How did you stop smoking? What was your motivation, and how did you finally do it?
How did you stop smoking? What was your motivation, and how did you finally do it?
And how long have you been a non-smoker?
For me, at the time it was the realization that I cannot continue to smoke and continue to play the trumpet. My lung volume and strength really suffered. But instead of stopping to smoke, for many months I played less and less trumpet.
What put me through the phase of actually smoking the last cigarette and becoming a non-smoker again, was one of the books of Allen Carr, I don't remember the exact title. Looking back, it was awfully written, and I had to will my way through believing the narrative, but it worked. That was 27 years ago, and I didn't have one cigarette since, no cravings and no replacement either.
I vaguely remember Allen Carr, but what helped was a small book that i found in a second hand bookstore in Paris, which was called: Comment S'arreter De Fumer En Cinq Jours. A quick search learns that apparently it was written by Dr J. Wayne Mcfarland and Elman J. Folkenberg. It was in french, but that didn't stop me, it was a small book and very helpful.
I was able to stop after trying to stop 7 times in two months. The 7th time worked. If i remember correctly i used breathing exercises and nicotine gum. I also avoided the couch where i would smoke after diner, instead doing something else.
The most important thing that helped was to change how i was thinking. Every attempt failed because i lit up a cigarette and then thinking; i failed, might as well continue smoking. However, the 7th time it dawned on me that smoking 1 cigarette does not mean you failed. You can put it out and just continue to not smoke. It was just the mind tricking me in continuing with my addiction. Thankfully, hardly anyone around me smoked and that was a great help. I stopped 22 years ago and i had been quite a heavy smoker, a packet of cigarettes a day.
Oh, you asked for my motivation; to be an example for my kids and because i was about to get my first dog and i knew how sensitive their sense of smell was.
I had a very similar experience. I heard a phrase that allowed me to understand, and that one phrase made me quit.
"The mind of an addict continually searches for an excuse to relapse."
That's really the key isn't it! What the mind wants is so much more the struggle than what the body wants. Even though physical cravings can be awful, it's the mind that steers the wheel. Thanks for sharing; i hope this sentence will help people abandon their addictions, whatever they may be.
The price! After yet another tax hike I was fed up, and it was my motivation to stop after smoking for over 10 years. I did the maths and realised how many other things I could be doing (and enjoying) and that was that. I never thought that being a tight ass would have been so powerful!
Oh yes. I totally forgot the cost. Back then I was living on what felt almost nothing, and from that about 20% or so went into smoking.
I started smoking cigarette when I was just turning 17. Initially it was because "the cool kids" do it. Then I would do it to find interesting conversations with people (which I did). This went on for about a year until I accepted that I smoke.
Later on in life, I also picked up weed; and even later on, coffee. Life was good, at least for a good while, before the accumulating anxiety creeped up on me. At this point, I was smoking between half to one pack a day.
Finally, I decided to just quit cigarette. It didn't exactly take much effort to go against the craving (the weed helps, I guess). The hardest part was the lethargic feeling. Nothing I couldn't handle, tho. Cocaine withdrawal was way worse. Still, I needed for cups of coffee accompanied by a fat joint for each cup just tp get thru each day.
After a week or two, I was able to taper down on the coffee and the weed. All was good then. Within the first few years, I would dream about smoking cigarettes every now and then, but I never have gotten some real craving or anything.
This past couple of years, I was able to smoke cigarette socially when I meet with old friends and then live without any with no craving at all. The last cigarette I smoked was earlier this year.
I smoked for about 4 years or so from the time I left high school and most of college. I only smoked a few cigarettes a day, but it was noticeably eating into my food budget. I was a poor student, so it was really noticeable. One day I bought some groceries and a pack of cigarettes and I realized half the cost was the cigarettes. And then I just stopped buying any.
It sucked, but that was maybe 6 years ago. For months I'd pass smokers on the street and it would smell like heaven, and I'd crave the stuff, but I simply didn't buy any. I don't buy cigarettes and don't consider myself a smoker but if I'm at a party and there are smokers I usually bum cigarettes off of them. It's harder to make the right choice when you're drunk. It kind of sucks to think that I'm basically hooked on them forever to some degree.
I got tired enough of coughing all the time that i quit cold turkey 1.5 years ago.
I smoked for about 9 years. I found myself bumming more than smoking at a certain point, but kept buying them because of the social aspect. I had to convince myself finally that I hated the taste, so I focused on every drag and tried to find the parts I really disliked. Sometimes I would smoke brands I knew I hated. Eventually that worked and every cigarette I had tasted awful.
Approximately how many men did you have to bum before you found the taste of cigarettes awful?
Find the brand that tastes the worst and hopefully you'll smoke less
I quit smoking in 2017, but I quit nicotine all together in 2018. Since 2009 I swapped to vape cigs and more modern vape devices. Swapped back and forth back to smoking a couple times due to being fed up with bad quality with vape devices and constant maintenance. Eventually I said to help with it all in 2018 and put everything away and stopped using it, cold turkey. Had a few cigarettes a few months ago as a social smoker thing. Glad I quit and never gonna go back. It was a long journey, but hella worth it.
