I just quit smoking!

So, after 4 and a half years of smoking about a pack a day, I've finally gotten disgusted enough with myself to quit.  I smoked my last cigarette about fifteen minutes ago.

So, for the smokers of OT.Com:

- When did you start smoking?
- Why did you start smoking?
- Do you still smoke?  If so:
   - Have you tried quitting before?  How many times?
   - What was the longest amount of time you went without smoking?
- If not:
   - When did you quit?
   - Why did you quit?
   - How do you deal with cravings?
   - Do you have any tips for quitting?

I'll go first:

Started smoking in the summer of 2006, in order to try to win back an ex-girlfriend I was in love with (she was my first love, so I would have done anything to try to win her back).  She'd made an offhand comment about how she thought smoking was sexy, so I asked one of my of-age friends (I was 17 at the time) to buy me a pack.  I started smoking, and she showed no more interest in me than she had before.  Then I kept smoking to deal with her not wanting me anymore, then because I was addicted.

I've tried quitting several times - the longest I went without smoking was 3 months, I believe.  I don't even remember how I started again, but it was probably while I was drunk.

Today, I sat around the apartment doing nothing but watching How I Met Your Mother and smoking cigarettes.  I realized about an hour ago that I'd smoked two entire packs that had previously been unopened.  I've never been a two-pack-a-day guy, and seeing myself do that just got to me in a way nothing else ever had.  So I smoked my last one (after cradling it like a delicate flower for half an hour), threw away anything related to smoking (cigarettes) that I could find, and now here I am.

We'll see how this goes, but for now, I'm optimistic.  At the very least, I'll be saving about $70 per week, which is great since I'm so very broke right now.  So I'm going to try to focus on that to get me through the first couple weeks.

Good luck!  It will be hell on earth for a while, but that's normal.  It will suck, but will be totally worth it.  I've never smoked and but many of my good friends had and had quit.  They tell me it is very hard but absolutely worth it.

I didn't smoke for long, I started when I was in my mid thirties and I gave up about three years later.

I quit using an inhalator (a little plastic thing which gave my fingers something to fiddle with a sharp hit of nicotine when I really needed it) but it didn't really work for me so I went cold turkey.

I went from 10 stone to 15 stone in a very short period of time and on a shorter than average guy it didn't look pretty.

I tried to go back to smoking but I just could inhale the stuff anymore so I moved onto nicotine gum.

My weight went back to normal, I became much more agreeable to be with and I now have a much more expensive addiction.

The best advice I can give people is just don't start.

There are benefits to nicotine use (it really does aid concentration, it speeds up your metabolism and it helped with my seizures before the I was properly diagnosed with epilepsy) but it's genuinely addictive stuff and if you smoke it, it wrecks your lung capacity for years.

My mother went cold turkey after smoking for thirty years (prompted by my father's Cancer diagnosis and eventual demise). She was only tempted to return to it during moments of extreme stress but held back by thinking of her grandchildren.

If you are trying to quit my advice is A) find a focus to shame you to sticking to your chosen path and B) when you feel the urge to buy a packet stick the money you would have spent in a jar and at the end of the year take a nice deep breath and look at the money you have saved.

ChainsawAsh, I've never smoked, so I can't advice you as to how to keep from going back the habit, but I do wish you the best of luck.   Just think of how your clothes won't stink and how you teeth won't be yellow and how your lungs will thankyou and of the money you won't waste on the cancer sticks.   Good luck, ChainsawAsh.      

HotRod said:

smoking about 6-8 fags a day....

 

LOL You smoked fags? I have never heard them called that before.

HotRod said:

You mean to tell me you've never smoked a fag??

Just remember to blow

LOL, but still I have never heard of cigarettes being called fags.

I used to smoke Benson And Hedges Superqueens :-D

In the UK, Eire and Australasia calling smokes fags is common parlance.

We get a hoot when you refer to your backsides as fannies as it means something quite different over here.

ChainsawAsh, I never would have guessed you were a smoker, shame on you. Wow, $70 a week?

I hate cigarettes, everytime I've tried one I feel like throwing up. $70 a week is $280 a month? That's ridiculous. Although smokers tend to replace cigarettes with food so you're probably thin and don't eat much?

Bingowings said:

I used to smoke Benson And Hedges Superqueens :-D

In the UK, Eire and Australasia calling smokes fags is common parlance.

We get a hoot when you refer to your backsides as fannies as it means something quite different over here.

Most of us don't use the word "fannies" we use ass or butt, fanny sounds to femmy.

But to get on topic LOL, Good luck with your quitting CA.

ChainsawAsh, maybe you can use that saved money and donate it to Adywan. I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your money, but that is what you should do. jk

That's $2960 over the course of a year and you've been doing this for a little over 4 years? That's approximately $12000 wasted on Cigarettes!

HotRod said:

But....just before I gave up I was only smoking about 6-8 fags cancer sticks a day....

fixed. 

HotRod said:

Smoking is cool!!!

*sigh*

Lots of things can increase the risks of getting cancer Warb (car exhaust fumes, a sedentary lifestyle, growing older, too much sunlight exposure, certain viruses, too much booze) and smoking isn't cancer guaranteed.

If people want to quit smoking, good on them it will lower their chances of getting a smoking related disease and will increase their lung capacity.

In about a decade the damage will be mostly reversed.

Smoking is addictive and expensive.

But to demonise a risky behaviour when there are so many that people do that are just as bad and can bring some benefits is counter-productive.

People wouldn't smoke at all if there weren't certain attractions to the drug the same is true of all the other substances people snort, slurp, scoff, puff and inject into themselves.

Ghostbusters said:

ChainsawAsh, maybe you can use that saved money and donate it to Adywan. I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your money, but that is what you should do. jk

That's $2960 over the course of a year and you've been doing this for a little over 4 years? That's approximately $12000 wasted on Cigarettes!

Oh yeah, I know.  That $12,000 would cure all my debt problems, too.

And that's why I can't donate to Adywan - because that money I'm saving by not smoking needs to go toward bills, rent, and food (my smoking habit was pretty much funded by my food budget).

Thanks for your replies, everyone - glad to know I'm not the only ex-smoker here.

Don't worry, according to George the world will end before they even get a chance to try...allegedly.

ChainsawAsh, I did the math wrong. $70 a week = $3654 a year x 4 1/2 years = $16,443, ouch.

Bobby Jay said:

I'm still going to celebrate England winning the World Cup with a Cuban Cigar though. Luckily,  that's never gonna happen again.

there are better ways to celebrate a championship than smoking a cancer stick.