AHHHH I'M SORRY LOVER! I'M VERY PROUD OF YOU FOR QUITTING, AND STAYING MOSTLY QUITTED THIS LONG! GOOOOOOO MGL!!!

MY TUMMY REALLY HURTS TODAY AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!

You will get through it. YOU CAN DO IT!! :)

Are you using the patch or nicotine gum for the cravings? The patch worked well for my mom.

LIFE SUCKS LEMONS WHEN YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH THE BUNNIES BUT YOU CAN'T.

I ALSO WANT A CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW BUT I CANNOT HAVE ONE SINCE I AM TRYING TO QUIT. (mygo, hold my hand?) I DO NOT WANT TO QUIT!!! LIFE SUCKS, TWICE.

i'm glad you said something, i've quit too, about a week so far, though i have quit before and relapsed. i fucking love me some cigarettes. when i wake up in the morning, i love them with my coffee, i love them driving to and from work, i love them after dinner, and before bed. i love them in a bar, and i love them at the beach. omfg.

I "quit" again last Feb. 10. Still miss having a smoke every morning with coffee. Don't drink coffee a lot of mornings because of this. But I knew this was how it was gonna be. I "quit" once before, for 7 years, and I missed smokes most every day of that time.

I love tobacco, and I miss it, like great sex long remembered, with ex-wives I hate. Like my tragic relationships with those selectively remembered harradins, I love tobacco, but it don't love me, and when I get too nostalgic, it helps to remember the bad times, in equal detail. Which, for tobacco, is all about the hacking coughs, the nicotine stained fingers and teeth, the ashen tone of my skin, and the knowledge I was gonna die painfully and earlier than I otherwise will.

BUT, BOY, WHEN IT WAS GOOD, IT WAS GREAT!

This thread is fast turning into a lovefest for cigarettes! Remember, you're quitting for good reasons! Rararara gooooooooooooooo ex-smokers!

I've been quit for about a week, although I got really drunk on Saturday night and somehow smoked a cigarette but instead of being really happy about that it made me feel sick and horrible so I'm not counting it.

Other than that I only think about smoking about once every minute. I'm pretty please with that, I feel really healthy already.

You can do it MGL.

Hang in there, MGL!!

Just think, if you lived in NYC and you'd given in to the urge to light a cigarette today, you'd have exploded. Bear that in mind.

MGL, just power through. You won't spend the rest of your life missing cigarettes; in fact, most days you'll barely even think about them.

This is part of the quitting process, and it's a natural, predictable one. There are psychological and physiological processes going on that will fade. What's really happening here? You withdrew your body froma drug on which it had grown dependent. your brain will now tell itself anything in order to get you to give it a fix. But it's a cheap, desperate, last gasp of a dying addiction -- not a real reflection of how you're always going to feel. It's like the shuddering of a corpse that has already passed.

THERE IS A ZOMBIE SMOKER IN MY BODY, BOARD UP THE WINDOWS, REACH ME DOWN THE SHOTGUN, SOMEONE COUNT THE CANS OF BEANS!!!!!

Go team! Go MGL!!!

I quit back at the end of April and relapsed 5 months later when my previous apartment flooded and we had to move. That was my excuse anyhow. figured New Year's was as good a time as any to take another stab at it.

Been reading the Susan Shapiro book about quitting everything she loved except sex. I'm not sure if it's helping or not.

AND NOW MY RANT:
WHY IS IT THAT I GET SNIFFLES AND COUGHS WHEN I QUIT SMOKING WHEN I DIDN'T GET THEM BEFORE. I'M TOLD THAT IT'S MY BODY "HEALING" ITSELF. IF THAT'S THE CASE, WHY DO I FEEL LIKE SHIT?!?

Yeah, lilywing, I was sick for the whole damn MONTH of December after I quit. I finally get better again and what happens? The lurching, brain eating zombie smoker cravings get me! The whole thing is so GODDAMN awful.

The weird thing is that though I'm a smoker, I haven't had one in a week, and I feel just fine about that. Since I've had this cold, which came on around new years eve, I've had no desire to smoke. I'm sure I will again later, but for now, not at all.

The sniffles and that are withdrawal. This time instead of cold symptoms I got a million canker sores and my lips got all fucked up. That actually made me really mad at cigarettes and helped in the process.

I'm very proud of you, MGL. Everyone. I, still, have not bought my nic gum for a full fledged quit attempt. GO EVERYONE!

My inventory of addictions does not include tobacco, but I "get" how hard it is.

You can DO it. . .we're proud of you for sticking with it.

Quitting smoking the first time SUCKED. I quit for a year by weaning myself down to puffs off other people's smokes, then quit for good. Started again when I broke my foot and was confined to the house for two months.

Quitting smoking the second time was the easiest thing I've ever done. It's been about three years, and I never have cravings and smoking disgusts me. The miracle cure?

Acupuncture. Not some quack who sticks three pins in your ears and sends you on your way. I had six full body treatments with an MD from China. Freaking amazing!

