You can do it, TBF. When the urge hits, remind yourself how awesome it is to not be a smoker any more. Because let me tell you, it’s so freaking awesome to not be a smoker any more.
I quit smoking but took up chewing but it’s something I don’t want to be a long lasting habit. Since I can chew indoors I do it while gaming or reading or surfing the web and it has kind of become a ritual I don’t really know how to break. I am significantly faster at playing shooters online while chewing so I’ve even made up a benefit for it besides the buzz. Do you guys have suggestions? I saw that TMan was a smoker and chewer – do you (Tman) – have any pointers?
The first step in quitting is to admit you are going to quit FOREVER. The 2nd step is recognizing that your brain is hard-wired with both physical and mental addiction, and that it will go to great lengths to make sure you fail.
You have to come up with the resolve that no matter what the fuck happens, you will never have a chew for the rest of your life. Take a can and stand in front of the mirror and look yourself in the eyes while holding the can up and telling yourself that you are through. It’s been a long-ass ride and you’re finished. If you can honestly look into your own eyes and believe this, you’re ready. Dump that shit down the toilet and flush it.
I’m going to be straight up with you - I have tried to quit multiple times in the past. You could say I’m an expert at quitting I tried it so many times. The first 3 days is the physical addition - after that it’s the mental addiction, the habits, the day to day things you do when you are chewing. The first 3 days is like taking the worst drugs I’ve ever taken. I don’t drive I’m so out of the loop with paranoia, and my heart is racing as if I’d drunk an entire bucket of coffee. I have to avoid everyone - my wife & kids were on their annual sojourn to visit my wife’s parents, so I had the entire house to myself and I did it on an extended weekend - where I had 4 days off.
It’s a tough motherfucking 3 days. Super tough, but it’s the easiest part of quitting.
Remember that brain? When you’re standing in front of that mirror, that fuckwad is already plotting your demise. You’ve got to be ready. My fucking brain is so devious it scares me. It has a superb way of rationalizing everything down to “it’s OK, you deserve it” or “it’s OK, you have have just one” or “man what shitty day, it’s OK if you drop off the bandwagon because it’s been so shitty”.
Shake - I can tell your brain has already built in fortifications of defense by convincing you that your gaming is better with the nicotine buzzing.
IT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT
Everyone is going to have bad days. The eighth, or ninth time I quit? I was about a month in to the quitting journey and it fucking convinced me that I needed viagra because I couldn’t keep it up. No matter that I couldn’t find a shred of evidence anywhere that supported the fact that quitting tobacco decreased sexual performance - I was the motherfucking poster child that quitting chewing caused flaccidity. Ya, sure as shit, I bought a can and my sexual performance went back to normal. Fuck Viagra, all I needed was the can back my brain had rationalized. Back to square fucking one.
Weight loss? Fuck, when you quit chewing, you’ll make a high school boy who can down 4 whoppers at a sitting look like a weak ass punk with how much you’ll want to eat or might eat. Oral Fixation. Chewers are the worst. Your tongue has lost 50% of it’s taste buds. When you quit, food is going to taste so much better! You need an outlet for that. For me, it’s chewing on pencils or taking a big breath.
Taking a deep breath is the single biggest defense against your brain. Take another deep breath. That craving, that rationalizing will dissipate with each long breath.
Your biggest question is the rituals - yes, that is when your brain fucks with you the hardest. Hit them head on. Prove that you can still do everything just as you had before - sans the dip. Have a glass of ice cold water where that dip can used to be and take a drink whenever you have a craving. And face the fact that you are going to suck on some nights and the fact that you suck while playing has nothing to do with the dip, the can, the motherfucking chew. It’s just an off night. Take a deep breath.
Like I said up-thread, I planned this last time quitting several months ahead - and I’m already planning a big ass party for my year anniversary of quitting and staying quit here in another two months. I know I’m never going to smoke / chew tobacco anymore (I still enjoy the occasional bong hit or joint). I lost my job last fall and I made it through that mountain of stress over 5 months - and a new job - without rationalizing myself back onto the can.
The $80 I spent every month on cigs and cans? I reward myself every month with something else and let me tell you, $80 a month can buy a lot of steam games ;-)
I’m not going to say good luck because luck has nothing to do with quitting smoking. Hit it head on and look yourself in the mirror. You’re better than that shit.
