Post: #26

Yeah, it's 8 dollars on Amazon as an ebook, which is the price of a pack of cigarettes around here.

It's easy enough to find a free online pdf if you google.

Post: #27

I recommend buying it for convenience.

Post: #28

Here's a free and very simple technique that I got from a Spanish friend. It helps overcome the urge to smoke, which can be a powerful itch. It also works for a variety of other compulsive/addictive behavior.
When you want a cigarette, don't tell yourself you cannot have one. Tell yourself that in exactly ten minutes, if you still want one, you can have one.

Post: #29

(11-26-2014 03:42 PM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  Here's a free and very simple technique that I got from a Spanish friend. It helps overcome the urge to smoke, which can be a powerful itch. It also works for a variety of other compulsive/addictive behavior.
When you want a cigarette, don't tell yourself you cannot have one. Tell yourself that in exactly ten minutes, if you still want one, you can have one.

I've done this before and it works pretty consistantly. It helps if your doing something that requires a lot of thought so you forget about the craving quicker. It's all in your head you just have to trick yourself a little bit.

http://markmanson.net/how-i-quit-smoking
This seems like a good method of keeping yourself off the cigarettes for good.

Post: #30

Start dipping. You'll still get a nicotine fix without smoking. Dip is pretty disgusting after awhile and you can ween yourself off of it. Worked for me. Smoke for four years, quit for 5, but started up again this year. Woops.

Post: #31

Whyquit.com has a lot of useful information that I used to quit. I smoked for ten years and quit cold turkey. It has the highest success rate. Every time I craved, I went on that website and read a horror story about smoking and by the time I was done the craving passed. The first week is hell and things don't start to level out until about week 3. After that it is all mental. If you are determined enough, you WILL do it, but you have to truly want to. Just my 2 cents.

Post: #32

Damn. I'm on day 10 and have been craving one all day and thinking bullshit like...well why did I stop cold turkey I should have just cut back...

I'm about to go run some stairs to remind my lungs why I quit.

Post: #33

Quitting is easy. Staying quit is the problem. It's a lifelong addiction. I know because I quit for 4.5 years and then started having dreams about smoking. I started to have these romantic memories of smoking. And sure enough, I started again. And it was one of the best things to happen to me. Long story, but it got me out of bed and outside and gave me something to look forward to while I was experiencing an extremely difficult time in my life.

But, here's what to do if you want to quit: use Swedish snus, or dip, or some other form of tobacco. Or, use an ecig. But I recommend a transitioning to smokeless tobacco first. And then.....get an ecig.

If you smoke a cigarette during the smokeless tobacco or ecig trial phase, this approach won't work. Cigarettes are like crack and you will prefer the cigarette over the smokeless or ecig.

But quitting is easy............just take your pack of smokes, throw them away, and say "I fucking quit. I'm done."

Post: #34

What I do with my friends is give each other a cheque for $1000 for a year. If I smoke once within this year, he can go cash out my cheque and spend it all. I will do the same if he smokes. Kept me going well for a year. He didn't last and I obtained lots of ZARA clothing using his 1K.

Post: #35

I smoked from 14-26 and quit cold turkey. Its been now 2 years and I still smoke once or twice a month but its not addictive anymore. I dont smoke when im drinking or anything but just at some random time at work for example, I take a little drive and have a cigarette in the woods. Before quitting I tried everything, nicorette gum, snus (Swedish tobacco packets you put under your gums), some medications I got from doctor, similar to AD medicine but this I only took few tablets. I also had some needles pin needles inserted into my ears.

What helped me to quit was boxing everyday, changing work where nobody really smoked and just a couple of months of telling myself every time I got the urges that I dont do that anymore.

So no real good advice but its definetaly possible and I wouldnt count on any of the helpers, specially the ones that contain nicotin.

Post: #36

Almost everyone in this thread who quit any way other than the Easy Way sounds like theyre being tortured for life. You guys should read the book too.

