How did you ex-smokers quit?

[NW-Bound]

That's what I thought. Always a frugal guy, when I smoked, I really really smoked! Nothing goes to waste with this uncle Scrooge.

 

[mickeyd]

I quit in 1969 at age 25 or so. When I was in Vietnam a pack of smokes cost about 25 cents or so at the PX. My assignment was in such a remote location that we had no access to a PX so the Army provided us with "SP packs" which contained tobacco, candy, tooth paste etc at no cost. No cost is a good reason to smoke.

When I got home I was stationed in Syracuse NY and was amazed that smokes there were 50 cents/pack! I refused to pay that price and have never smoked since.

 

[BigNick]

How can someone smoke 2+ packs a day? Did you really inhale, or just light up the cigarette and let it burn?

I know a guy who went from 3 packs (60 cigarettes) a day, to zero. He's a baker, so his lungs must have looked like zebras.

He did it on Zyban. I asked him how that works. He said, "The doc just says to take the tablets. No other instructions. I took them for a few days and nothing happened. Then I woke up on day 5 and the thought of a cigarette made me feel ill. So I didn't have one."

However, the side-effects of Zyban (which was originally designed as an anti-depressant, cf Viagra which was designed for, IIRC, circulatory issues) are potentially quite severe. I have a colleague who smokes 15 or so cigarettes a day and her doctor will not prescribe her Zyban. She can give up by herself, or smoke another couple of packs per day.

 

[braumeister]

How can someone smoke 2+ packs a day?

Not hard at all. In the first place, they cost $2.10 for a carton of 10 packs at the commissary. Leaving one burn for a while in the ashtray was no big deal.

Second, most people smoked, so most of us had an ashtray on the desk, and there was no pressure to avoid smoking.

A different time. I left for work in the morning with two full packs in my pocket, and they were usually gone by the time I got home in the evening.

 

[Gumby]

I remember guys in the Navy using the old cigarette to light a new one. You could easily go through two packs doing that.

 

[NW-Bound]

So, it appears that very few if any truly smoked 2 or 3 packs. If those people really inhaled all that smoke instead of just letting the cigarettes burn, they would die of nicotine overdose or carbon monoxide poisoning.

The above means that my 1/3 to 1/2 pack-a-day former habit might be just as bad as that of other heavier smokers because I inhaled more. Egads!

 

[oldtrig]

I smoked three to four packs a day for 20 years. I quit almost 28 years ago and I am still here. Cold turkey is the way I done it. Really hard for 3 months and then good to go. I would not light one up for any price. oldtrig

 

[noworkethic]

Every smoker I've known well, claims to have had no difficulty quitting smoking once they made up their mind:
Amethyst

In my experience, quitting was extremely hard once I had made up my mind. If I had not made up my mind, I'm pretty sure it would have been impossible.

 

[dessert]

I was a smoker from 18 to age 42. I installed patches to quit. First, had to learn a new lifestyle without the withdrawal symptoms. After I had the new day-to-day life down without cigarettes, then got off the patches. It worked for me by separating the physical from the psychological aspects of smoking. Conquer the psychological part first, then the physical withdrawals will be easier. Worked for me.

 

[vicente solano]

It seems to me, reading all these posts, that none of you ex-smokers felt when quitting that you were giving up something crucial in/to your life. That it didn´t sadden/depress you.

 

[ls99]

It seems to me, reading all these posts, that none of you ex-smokers felt when quitting that you were giving up something crucial in/to your life. That it didn´t sadden/depress you.

In my case, definitely true. In fact it was a relief from a constant hassle factor of: where are my cigs?

 

[Tiger]

It seems to me, reading all these posts, that none of you ex-smokers felt when quitting that you were giving up something crucial in/to your life. That it didn´t sadden/depress you.

It also felt good to not have to spend the first 5 minutes after waking up trying to cough up a lung.

 

[braumeister]

The only drawback (if you can really call it that) was gaining weight.
Nicotine is an appetite suppressant, and the smoke also deadens your taste buds. When you quit smoking, if you were a heavy smoker like I was, you suddenly discover that most food tastes much better than you thought it did, and that fact, combined with the increased appetite and the need to occupy your hands with something, makes for a triple whammy. I gained 20 pounds in the first six months after quitting, and I've had trouble managing my weight ever since.

In fact, I've known people who deliberately went back to smoking just to control their weight.

 

[Dreamer]

I smoked from 1971 until I got pregnant in 1977. Lit up a cigarette right after I delivered the baby, 04/08/78. Smoked until 12/31/85 and quit cold turkey. I can not imagine lighting up a cigarette now.

 

[lets-retire]

I smoked on average a pack a day, but that went up to 3 packs when I had to investigate the suicide of a good friend. One day I ran out of cigarettes and it was too cold to go out so I decided to wait until I went somewhere to buy more. I kept forgetting to buy some for a few days then simply decided I didn't want to buy any cigarettes any more. Prior to that I had tried to quit 10-15 times over a four or five year period. I had a slight relapse right after 9/11 that lasted three years. I never smoked over 5 cigarettes per day during that period. I decided I needed to quit so I just quit smoking.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I started at around 15, quit for 7 years in my mid-20s, started back up again for 2 years, then quit again (for good) a few years ago. I used Zyban the first time, but had an allergic reaction. Last time, cold turkey and a healthy dose of determination, plus that fewer and fewer friends smoked.
DH has struggled with quitting more than me, and still uses the nicotine gum pretty much every day. I have just never wanted to pick up a cigarette again once I got that damned monkey off my back for the last time.

 

[Westernskies]

Reading all these stories about how hard it was to beat this addictive habit make me so glad I never started.
Kudos to all of you for your success.

 

[TromboneAl]

It's such an amazing thing that cigarettes are legal.

More people die from tobacco every day, than died in the twin towers on 9/11.

 

[Bestwifeever]

It doesn't help to cut back--you have to completely quit (Tobacco Smoking Danger: Even One Cigarette Risky, Surgeon General Says - Health Blog - CBS News):

Bad news from the report:

The surgeon general's 30th annual report on smoking and health says tobacco smoke begins poisoning immediately, as more than 7,000 chemicals in each puff rapidly spread through the body to cause damage to nearly every organ.

Good news from the report:

Surgeon General Regina Benjamin says kicking the habit lets the body start healing immediately. "It's never too late to quit," she says, "but the sooner you quit, the better. Even if you're 70, 80 years old and you're a smoker, there's still benefit from quitting."

I quit smoking for the first and only time as a New Years resolution in 1975 (my smoking career was only 6 years long but almost every waking moment during that time). You just have to gut it out. Good luck--you can do it.

 

[73ss454]

It's such an amazing thing that cigarettes are legal.

More people die from tobacco every day, than died in the twin towers on 9/11.

Too many people in Washington getting paid off.