PS: I just replied to my first email I sent myself almost 10 months ago with the response above to further remind me why I quit and why I will never do it again.
I quit by chewing the gum for a few weeks. I didn’t follow the instructions on the gum though. I chewed it as I needed it. The nicotine hit helps offset the hardest bits. A few weeks in and I forget to take the gum with me and boom, I’m good. This time it’s been nearly a year with only a few smokes in between while drinking heavily and I always feel uber shit after that. I’m to the point now where I’d be happy if they totally outlawed smoking in public because it makes me kind of gag.
Quitting smoking is hard as hell and I get the desire to murder. Hang in there Bird Flu.
Everybody has excellent advice. I’ll throw my spin on what worked for me going the cold turkey route. Mind you, this didn’t work when it came to me quitting doing drugs, or drinking (that was actually harder by far, though I didn’t know it at the time I quit smoking), but there were reasons for that.
As has been said, getting past the physical addiction is only half the battle, it’s the mental addiction that will reach back out and grab you and pull you back in. The good news is if you can make it through the first couple weeks, on the physical side it will become easier, and you will also start to get some of the rewards that help compensate (feeling better, food tasting better, less coughing and hacking, breathing easier, sleeping better, etc.). The bad news is you do have to be prepared for the fact that your disease (I think you can use the AA concept of addiction as a disease here, i.e. you are addicted to smoking both mentally and physically, which impacts you mentally and physically in a deleterious fashion) will tell you now would be a good time to smoke; you’ve been so good that one wouldn’t hurt you; gee, when you have a few drinks you always liked having a few cigarettes; etc. Or there’s just the habitual factor to deal with which is that you pretty much smoked in every situation (on waking, breaks at work, after meals, any time you wanted to relax, etc.). You smoked because you were bored too, and when you find yourself bored you are going to want to do something and your mind is going to automatically program you to want to smoke in all those many situations you smoked before.
So - the things you are doing about occupying yourself are good (hard candy, taking a walk regularly (several times a day, this is very good because soon you will notice your improved physical condition which is a huge reinforcement)). I’m not sure what your age is - you seem pretty young, I’m guessing late 20s or 30s - I imagine you can count on picking up weight too in the long run, but don’t worry about that for now. It might be a good thing, and if you don’t need to gain weight, you can counter that with diet and exercise over the next year or so.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, just break it down and take the approach that a lot of sober people take, tell yourself, hellz ya, I want to smoke really bad right now, but, you know what, right now I am not going to smoke. I can always smoke tomorrow. For today, I’m not going to smoke. You’ll find it amazing how effective this is in silencing the voice in your head demanding that you smoke at that moment.
And use mind tricks against that hypnotic pull, the craving, the siren call, that is going to come. Just turn the frikkin’ thought off, go do something else. Take that walk. Go to the fridge and eat some celery or carrots. Eat some hard candy. Go play a game. The benefit a lot of sober people have is a sober community. Call a friend and talk about how hard it is. Come here and post about it. What you will find is all these activities interrupt your thoughts of smoking and you will be surprised to find out that the thought and desire pass quickly (until the next time! but the frequency will get less).
What I was going to say is how I combined going cold turkey with another approach that worked for me. Others here have touched on it. What I did was in my mind I turned the idea of smoking into the most repulsive idea and thought I could possibly conjure in my mind. It was almost akin to some kind of self hypnosis thing. The idea of me smoking, or being around others who smoked, or when I was eating being around it, I turned it into a vile, reprehensible idea. It was my way of deflecting the mental side of my smoking addiction, it was highly effective in turning aside my desire to smoke. The down side is to this day, 25 years later, being around smokers is very unpleasant for me. Also, I found I couldn’t quit drinking this way, because I loved me some drinking, it wasn’t possible to hate it.
I am really glad I quit (as are others here who shared their support for you, and their story about how they did it) - it was at the time the hardest thing I had done in my life (it ain’t easy, but you can do it, you have living testimony here from a #of folks who did it!). The payoff in quality of life, and going on to being interested in working out, road biking, rollerblading, and how I feel at any given moment has been wonderful, and as I am sure all the ex-smokers here agree, we can tell that you are getting close to being able to deal with it, and want that for you too.
Two fucking weeks today, baby! Whoohoo! It’s hard as fuck still and sometimes I really want to punch people in the face but god dammit I’m doing it!