My hubby hated the acupuncture, and he had a really hard time quitting. What finally worked for him was Wellbutrin and a nicotine nasal spray--not the inhaler, but a spray that you snorted up your nose.

Good luck to you all. It's so hard, but it is the best thing I've ever done!

ok, at the risk of getting my ass handed to me, allow me to say quite serenely that today at 4pm will be 21 days since my last cigarette. i want to breathe more than i want to smoke. and i could not breathe. it is my considered opinion that the only reason physical cravings would still exist after a month (hell, after 72 hours) is the use of patches, gum, or other nicotine delivery systems. go cold turkey and the only thing left after 3 days is the desire, the attractive idea, the unoccupied hand syndrome, but no physical cravings. the first two will always be with you to some degree, the third you'll forget. desire is nothing to bemoan, i desire to be rich, i desire a cigarette, i choose to fixate on neither one. attractive ideas pass, one never needs to act upon them.

you're free (unless you're stupidly still doping yourself with nicotine) so celebrate! stop fixating! dismiss the thoughts! breathe! and above all, be humble and grateful.

I quit cold turkey & the cravings are still there. I never used any nicotine substitution, although I did take some homeopathic herbal shit for the first two weeks and one hell of a lot of Altoids, which I'm still on, although my quest for the mystical tin of chocolate covered altoids (where, oh where, did I buy them? Why can I not find them anywhere I usually go?) continues apace.

But then there are real differences in men and women quitting smoking: to wit, it's easier for men for some reason. And you're right, humble & grateful are the way to go. Argh.

Yes, it's gotta be cold turkey. I strung myself along with nicotine pellets for a few days because I was getting really mean (normally when I don't have nicotine I get hyper instead of cranky, but this time I was a fucking monster).


It really is three days and then the physical discomfort is mostly gone. You can go cold turkey over a weekend and sleep most of the time if you can get your family to cooperate.

I definitely get the depression thing though, the "I'll never be able to smoke again" thing. I just have to wrestle those thoughts down. Green tea and lots of water. I was actually walking around the other day saying "wow I feel really different, there is an acute sense of something missing." Then I realized I felt really strong and happy and full of energy and how much each cigarette was a direct attack on my body. Lordy, quitting smoking always makes me into such an introspective sap.

I find the whole thing very interesting in a "this is a new experience for my brain and body kind of way."

on preview:

But then there are real differences in men and women quitting smoking: to wit, it's easier for men for some reason.

My wife can quit at will, literally go from being a smoker to a non-smoker on a whim, she'll go weeks and months without smoking then start again for a few weeks and then stop.

I think the process is really different for everyone.

I don't smoke, but almost everyone in my life does. Everyone I've dated since high school has been a smoker. I've never even taken a drag (well, of tobacco), but I find myself liking second-hand smoke. The people I'm around are always surprised and no one ever quite believes that not only do I not mind it, I actually kind of enjoy it.

Unless you're talking about Marlboros. In which case, yuck.

That's not to say that I don't support quitting. I tell everyone I'm with that, while I don't mind their smoking, if they get lung cancer, I will be killing them myself before it can.

Go quitters!

I think the process is really different for everyone.

Word to the nth degree. I've never smoked, but my mother was a life-long smoker and she quit cold turkey several times while I was growing up, and started again just as abruptly, once after a year of abstinence. She needed the nicotine patches, titrating the dose down slowly, to quit and stay quit. She hasn't smoked for 8 years now.

(I seem to remember back then the NZ government had something in place where you could get the patches at a heavily reduced price, and they set up a support center for you to call and all that. She used it heavily and I'm sure it's what kept her from starting again. Yay, NZ healthcare!)

I feel you, MGL!
It's been 7 months and I still have cravings. Mostly when I get really stressed or sad. I get all agitated and just kind of pace in circles because I can't just go outside, have a smoke and calm down. It's always been my way of self-medicating for anxiety.

But I just remind myself that I always feel better eventually. ALWAYS. Sometimes it takes awhile. A long while. But there will be a time when I feel better.

I've never smoked but I've spent a lot of my life around smokers. My dad still smokes 2+ packs a day. A couple of the guys I've dated in the past four years were heavy smokers as well. I'm never sure why people are so astonished that I don't condemn the habit or bitch about being around smokers. I guess it just doesn't register with me.

That said I've watched my dad struggle, and fail, for over thirty years to quit. He's been a heavy smoker since age twelve. At this phase in his life I suppose he never will. He has, literally, tried everything in order to quit. My 2 half brothers and my stepmom also smoke, so I'm sure he doesn't have much support.

My mom was also a heavy smoker in her teens and twenties; at least as heavy as dad. She smoked the whole time she was pregnant with me, even (this was the late 60's, remember? no one really cared). I even recall the brand she smoked: Kool Lights. This was the first word I ever remember recognising and reading (saw a billboard with the logo in the car, made the connexion, and from that point on language was a solved puzzle for me) when I was 2 and a half. Dad still talks about how early I began reading - I guess I can in some way thank my mom's smoking addiction for that.