I smoked for about 9 years. Motivation was 2 fold—I was sick of having to choke down nicotine and no one in my social circle smoked anymore. What really helped me quit was, of all the stupid things, nibbling on tea tree oil toothpicks anytime the thought of smoking a cigarette crossed my mind. Probably also helped that I had managed to cut down to about two american spirit light cigs a day prior to stopping. With the exception of two or three cheap cigars I’ve been smoke free since 2016.
I chewed minty gum and sipped tonic water for like a month.
I wanted to quit but couldn't. I read Allan carrs quit smoking book and how they described what the nicotine does did it for me.
It helped finally understanding how the addiction works, and how I was constantly just trying to get to a normal baseline of living that non smokers just lived at normally.
Ive tried vaping, gum, lozenges, cold Turkey, everything. Almost a year free from nicotine now, no regrets, not missing a damn thing.
I quit once using the Allan book, and everyone I know who read it has, but there is a catch: it will never work a second time.
I quite by accident using much vilified e-cigs. Yeah there is some serious bullshit going on with the super high nic disposables the kids get a hold of, and with disposables in general. But just enforce the damn laws you already have and don't enshitify or even destroy the thing that probably saved my life 12 years ago!
I struggled with quitting for about 5 years, I felt my stamina get destroyed and realized how much it was costing me financially, so I tried several times. I got panic attacks, something I never dealt with before, the last couple of times I tried. Finally about 3 or 4 years ago I smoked my last cigarette, somehow I didn't get a panic attack. I don't remember the day because in my mind, to not smoke I can't be too serious about the importance of all of it, smoking is a ritual and if I allow myself to think about dates and anniversaries around quitting it will just drive me to it again. Smoking has to be something I don't think about at all.
I still use nicotine. I'll have a cigar every now and then, I vape a little, but man there's something else going on with cigarettes. Quitting nicotine by itself is easy, even having some tobacco every now and then doesn't cause me to crave anything. I can go hours after waking up without vaping and feel nothing, whereas with cigarettes, I planned my entire day around smoking them and how many I had left. If I smoked a single one right now I'd be smoking a pack a day for who knows how long before I succeed again, I can't have a single drag off a cigarette for the rest of my life. Quitting cigarettes, even with nicotine to sate me, was hard as fucking hell. I don't know what they do to those things but they're addictive in some way beyond nicotine and it's a motherfucker.
Smoked for 8 years, a pack a day, sometimes more.
One day I was suffering really bad from depression, that's when I suddenly decided that I've stopped smoking. The cravings were rough, but I powered through. A year and half later my life got much better, unfortunately at that time I picked it up again, for another year.
I knew I shouldn't continue this habit, I actually hated it, but I became it's slave once more, a pack a day again. This time however, I had an aim of improving my physical and mental health. I joined a gym and went for daily runs. I noticed that after a run I wouldn't crave a cigarret for hours. After months of training, I increased my gym/running activity to 2 hrs and quit smoking at the same time. It was easier than before.
Unfortunately again, I started using nicotine pouches thinking I wouldn't get addicted to it. For half a year I used it, before again starting gym and running and then quit nicotine altogether. Initially it was a bit rough as my mental health wasn't too good at that time, but now after a month, I don't even get the cravings either. Hopefully I won't Crack this time
I got a job as a karate instructor when I moved back after college. I taught ages 3 to 18.
Those kids, man. They look at you like you're a goddamn superhero. I'm not kidding. And because I taught all the classes, I had about 300 kids all looking up to me as a role model. I became petrified that one of them would catch me out somewhere smoking and I'd have to explain why they shouldn't do something that their hero does.
I phased it out, bit by bit. I cut down on one cigarette each full week until I was smoking three a day. Then I spent a couple weeks smoking only one in the am and one on my way home from work. Then down to just one on my way home from work every day.
I'd heard that the third day of quitting is the worst to get through, but for me it was day 5 of no cigarettes. I remember it so vividly because of how gd angry I was that day, at everything. I realized halfway through that this was the point where things would get easier, and they did.
So, I have all my students from that time to thank for being the reason I quit, even if they'll never know it, they probably saved my life. :)
Wow that’s a great motivation. Good job living up to the role model you signed up for.
Was the stopping smoking part of the consideration to pick that Trainer job?
Thanks, it was worth it for sure.
I didn't even think about quitting before I took the job. My boss didn't ask and I never told him (though I'm sure he knew, lol).
I had become aware it might be an issue when I ran into a student for the first time outside of the studio. I wasn't smoking, luckily, but I became worried the next time that might be the case.
I smoked for 23 years technically. I was mostly vaping the last 9 years of that and used vaping to lower my nicotine gradually. When I got to the point I was vaping without nicotine it still took a while to finally quit, but I finally did at the beginning of 2020.
Now I hate the smell and don’t crave them at all. I wish I would’ve done it sooner.