Post: #37

I smoked for about 6 years when I was younger, and I quit cold turkey. Now cigarettes completely disgust me. If I see a girl smoking, my immediate thought is "gross" and I just think of her as dumb right from the get go. I think physical activity helps very much, because when you are training to get into shape, smoking just seems like it would set you back. It's really just about will power. Just make the decision to throw them away and never smoke one again.

Post: #38

I think it is hot when sexy young girls smoke... would never ever date one though.

Post: #39

I like it when young hot girls smoke too. So sexy. With older girls it's disgusting though.

Post: #40

I've been off smoking for three days.

My doctor gave me a pill by the generic name of Bupropion. I highly recommend it. It was created to treat depression, but they found use in it for smoking cessation obviously. I've been using it for over a week so far. The torturous urges that come with going cold turkey in the past are just annoying pangs that I can mostly will myself out of.

That made me have the epiphany that it's more about mentality than the experience that you think you're having. I too miss delicious smoke, but it's all a trick of stimuli and chemical release.

Drinking will always fuck you over. Drinking is just as poisonous and deadly as cigarettes. It causes a plethora of diseases and makes beating cigarettes next to impossible.

Don't quit for other people, let other people judge your quitting process. Use what truly works for you and what makes you feel like not smoking.

Stay away from smokers. I don't associate with smokers anymore, damned whatever I may lose from that. I can't be around smoke at the moment. I don't have even one drink with friends or on occasions.

I'm going to buy that book also. It's foolish to deprive myself of a resource and not make it easier for my own good.

Edit: Oh yea, I'd like to add that I have successfully quit for months at a time, but I always started again after drinking, even when I didn't intend to smoke. Stay away from that trash.

Post: #41

Tony I think you're right about the alcohol. I haven't drank much or been very social in this period so I feel like I haven't really been challenged yet.

I started reading the book hopefully to put the nail in the coffin as I'm now approaching the two week mark in a few days. It's dead-on accurate in what I've read so far.

Post: #42

I was a pack a day smoker from the age of 16 - 23 years old (one month before my 24 birthday). I had tried to quit several times before but I couldn't. One time I made it two days without a cigarette. I caved on the third day. But I remembered how my sense of smell came back almost immediately after quitting smoking for those couple of days. One week I got down to my last pack of cigarettes, and I told myself that this was going to be it. On October 20, 2012 I stepped out on my porch at my apartment and smoked my last cigarette. I told myself that this was going to be it for me.

I'm not going to lie it was hell. The third day of quitting I felt like I was mentally retarded. I was at work but I couldn't concentrate on anything. My boss even asked me what was the matter with me. The first three days you go through mental and physical withdrawls. For the first six months it was hell for me. Because every little thing that I did was a trigger for me, and I would have to beat each and every individual trigger one by one. Things like getting in the car after work, or after I finished eating, or after sex, or the first thing once I get out of the shower in the morning. Those were daily triggers. But it took a full year for me to get over all my triggers. This included going to the beach for the first time, the summer, the fall, the spring, the winter yes every little thing was a trigger.

Message boards helped me out a lot. One thing that I did which other members have stated was to make a lifestyle change. I started running within the first week of quitting smoking. At first I could barely do one mile and I was out of breath. It was pathetic (I'm skinny too, not overweight). Since you can't really see the physical effects of smoking as most happen inside of you, I judged how well my lungs were healing by my ability to run. Now I run two miles in 15 minutes and 45 seconds on average. Sure, this isn't a great time but it sure as hell beat what I was doing right after I quit smoking.

Also, one word of advice I coughed up all that nasty shit that had built up in my lungs over the years. Every morning in the shower I would honk up the nastiest looking flem that you could think of. I actually developed a cough after quitting smoking. It's just your lungs clearing themselves out. Go on smoking forums, that will help too. One way that I thought about it was thinking about it like this: I wasn't quitting smoking for the rest of my life. I was quitting smoking for the next five minutes. The first three days I would take it literally minute by minute at times. After the first week I would take it hour by hour. After the first month I would take it day by day. You have to play mind tricks with yourself.