One day while we still lived in San Francisco, she just up and quit. I remember it vividly, it was mid summer so I would have been almost 4. She looked at the pack, looked at me happily playing on the floor, exhaled the smoke into the sunlight (I remember being fascinated with smoke patterns like that as a kid) and said to me "Smoking is a nasty habit, sweetie, don't ever start". She walked into the kitchen, tossed the pack in the trash and never lit up again, despite living with Dad (a career heavy smoker) for three more years. She had just turned 30 at that time, and had been smoking for at least half her life. Perhaps quitting was one of those 'milestone' age related things, or maybe it was just mom being mom.

To this day, thirty four years later, she says she still occasionally wakes up craving a cigarette.

I don't know what this proves or even if it's helpful. I just thought I'd share.

the only reason physical cravings would still exist after a month (hell, after 72 hours) is the use of patches, gum, or other nicotine delivery systems.

Not necessarily true. After conducting ridiculous amounts of research on nicotine addiction, I learned that the problem here is neural pathways; and it's separate from the withdrawal associated with the physical addiction. That type of withdrawal results from the signals from neurons kicking your brain into a high state of alarm because the drug is missing and their stasis is disturbed. Those signals do indeed end after three days. But here's the kicker -- years of smoking have changed your brain. Your brain has altered its structure and created sets of neural pathways that urge you to smoke; it has nothing to do with lack of nicotine in the system. You have a habitualized response to stress (or boredom, or hunger, or whatever your personal triggers are). When those needs arise, your brain expects to use its accustomed pathway (smoking) to satisfy the needs. But that type of satisfaction is not forthcoming, which creates feelings of need and frustration (cravings).

The only solution for this is time. You need to build new neural networks by creating new responses to the triggers you have for smoking. Over time, as you reinforce them, the old pathways will fade and wither away, while the new ones become the first response system in your brain.

And yes, quitting's different for everyone. Smoking is often called the most complex addiction on earth; it reaches into every part of your psyche and body and can create many different types of dependence. So the formula that ends up working is different for everyone. I had to address anxiety before anything else; that's what I used to use smoking to control (though I'd never have thought of it that way!)

I'm two years on. Don't miss it a bit. It's good to know I'm stronger than them. Quitting is easy, I enjoy it. I enjoy not having one as much as I used to enjoy having one. Or something.

It's probably easier for me though, as I've switched my addictive to huffing Freon. When there's no Freon around, I just spin around as fast as I can for 30 seconds then punch myself in the head.
Sure I'm pretty dull-witted now, but at least I won't die of cancer (unless of course I die of my wife's second-hand smoke).

That's it, I'm running out into the street to score me some Freon! Yeah, freon, baby, here I come!

on a related note, I actually did half seriously offer to drive my mom's old beemer to Mexico to get it some Freon, because the air conditioning in it hasn't worked since 2003 and the mechanic blames the freon and my mother won't replace the whole system.

7 weeks, 1 day since I quit. I've "not smoked" nearly 200 cigarettes***. I feel great. I had some heavy flashback pangs throughout the holidays (around the one month mark) but don't really think about it that often. I just hold my breath when I want past smokers and think about meadows full of bunnies.

For me, these are the only things that help a craving:
-Nicorette
-ice ice cold water
-deep breaths


***Found this out over here.

Holy Moly.

I used SassHat's link and see that there's about 71,175 cigarettes that I haven't smoked. For a rough savings of around $10,000.

I quit May 5th 2000. I was one of those people for whom quitting sucked the donkeys balls on a hot day in a pepper patch. In other words, it was bad. Very bad.

I quit cold turkey, and the *only* reason I'm not smoking today is that I never *ever* trusted myself to "just have one."

I still get cravings every so often. Mostly triggered by stress, or being in a very smoky bar scene. Just remember, it gets easier. And it's worth it!

Miko, that was beautiful.

One of the things that I've noticed about myself (note: me, not every other person who smokes) is that in order to keep on the "cold turkey" track, I can't hang out with people who do smoke. I can hang with ex-smokers and non-smokers, but it's very damn hard to hang with smokers. A few days ago, I was sitting at Bull McCabe's with a female friend of mine who'd run into a guy she hadn't seen in a year and a half. The three of us were sitting and talking, and he'd get up to have a cigarette every now and then. The urge to get up, follow him, and bum a smoke was so strong that I text-messaged a few really good friends and asked them to remind me why I decided to give up smoking. I think that ever since I gave up smoking, the number of times I've hung out with jonmc at work can be counted on zero fingers.

My eyes swivel to people with cigarettes in their hands all the time when I'm walking to or from the subway station. Sometimes I eye butts sitting in those outdoor ashtrays next to buildings. It's a temptation that I don't think will ever go away.

I had three cigarettes the night of our company holiday party and a cigar at my bro-law's house in California. The next day, I came down with a cold.

Also (and you should know this, because you responded to me), knowing what triggers your need really helps in defeating it.

Hang in there, gel. I'm cheering for you.

(that new nicorette "fruit chill" flavor is quite tasty)

*shows her daughter this thread, blesses all of you*