11 replies to this topic

[MiniChap]

Hey guys, i'm 17 and i've smoked for around 4 years and i really want to kick the habit, mainly because i enjoy rugby and generally don't like being ill from inhaling carcinogenic smoke. Has anyone here found a good way of quitting and do we have any smokers who are trying to quit?

I would really appreciate some help and your thoughts.

Share your thoughts on the matter, but keep it civil and lets keep the smoker bashing out of it, 'you lot litter/kill through second hand smoke/make air crap for us non smokers' however true it may be, it's not relevant.


cheers guys

[sonikk4]

There has been a thread on this before with a lot of comments.

Being an ex smoker who started at 12 i finally kicked the evil weed at 30. I had given up twice but due to events (family death and the first Gulf War) the kicker for me was the impending birth of my son.

This is how sad it is but i gave up on Dunkirk docks at 07.15am on the 10th Dec 1993 and have not touched one since and its all by will power.

Now there are patches, electric fags, gum etc etc so try some of those. Other than that its really down to you and how strong your will power is.

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

one of my mates gradually quit by going from the mass produced cigarettes to amber leaf or golden virginia rolling tobacco and just kept cutting down until he just quit, any one i know has found it easier to quit from rollies cus they dont have as many of the chemicals put into normal cigarettes hope this helps

[Teapot]

If you're determined to give up, you will. Try weaning yourself off the addiction (physical) with patches or one of those imitation cigs or whatever you find helpful.
Write down all the reasons YOU want to give up and memorise them.
There is a book by Allen Carr (see Amazon) which is said to be good.
The habit (pscyhological) is more tricky and you will be sorely tempted in situations where you would normally smoke, eg pubs (smoking area, that is), parties, sitting in the park, after pleasurable, er, activities etc.
At first, do whatever it takes to avoid difficult situations, even if it means being unsociable. Your friends will understand, otherwise they're not friends, are they?
Use the general smoking ban to your advantage and surround yourself with clean air, like-minded people and a nice feeling. Be smug, if necesary.

I smoked for 30 years and gave up when I was 45. Good luck.

[MiniChap]

Cheers guys, your input has been helpful, i think i'll write down all the reasons why and try to convince myself that it is all worth it in the end, which as we all know it is. I've managed to quit with limited success before, As Level exams stopped me going to the gym and pushed me towards smoking. I personally find that Alcohol makes me crave tenfold, smoking sober is okay but it doesn't compare to when i've been drinking. Guess it's back to good old fashioned willpower and exercise.

Cheers guys and i can only commend Sonik and Teapot for what must have been a serious ordeal.


Do you guys ever feel like going back or are you completely repulsed by smoking?

[AVV IT]

I smoked for 15 years and tried giving up countless times, but only ever lasted a few days to a few weeks each time.

It didn't occur to me until after I had finally given up, that the reason I had failed so many times before was that I had never actually wanted to give up on all those previous occasions in the first place. On all the previous occasions I had been trying to give it up because I knew that I really should stop smoking, but not because I actually wanted to. Each time I had tried before, it was either because of the cost, or because of what it was doing to my health, or because of the inconvenience of finding somewhere to smoke, or because I didn't like the smell it left on my clothes or whatever.

What was different the final time was that I made a concious decision that I really didn't want to smoke anymore, I didn't want to reach the age of thirty and still be smoking, so I gave up 6 months before my 30th Birthday and it was actually really easy that time. I had a few cravings and chewed a bit of gum for the first couple of weeks, but overall I really couldn't understand why I had found it so difficult all those other times.

So in my experience giving up smoking really is just a state of mind, there is no point trying to convince yourself that you need to stop smoking, or listing all the benefits in order to motivate you to do so, because you will just fail again and again if you haven't made the concious decision that you actually want to quit, as opposed to just thinking that it would be a good idea to.

Do you guys ever feel like going back or are you completely repulsed by smoking?

I'm utterly repulsed by smoking these days, I'm a raving anti smoker who cant stand it or even the smell of it. But I still cannot escape my smoking thought processes though. Most days I will at least once think to myself " I think I'll go outside and have a fag now" at some point. I also quite regularly decide that I'm going to walk out of the house, buy a packet of fags and smoke them all. I never actually have the intention of doing either and don't think that I actually ever would, yet I still have the thought process to.

Which just goes to show that if you have been a smoker, then you can never actually be a non smoker.... just a recovering one!!

Edited by AVV IT, 02 September 2011 - 09:13 PM.

[sonikk4]

I found that the third and final time i packed up if i stood in the vicinity of anybody smoking i would start to feel sick and even develop a headache so that was a right bummer trying to go to a pub. After a while though that subsided so the only thing now is the smell gets on my nerves plus i resent any of my fellow aircraft engineers having a fag as i see that as getting an unofficial break.

[ANON]

go to your gp and get a prescription for champix, just don't read the possible side effects

[minimissionary]

Smoke a 10 deck of Silk Cut silver. You'll never want to smoke again.

[markxe]

I started smoking as my New Years resoloution at 16.(Note to self, Idiot) At my smoking height I was on 60 Benson and Hedges a day.
I promised myself that when my daughter was born in 96 I would stop. The next morning after her birth I woke up reached for my cigarettes as I had done for years, picked up the packet of 17 and crushed it.
I have never touched one since, it was hard for a couple of days but I just kept telling myself that I didn't need them.
Will power is the key, patches, chewing gum etc all seem like a commercial con.
You dont see alcoholics weening themselves off booze by just having a couple of glasses of Vodka a day rather than a bottle.
If you want to stop then do just that STOP.
Good luck with it.

[andy pandy]

giving up smoking is hard, tried zyban, champix,gum etc etc but my will power was low, all the drugs will help with withdrawl but most important part is willpower, that you want to stop, not family/friends telling you [asking],

[Carlos W]

I have nagged my other half for a while to stop, but the thing that shocked her into stopping was that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer (at 29), the general view was that if I can get cancer through doing nothing why is she increasing her chances by smoking!

Besides we want to start a family soon and she is not smoking whilst carrying my baby!