet/post/5c21d0470e304235882f4e3f144e75ab/smoking-a-tea-joint-with-doctor-oolong-pure-ridiculous?source=%2Fd3c09a36-5d36-4cbf-a903-8ceb63aa4d86%2Fposts&feature=inline
I smoked for many years!!! used the patch for a little over a week and went to Vegas and walked so much that I think the distraction helped. Didn’t drink either because of my medications. AND MINT TEA helps…breathing in the cool mint. In class, keeping hydrated and calm, deep breathing, walking…all help. Going to places you can’t smoke…movies…that kind of thing.Visit people who don’t smoke. Keep BUSY for at least the first 3 days. I was amazed that when I was ready, it was easy and I LIKED smoking.
I remembered one more thing – if you do relapse, do not beat yourself up! Just pick yourself back up when you’re ready and try again.
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