Remember that you don’t actually want it. It’s just a chemical your body is addicted to.
I vaped for about 7 years after I quit cigarettes and gradually tapered down the nicotine too... About a year at the end I was vaping nothing but vegetable glycerin and flavoring... Finally quit completely because I finally physically lost my vape and realized it didn't really matter anymore with as little as I'd been relying on it.
I was living in my one bedroom hovel, chainsmoking like a fiend. I didn't leave the apartment for days. When I finally stepped out one day to go to the video store, I realized that I smelled like a dirty ashtray. I returned from the video store and lit another cigarette and it tasted like I smelled.
I quit pretty much cold turkey after that.
That was 2001.
Did you go cold turkey? Any major side effects?
As for me, i went cold turkey and it was very hard, the cravings were excruciating. That's all i remember for side effects, those awful cravings
Yes, cold turkey, after a mental preparation phase alongside reading the book. Does relief count as a side effect?
I was in a pretty bad state, health-wise, for a young adult. Think having cold constantly. After stopping, my health quickly became better.
I went cold turkey and it was pretty fucking hard. I remember forcing myself to do nothing while the bike I was riding just rolled by a kiosk or supermarket. I got into video games a lot more to keep myself distracted.
I quit smoking when I became poor, unemployed, 10years ago. When there's no money you lose your addiction easly.
I smoked for 23 years- started when I was 11 and tried quitting several times. I legitimately thought I was never going to be able to quit and cigarettes were hitting $15 a pack and I was at a loss. I wasn't ready to quit- I enjoy smoking- but I couldn't keep up with the cost of living and the cost of smoking so I went on Champex (Chantix in the US).
I may not have been ready to quit, but it definitely made me ready. It started by making me nauseous and blocking my nicotine receptors before I even finished my first round of pills ( it is typically up to a year and it took 3 months for me) I was so done with cigarettes. I was super resistant to quitting too. That shit worked so well. 4 years later and I can't even stand the smell of someone's cigarette wafting across my nose.
Smoked for 28 years. I quit on the day I moved into my new house in another state, and haven't had another one in over 2 years. The complete environment change helped immensely and I've not had any issues at all with quitting.
I quit because it was ruining my health and I hated being out of breath all the time.
My story, and my motives, will probably be different from a lot of accounts posted here.
I started smoking in 1988 and ultimately quit in 2009...so a run of about 21 years, which means I've been free from it for 14 years.
My Story: My tobacco of choice was 'Drum' and I hand-rolled and smoked without filters. I liked Drum because it tasted great to me, I liked the idea of hand-crafting each and every cigarette I smoked, and it was a pretty cool party-trick to be able to produce perfect hand-rolls out of tobacco or whatever - where ever I was, I was always the designated roller. It was also WAY cheaper than traditional cigarettes - I could buy a can of Drum that would produce 250 cigarettes for $12 - and that was due to a loophole in the state's cigarette tax. Prior to 2009, the state only heavily taxed cigarettes, but not the individual supplies to make cigarettes (like loose tobacco). That loophole got closed in 2009 and the cost of a can of loose tobacco went up from $12 to $49 over night. I'd known for a while that I should probably quit, but I just never got to that mental acceptance of doing it, until this new tax came along. Ultimately, I decided I just wasn't going to pay that new tax and so I didn't really decide to quit smoking, I decided I was going to quit buying tobacco (which has the same end result). At first, I started cutting back, to make my remaining supply of tobacco last as long as possible. The lower my stock got, the farther back I cut down. At first it was limiting myself to 4 a day... then 2 a day (that I would smoke over 4 sessions), then 1 a day that I'd light and inhale a few times and put out and save for later. I stretched this out for months....and then one day it was gone. I didn't use any medical aids, I didn't use any substitution with something else. I just quit. I should also mention that I'd also always enjoyed cigars...and typically enjoyed about 6 cigars a year, but I'd decided to cut that out also. Shortly after quitting, I told myself that I'd treat myself to a cigar only after I could go 1-full-month without thinking about smoking. This went on for months, and I actually thought about smoking all the time. At first, several times a day...and then several times a week, and then eventually just once in a while. It actually took about a year after quitting that a friend and I were talking about it (he was quitting also) and I realized I hadn't thought about smoking for several months. Finally, I seemed to have fully broken both the physical and mental addiction. It was about six months after that that I decided to treat myself to a cigar. These days, I have about 3 cigars a year (all on special occasions) - which is a small enough number not to re-kindle my desire to smoke more.
It's nice to be escaped from the habit, the financial burden of it, and the negative health aspects. The other great side effects: lower life insurance premiums, whiter teeth (and easier/quicker dental cleanings), clothes that don't smell like smoke.
Great read. Not caring enough to pay too much is a good motive in my book.
I quit in 2019, by basically OD-ing on the patch. I had multiple patches on me at all times; at the end, it felt like my skin was burning
I discovered the vape-world and I loved it! It was easy from there, now I'm more then 4y without cigarettes and 1y without nicotine.