Thread: Quitting Smoking cold turkey.

Im on about my 6th quit now, but pretty sure I've conquered it this time.

Ive tried the nicotine gum and patches but all they do is keep you hooked on nicotine.

Im hoping this thread will be beneficial and motivational to others, CCC in particular who has gone a month but is vapeing, which to me isnt the way to go about breaking a cycle youve had for most of your life. On the other thread he's contemplating buying some smokes too.

I'm near a month now and rarely think about them anymore.

So feel free those of you who have beaten the filthy habit to add your tips on quitting.

Mine are:

Quit coffee and sugary drinks for a while and substitute with water.
Get past the hardest part, the first 4 days and take it a day at a time.
Try and steer clear of smokers if you can.
Remember it can only get easier.
PMA
Write down a list of the positives and negatives of smoking


This is what youd have saved now Chitty in less than a month in the UK, if you smoked 30 a day like me. You wont need Man City winning the quadruple.




And remember Chitty, if you do break and have a cigarette, you will feel awful with yourself and it will taste like shit

The book; Allen Carr's "Easy Way To Quit Smoking" helped me quit about 15 years ago now.

Basically, de-programming your brain from addiction, to probably the world's most addictive drug.

http://shop.allencarr.com/wp-content...ng-Ch-1-32.pdf

i stopped 30 years ago. i was doing around 5 to 10 a day. more at weekends. rothmans or bensons. always bought in packets of 10.

i never smoked at home. i used to smoke first thing after work on the drive home, after lunch in the car park and after dinner in the garden, rain or shine. i associated the end of the working day with a cigarette and looked forward to it, likewise i anticipated my cigarette as i was finishing my meal.


i had a mate i used to play chess and backgammon with, cigarettes were always in plentiful supply, and the association was very strong.

once i had made up my mind to quit , i had to change my routine, break the associations.

i had to find something to do after work for 10 minutes before getting into the car to drive home, so i always left some paperwork to finish off at 5pm. by the time that was done, the urge to smoke had more or less gone even though i had cigs in my pocket.

instead of going into the garden after dinner, i took over washing up duties to break the routine.

i had to give up backgammon and chess, i could not play if i was not smoking. the routine was too ingrained.

once the routines are identified and broken, quitting is much easier.

30 years later, i still get cravings, sometimes when i inhale some second hand smoke, sometimes when i play chess or backgammon.

in the past 12 months i have had 2 cigarettes, one in june after a cold beer on sukhumvit, (i ponced one from an american sat at the next table) and one in november, also on sukhumvit, you could still buy singles from some shops then, i enjoyed them tremendously but only had two or three long deep and very satisfying drags before feeling sated and stubbing the bugger out.

and if vapers could see how f*cking stupid they looked puffing on those silly things and blowing out great clouds of steam they would surely quit instantly.

good luck with your mission dill, use patches or gum to help if you get desperate, but remember, the craving never goes.

^^ Was just looking for that,cheers

Here's the author explaining it a little

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Quitting Smoking cold turkey.

Smoking duck is a bit of a bind as well. I might go back to tobacco.

I gave up for just over a year, and like a mug, started again. Hypnosis helped kick it in the first place. I used to keep a full pack in the glove box in the car. Every time I opened the box, I smiled to myself and said out loud, “I’ve beat you ya bastards”.

Back up to 40 a day now. Too cheap here.

Originally Posted by taxexile

in the past 12 months i have had 2 cigarettes, one in june after a cold beer on sukhumvit, (i ponced one from an american sat at the next table) and one in november, also on sukhumvit, you could still buy singles from some shops then, i enjoyed them tremendously but only had two or three long deep and very satisfying drags before feeling sated and stubbing the bugger out.

I can't understand how you could feel sated. Everytime I've started back up the first tab tastes horrible and I go all light headed and got a huge guilt trip.

I've tried and know a couple of people who can go out and just smoke socially(the lucky bastards).

No, doesn't work for me I'm gonna stay off them for good, like the ex alcoholic who cant take a sip.

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Quitting Smoking

You should also give up alcohol and sex. You won't end up living longer but it sure as hell will feel like it.

I am embarking on quitting smoking and haven't told anybody because if I relapse I don't want to hear Mary " I thought you said......."

Ive just had my first crave in days now after associating with you stinking smokers

Maybe half the war is putting them out of your mind.

Ill be back in 6 months

You should stick with the nicotine patches, they work really well.

You put them on your eyes then you can't find your smokes.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Good luck with it. I coincidentally did see an article recently that apparently people who use vapes to assist the process are showing good rates of permanently quitting compared to those that don't so might be something in that

Ta,
There'll be nothing in that, there'll be something behind it- like a big fukkin Vape Company

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Ta,
There'll be nothing in that, there'll be something behind it- like a big fukkin Vape Company

Why do you say that?

The tobacco companies, on the other hand, have been doing their best to warn of the "dangers of vaping".

No fucking surprise there.

It's not really empirical evidence, but all the occasional smokers in my office have switched to vaping, the fucking smoking area smells like a cross between a sweet shop and a fruit and veg market.

