Good luck. Good Attitude, Eliminate Triggers, Replace Habits.

Oh, and as a warning, most people I know that have quit (me too) have had ‘walls’ they have hit. There is one at 2-3 days – that is the worst – be prepared for it and you can do it. There is one at 2-3 weeks. For some this is even worse and can almost be psychotic – be prepared for it and have an alternative activity you love and friends that don’t smoke around. If in this first 3 week period, you are around friends that smoke you will smoke. Well, from my limited sample the failure rate is 100%. Get away from smokers and stay away at least until the second month. Some people also have trouble the third month. But you should have techniques to handle that by the time you get here.

Last piece of advice… You will ALWAYS be a smoker. Once you quit – if you want to stay quit, never have even one. Again, from my limited sample I and anyone else who has quit and said “oh, just this one” has been back to their original level within a week. 100% of the time. A good friend had quit for 3 years and had one smoke over a business lunch (when you could do that) and was back up to 3 packs in four days. He was not happy.

Good Luck.

Anyway started properly at about 18 I guess and smoked for 3 or 4 years, probably a little under a pack a day at the end. I quit that time cold turkey with really not too much difficulty, I’m not even sure the gum was available back then. I started again a year or so later, a few months after breaking up with a girlfriend and after troublesome time at work, bummed one and a couple of days later bought a pack, within a week or two I was back to a little under a pack a day. It was probably almost 10 years before I quit again. I tried cold turkey again, but couldn’t do it and after a few abortive attempts I tried the gum but that didn’t work for me either so then I tried the patches and after a miserable few months I was clean again, for about 4 years. Then in a moment of weakness I had one and was back on the slippery slope.

Quit again for year about 2 years ago, again with the patch and now just started trying again with the patch.

OK so that’s my history now for my advice… really what worked for me, YMMV

I didn’t find it necessary to set a date to stop but I did tell myself it was going to be ‘this week’, I found I had to get myself comfortable with the idea that I wasn’t going to be doing it anymore, like most people I really do like smoking, I enjoy it, it makes me feel better. BTW ‘this week’ ended up actually being a couple of months this time around before I was actually ready to stop again.

If you can change your normal routine to avoid the periods of most want, that will help a lot… well it did for me anyway.

Most importantly you will probably have to come to terms with the fact that you are addicted, there is actually no ‘giving up’… ever… There is just not smoking anymore, it’s a difficult distinction to explain. All the times I have given up, even the longest period of about 4 years I would often still want one, especially with a beer at the pub. Those times get less frequent but but I always have to be on my guard for them and I’ve failed a few times.

Unlike others that have posted here I never found the first week to be the real problem, the real hard part for me was at about 3 months when I thought I’d cracked it and cravings would pop up at some really odd times. You just have to try and be strong. Once I;m done with the patches this time around I think I’ll get some of the nicotine sweeties to keep in the car just in case.

Right, back to your questions. Obviously quitting cold turkey is the cheapest way to go and if you think you can do it then try that… maybe have a practice for 1 day, then 2 or 3 days before your August 31 deadline to see if it might work for you. If it goes well at 3 days maybe just try and push it out another day… and then another and if you’re still stopped at August 31 then just stay stopped.

I think I already covered some of my experience with the patch and that seems to have worked the best for me but as someone else has said don’t keep it on overnight, you don’t smoke when you’re asleep do you? Do put a new one on as soon as you wake up (or after a shower if you do that very first thing) but certainly have it on a good 15 mins before that ‘first cup of coffee’ danger point as you don’t get that instant hit from the patch, it’s just a slow trickle manages to take the edge of the ‘need’ and leaves you just with a ‘want’ to deal with. I’d also suggest the Niquitin CQ patches as they are a lot more like the early patches and you can cut them to whatever size you like to reduce the dose as you think you can handle. I’m pretty sure it says don’t do that in the instructions but I can’t come up with a compelling reason not to do that, so this time I’m going to drop to 21mg (Step1) cut in half (10.5mg) after my first 2 weeks on the 14mg (Step2). I’m going to do that because I think it’ll work for me and it’ll cost me half as much. Last time around I was on the ‘Walgreens own brand’ and they were an odd sort of sealed construction that I didn’t feel comfortable cutting but the CQ ones I got this time are just a simple square with a sort of sticky gel covering the whole surface on the active side, as were the ones I used the very first time I stopped with the help of the patch (I did the same thing then of cutting higher dose patches in half and it didn’t kill me).

Cold turkey did work for me the first time, but I wasn’t strong enough to do that again, I needed the help with the nicotine so I could just work on the habit the other times I stopped.

Gradual cutting down to nothing was absolutely not an option for me, tried it a few times, didn’t work at all, just got cross when I wanted another one the days budget was already done. So it has be a smoke or don’t smoke deal for me.

Bearing in mind that wedding planning is possibly the single most stressful thing you will ever do in your life, it’s not going to be easy. Moving house comes close I think. In fact it was re-locating from the UK to the US and sorting out the Visa that got me started again the time before last now that I think about it :)… Good luck.

I didn’t have a problem with weight gain any time I’ve stopped, but then I’ve never been much of a snacker, but if you think that might be a problem I’d suggest always keeping some baby carrots and sticks of celery all ready to eat in the fridge, just remember to lay off the blue cheese dressing ;)

Finally… don’t get disheartened if you have few moments of weakness, if you’ve been smoking a long time it isn’t easy for most people. Just start stopping again the next day.

Good luck

Well I got Chantix from my doctor. But it does have some side effects. It can cause suicidal thoughts in some people. It only made me feel a bit off. But that passed by the second week. It tells you that you can smoke the first week of use but to completely quit by the start of the second week. I held out as long as I could before I needed that smoke fix. Most times it was only 2 or 3 cigs a day if that. But I stopped completely by the second week.