Also, during the first month of quitting smoking I had some of the craziest dreams I have ever had as an adult, comparable to the crazy ass dreams I would have as a young kid (8 to ten years old). During the first month I woke up 13 times in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Because I would dream that I was smoking a cigarette and now I would have to go back to day one. My heart would be pounding like a mother fucker. It was crazy.

Sorry for the long post but yes, you just have to want to really do it. Make a lifestyle change and look at positive message boards online that are there for support. Cigarettes are a real addiction but in the end it's worth it. Also, it's been more then two years since I have smoked a cigarette. I don't ever get cravings anymore. On rare occasions when I drink the thought of smoking will pop into my head. But even then it's not strong and goes away quick. It really does become easier with time.

Post: #43

I'm at a month and a half smoke free after having smoked a pack a day - on and off (mostly on) - for approximately 10 years. While I'm far from out of the proverbial woods with cessation, the following are some tips and (hopefully) helpful lessons learned through many previously failed quit "cold turkey" quit attempts:

1. SLEEP. You can say it's stress, you can say it's you "just wanted one," but a lot of smoking relapses are a result of too little sleep. If your number one goal is smoking cessation, you really have two goals: Smoking Cessation and Sleep. This is why it's good to start some sort of exercise as soon as you quit as one hand washes the other, so to speak, and you'll have an easier time sleeping.

2. Especially if you've struggled with quitting for a long time, you're going to be tempted to try to do a bunch of other stuff when you get past the physical withdrawals (72-96 hours). Refrain from doing so. It's tempting because - especially if you have to step outside to smoke - you immediately have an extra couple hours a day. For the first two weeks at minimum (but really the first month), just focus on cessation, exercise, and sleep in the context of day-to-day life. Unless you really don't have shit to do, that should be quite enough.

You don't have to turn into a monk, but you don't have to not turn into a monk (especially for the first couple weeks to a month). The new habit of exercise and good sleep takes a month to form, to try and add a bunch of other shit is only going to impede the process, make you frazzled, and then, "Oh, I'll just have one..."

At the end of the month, you have essentially done a deal where you exchange smoking for good sleep and exercise. It's shocking how much better you'll feel.

3. I can't drink. Like if I drink I'll get so fucking faded it's sad. Still, as others have said, I think drinking and having a cigarette go so well together that I don't think it's possible to seriously quit one without the other. Same goes with herb, but to each their own.

4. I mentioned this D&P post in another thread and it really helped me:
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2014/11/02/kill-mr-maybe/

5. Don't tell people that you're quitting. Don't talk about it, be about it. The person who talks about how their going to do this, quit that, go here... how does that work out for them? Of course, I don't mean avoid the quit smoking forums or whatever, but I think everyone reading knows what I mean.

It may take people a little while to notice, but eventually they'll ask, and you'll tell them when you're already in the process of quitting and not before.

6. For all that's written above, the main thing (in addition to sleep) is determination. Especially in the first week you're somewhat, ahem, irritable. You just need to push through. Simple advice but really hard to follow in the moment. More than anything, determination separates people who are able to quit from people who return to the habit.

TL;DR Get sleep, swap bad for good habits, a D&P post that is helpful, don't talk about it like a social media dork, and determination will get you through the irritable times.

Post: #44

Giving up Cigarettes is easy, staying off them is hard but as time goes by it gets easier
They make tobacco super addictive for a reason, to make money out of you paying no regard to the damage you are doing to your body
Do whatever it takes, e-cigs, books, cold turkey and don't be too hard on yourself if you lapse, remember it's super addictive for a reason
I used a chewing gum and cold turkey, been off the cigs for 4 years