One bloke said his three-pack-a-day dad had switched to vaping and doesn't touch cigs any more.

2017 saw the publication of the first longer term study of vaping, comparing toxicant exposure between people who’d stopped smoking and used the products for an average of 16 months, compared with those who continued to smoke. Funded by Cancer Research UK, the study found large reductions in carcinogens and other toxic compounds in vapers compared with smokers, but only if the user had stopped smoking completely. A further recent study compared toxicants in vapour and smoke that can cause cancer, and estimated excess cancer risk over a lifetime from smoking cigarettes or vaping. Most of the available data on e-cigarettes in this study suggested a cancer risk from vaping around 1% of that from smoking.


E-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking because they don’t contain tobacco.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...r-than-smoking



And yet still illegal in Thailand. We know who's paid for that.

Quit for >10 years after smoking for the previous 24-years. Used a smoking cessation research program at our local hospital to quit. Their method principally was a bit of discussion and then increasing lengths between meetings at which we would be directed to puff on cue - seem to remember that it was about ten-days with the last session on a Monday. Believe me the taste of the smoke on that last day was pretty unpleasant. The real incentive for me was the follow-up questionaires which were rewarded with a crisp $20 bill. One of the most helpful hints they gave was that the urge to smoke typically did not last for more than a few minutes and simply waiting made the urge to lessen to an ache.

Troubles with a Cuban girlfriend got me back to smoking here and there - went on like that for years, first only when out of the country, then out of the county, and then out of the house. Never got back to a pack a day, but was smoking most of the pack when I met my Thai girlfriend (now wife) who wrinkled her nose but never made any demands. Promised her I would quit once I got back to the States to file for her fiance visa. Have managed to stay stopped for >6 years now with only one cigarette during that time when she was in the embassy for her interview and I was cooling my heels waiting to find out what the future would hold.

The real challenge will be overcoming the addiction to the chemical additives found throughout commercial varieties - the real hook.
As nicotine isn't that addictively holding.

Best to ya, Dills...
The perseverance and discipline of cold turkey are your bet bets, without the aid of substitutes.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Why do you say that?

Because i dont know anyone who has given up vaping

Quit over 4 years ago and started on the e cigs .
Still vaping today and never had a ciggie/fag since.

Originally Posted by HuangLao

The real challenge will be overcoming the addiction to the chemical additives found throughout commercial varieties - the real hook.
As nicotine isn't that addictively holding.

Utter bollocks.

Nicotine is highly addictive.

^ ^
See Arry


What are the cravings for a vape like?
Whats your usual flavour?

As an ex-smoker of 11 years almost, I sincerely hope you finally succeed in quitting the gaspers, Dillinger. I had a "this is the last straw" moment, and just quit them. Never had a withdrawal symptom once .

And as someone who lost their father to COPD, I ain't ever going back to them. Screw that miserable suffering for a laugh. All the best with it.

cheers Yorty, sorry to hear about your Dad. My mom died at my age- mid 40s, from cancer, it was secondary so dont really know if it was attributed to fags, but 40 Lambert and Butler a day couldnt have helped.

My dad gave up smoking in his 40s cold turkey, he was a miserable fucker for months, hang on he still is

God luck with it Dill!

I too have quit several times in the past, once for a year.

Smoking about 10 a day for the last 25 years, mostly at night or driving home from work.

I generally only smoke when stressed so need to work on my triggers.

Gave up over a month ago and switched to vaping then for no apparent reason started smoking again, £30 in a week wasted!!

Back on the vaping now much cheaper,cleaner and stops my urges.

Might try stopping the vaping next month, we'll see how it goes.

History of lung cancer in my family so it should be a no brainer really, plus if i die early my kids will be knackered without me.

Cheers Dill.

Originally Posted by cyrille

Utter bollocks.

Nicotine is highly addictive.

It's Jeff, has there ever been a more clueless cvnt on every topic imaginable in the history of man?.

Originally Posted by Dillinger

Because i dont know anyone who has given up vaping

I did Dill, and if it wasn't for e-cigs I'd still be hopelessly addicted to nicotine. The thing with e-cigs is you can get varying degrees of nicotine strength juice to put in them, most vendors will carry something like 32mg, 24mg, 16mg, 12mg, 6mg, 2mg, and 0mg which still lets you vape but without nicotine. You know where I'm going with this and how I stopped, never actually got to the 0mg but the last order of juice I got was 6mg which is really weak (compared to 32mg which will blow your head off). Anyway with a combination of really wanting to kick nicotine and ever decreasing e-cig juice potency, I managed to quit after being a smoker since teen years. Still get cravings, but they're not too bad...

Good luck in your battle and I mean that, you name the vice from booze to weasel-dust (in rock star quantities) and everything in between and I never had any problem at all stopping them all any time I wanted to. Nicotine is a whole different ball game though, that stuff is seriously hard to walk away from.

Tobacco, in my opinion, is the hardest addiction to overcome. Biggest trigger for me wasn't when drinking, but was a smoke with that first cup of coffee in the morning.