This is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I have to admit it does get easier everyday but it sure does feel like my life for the past 2 weeks has been one long and horrible craving. Everything from the literal mouth watering desires to the lack of sleep I seem to be getting since quitting is god damn hell. But, I’m sticking with it, gone too far now and all that.
I’m stashing all this fat loot I’m saving and salivating while thinking about my new computer. I figure by October this year I’ll have saved enough to justify plunking down a grand or so on a fat new rig and I’ll finally be able to play Arma2!! Whoohoo! :)
Seriously, thank you all who replied a little over two weeks ago. Your kind words really did help me tackle this full tilt. I really do appreciate it.
Congrats, TBF! It’s so worth it. I’m 3+ years in and let me tell you: I love not smoking. It’s awesome.
Fantastic TBF! It’s just beginning, though. Keep your guard up and whenever that fucking piece of shit rationalization tries to sneak a smoke in, take a deep breath and tell it to take a hike.
Deep breaths baby, deep breaths. It cures everything.
The $$ does stack up fast. It’s awesome that you have a goal on what to spend it on!
I should really give this a go again.
I was doing great until I had a panic attack one night.
Still don’t know how to get past the “I will never have another cigarette again” horror though. Telling myself smoking is a dirty, filthy habit won’t cut it because I know I love smoking.
Edit: Fuck it. I’m going to try again today. No point putting it off until ~the future.
Two weeks is a significant milestone. Two weeks is hard, man. Good job!
You should be past the worst of the physical cravings, but vigilance must be your watchword now. Your mind is tricksy, and like Tman said, rationalization tries to creep in. Stay away from parties where drinking and smokers mix for awhile is my advice.
Filthy habit didn’t work on me. What finally did it for me, was that it was controlling me and I was fed up with that & wouldn’t take it anymore. It’s amazing that once I got back in control of my life, how many other things I can now control so much better. My self-confidence continues to regrow and I’m setting and tackling goals like never before. Because if you can quit smoking, you can really do anything you can set your mind to.
For me this actually made it easier as it removed gray areas from the equation. “I will never have a cigarette again” is a very clear, black and white state of affairs. When you are at a party and people are smoking around you and you go, “Maybe…” the answer comes immediately. “Nope. Never again. Not now because not ever.”
Two weeks rocks! Your lungs are about to clear and you should be getting your sense of smell back. Buceph, a few days doesn’t give you any of the benefits, you should really push for a month. Once you get your sense of smell back and start smelling other smokers, it gets a lot easier. You stink, man. Your breath is hideous, your clothes reek, and you constantly pour shitlung breath into the atmosphere around you.
H.
Yeah, I know that. The “never again” bit brings problems because I genuinely enjoy a smoke. And thinking I won’t have one now or for the next few days isn’t the biggest problem. That hits when they’re out of my system and I think “never again?”
I’m not planning on giving up for a few days. I’m planning on giving up forever. (Or maybe until I’m so old it doesn’t matter.) ;)
I’ve been chewing the nicotine gum for ~5 years now and expect to use it the rest of my life. I smoked for ~35 years. I tried everything I could think of to quit, hypnotism, patches, cold turkey, gum, pills, support groups, having kids and grandkids, hell both my lungs collasped and I still couldn’t kick it. Finally I was able to do it.
All I can say to someone trying to kick the habit is don’t give up. If you’re serious about wanting to quit then eventually you will find a method that works for you. and you’ll be glad you did.
I’m in the process of quitting right now :/. The other day I practically walked around the office snarling like an angry dog. If someone had pushed my buttons the wrong way, I’d likely have decked them.
Not. Fun.
Congrats mate! Keep it up! :)
Contrats to everyone keeping up the quitting. I quit 14 years ago, on my wedding day…(pack a day for about 15 years) plus we had a kid coming and frankly I did not want to die before she was old enough to be a teenager and hate me. (fwiw, she still thinks I am awesome)
BUT, even after that long, I still get the jones for a smoke from time to time…the trick to staying clean is actually wanting to quit. That makes it so much easier- not easy but easier.
Keep it up-- it CAN be done.
Wait. If I quit I’ll be able to smell things again?
Fuuuuuuuck.
That is an unfortunate side effect.
This thread actually periodically reminds me why I don’t want to quit smoking.