Hi guys and gals,
Just happened about this place. Looks really useful and helpful for us recovering smokaholics. I am probably on my 4th or 5th quit now. Managed to get through the hellish initial few days cold turkey. I even went to the pub on Friday night and managed to get through OK.
Being a keen pubgoer, I have always fallen down when it comes to going out. The smoking ban didn't really help with quitting, in fact it made it worse what with a lot of my friends congregating outside to smoke, leaving me inside. I was going to quit on July 1st but lasted about 4 days as I got sick of standing inside on my own (there are even reports of non-smokers taking up the habit!).
Anyway, new year new start. A lot of my friends have quit, or certainly a lot of the people I now spend time with don't smoke anymore. The weather is too grotty to stand outside for any length of time anyway. I haven't smoked at work for a long time and since my wife has also quit, we haven't smoked at home for a while either.
I have always been an advocator of the cold turkey method personally. I never really wanted to replace one method of nicotine delivery with another or line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies instead of the tobacco companies.
I have in the past been quite critical of NRT but have come to realise that everybody's quit is different. Some people find the prospect of CT too daunting, especially since the NRT companies are spouting rubbish about CT being the least effective method of quitting.
A website I have found very useful whilst quitting is whyquit.com. It is particularly geared towards cold turkeys and it can be a bit disparaging about NRT. However, it has a lot of useful information on there and can be quite brutal in its delivery.
All I can say is, whatever your methods, good luck to each and every one of you. Stay strong. I hope I can this time!