Its very expensive, paid 130.00 per month. And its wasn’t covered by my health insurance. So all out of pocket. But was money well spent. And some people may need 6 months or more to quit. But by the middle of the second month I had started to forget about taking/needing the pills. So I stopped taking them and havent touched a cigarette since quitting. Now smoke free for one year this month. After you have quit smoking the money saved from cigarettes will have paid for the pills and then some.

And if you feel the urge to smoke which you from time to time. Find something to take your mind off it. I eat sunflower seeds which work wonders for me at work. But you will have to find your own thing. Oh and the second x-ray came back clean.

Stop now. You don’t need mental prep time, you don’t need all of this preplanning, and you don’t need the patch or the gum or /whatever/.

All of the excuses and planning and all the rest? It’s a sort of fear – fear that you won’t be able to, fear about big life changes. It’s the addict in you talking, proffering up little excuses so that you can put off quitting.

Just.. quit.

Take the cigarettes you have, and give them to someone you consider a friend or authority who will be dissapointed if you fall back. Tell them you’re quitting. Give your smokes to them, tell them you don’t want them back. Add in your lighter. Don’t smoke them out – stop /now/, and don’t use that as an excuse. What’s the difference between ‘smoking what you have left’ and getting rid of the darned things? One day? Two? Just get rid of ‘em.

And then don’t buy any. Don’t bum any. You’ll want them, you’ll have two weeks of flu-like symptoms (chills, fever, irritability) as the nicotene withdrawal kicks in – and then you’re done.

As for staying clean?

1) Never carry a lighter. Don’t have one on you, in the house, or anywhere you’ll put your paws on it. Buy cheap wooden matches and use them for candles or whatever – but never carry firemakers on your person.

Why?

Well – first, they’re a reminder of smoking. They are ‘paraphanalia’, and you’ve got an association between lighters and cigarettes. Plus, it’s just one more thing you have to have to light up again.

(I took the lighters out of my cars, as well. It helped.)

2) Follow the rule religiously: never buy another pack, and never bum. If you’re hanging with a smoker, /tell them you’ve quit/. If they try to tempt you, even jokingly, don’t hang with ‘em anymore. Good friends will help you by not letting you bum smokes.

3) You will always want to smoke. It isn’t willpower to stop – it’s just a conscious choice to stop because you truly do want to stop. Now that you’ve had an addiction, it’ll always -lurk-. The point being: you can quit, if you simply decide to quit, and make it through the d/ts. And when you /have/ made it through? Remember what it felt like.

Best advice I can give you. No excuses. No ‘preambles’, no crutches, no pre-built reasons to fail.

I smoked for 10 years, starting at 18 – I quit at 28, at a pack-and-a-half a day habit. I’ve been clean for six years now, and still get cravings, but just.. don’t smoke.

Quittin cold turkey ftw ;)

1) huge expenditures on pills/months of patches/gum. The stop smoking aids are all based on nicotine or substitute stimulants and are really only there to help curb the cravings. if you don’t step down rapidly you’re just keeping your chemical addiciton going using a different delivery.

2) Just cold turkeying. I guess maybe if you have nerves of steel or maybe just a low level of responsibility where you have nothing to worry about you could do this. But when I tried to cold turkey, something would stress me out and puff puff puff.

That being said I’m 9 months into being a successful quitter. Heres what worked for me:

1) Patches for the first week to keep me from killing anyone :0 I used 3 days of the 20+ then 4 days of the 10+ granted i wasted some money but whatever.

2) Not removing things you like. I LIKE going down to hang out with coworkers for a break. Being that they all are smokers I go down and hang with them when I smoke. Adding something else to piss you off such as not seeing your friends is pretty ass.

3) Do something that lets you see the benefit of your not smoking so its not all “omg i have to quit” and you get some “yay i can xxx now easily”. It could be something stupid.. like picking people up in your car that doesnt smell like crap. Or running or being less winded in the bedroom.

Oh yea, if you’re not going to change your eating habits or exercise habits at the same time avoid the scale quitting does add some poinds.

1. To wean yourself off smoking, set a time of day, say 10:00 pm, after which you are not allowed to smoke under any circumstances. Do that for a week. Week two, make it 9:00 pm for a week. Week three: 8:00 pm…etc. It’s something that you could start now and wean yourself, slowly, over the next few weeks. I was done smoking by the time I’d reached Noon. But the “under no circumstances” is a very important part of the equation. If you let yourself smoke on the weekends, or only when you’re drinking, or only when your best friend’s cousin’s cat died, then you’re just screwed. You sit there and find reasons to smoke. It certainly helps that you WANT to quit.

2. Weight gain was not an option for me either. I knew I’d add a few pounds, but I actually started working out more while I was quitting (more as a way to spend evening hours when I wasn’t allowed to smoke than anything), and that helped. But, it helped to have baby carrots and frozen grapes in the fridge. I’d take then in the car with me too, since being alone in the car was my favorite time to smoke and I needed something to fill that void. My friend swears by sunflower seeds. It gives you something to do with your hands and your mouth! She always had a bag (and a cup for the shells) in her car, one in her purse, one in the office, etc. Sunflower seeds aren’t the best for you, but they’re not the worst either!

3. Having a partner makes a big difference too. It’s great that Phil is quitting at the same time. I’m sure that you will help each other tremendously!

Good luck and congratulations on your decision!!

I believe she cold turkey’d it. Maybe using some gum at one time?

An important rule is: DO NOT BUY CIGARETTES – DO NOT KEEP ANY IN THE HOUSE.

This makes it troublesome to Smoke even if you feel an uncontrollable urge.