12th March Quitter's

[nsd_user663_2737]

Good Luck to everyone that has decided to quit today, no smoking day.

Its a bumpy ride but well worth it in the end.

I wish you all the luck in the world with your challenge.

[nsd_user663_1931]

Thanks YoYo

Having abit of a crave at the moment but i`m going into work now as someone is off.

Gave up work at xmas and been back in 6 times to help out.

Barb x

[nsd_user663_2892]

Keep positive you lot - you can do this !

(Espescially you, Barb and you, LoobyLoo - I'm watching you two!!! ;))

[nsd_user663_1733]

Come on D Day team Strenth in numbers Stick together and you will win. Linda xxxxxxx

[nsd_user663_2325]

Oh Thanks Barbara(onemoretry). Good to see your still around. Your doing soooo well. xx

[nsd_user663_2935]

Day 1

So far so good. Had my last cigarette last night around 10pm. Doesn't feel as harsh as it was before but then again I only started again at the weekend.

Read most of the Allen Carr book last night. He really seems to make alot of sense in somethings he says.

Good luck to everyone else today!

[nsd_user663_2866]

hi you all doing good keep it up well worth it

[nsd_user663_2737]

Well done everyone, keep it up

[nsd_user663_3029]

I posted in another topic I created, but wanted to leave a record here, too.

Long story short, I lit my last ciggy at 12.06pm (lunchtime) on NSD2008. It lasted 4 mins and 36 secs from spark to stub.

A method I have invented to keep myself stopped this time (I am a serial giver-upper) is to keep the two last ciggies from my last packet in my bedroom (in which I have never permitted myself to smoke).

This way, they provide a crutch should I have a REALLY uncontrollable need for nicotine while in the house, a way to stop myself getting anxious about physical/mental withdrawal symptoms, rather than dealing with the symptoms themselves.

They are also a constant reminder of the prison I've been in for the last 20+ years and from which only my brain can allow me to escape.

I'm hoping that my rational brain will win out, and I figure that if I last out until the the weekend (4 days) I should be able to convince myself to stay quitted.

I'm currently at 14 hours without a smoke, and I'm off to bed. My chest is on fire, my smoker's cough is ten times worse than usual, my mouth feels dry and brittle but the stink throughout the house is really hitting my nostrils. Considering the smell is my main reason for giving up in the first place, that last isn;t really a bad thing. If I manage to keep smelling the foul air I have been creating and continue considering it to smell foul, I should perhaps manage to keep myself off the dreaded weed!

Wish me luck for the night and tomorrow!

[austinlegro 11 Years Smoke Free]

many of us fall for the idea that stopping smoking is a simple as beating the physical cravings and side effects of smoking. This belief centres around the idea that smoking is about nicotine and our addiction to nicotine.

Andy, the word "fall" suggests we've been duped into a misconception. Smoking is ALL about our addiction to nicotine. Nicotine free fags sell poorly. We've all said to ourselves, "i wish i could only smoke those fags i enjoy." Try it with herbal fags, you'll find you don't enjoy any of them, not one. Get rid of the nicotine and there's no interest.

What you feel about smoking is why you smoke and why you cant give up.

Are you suggesting that we actually enjoy the smoking? My first failed quit was 18 years ago and i've been on and off the fags ever since. I despised smoking. I hated driving with my family, seeing how far i could drive before i just HAD to stop for a fag and then HATING the fag i'd stopped for.

I feel the same about shellfish, i dislike it and i can give it up.

Choccie, i luvs it, and i can't give it up. (chocolate = tryptophan = seratonin )

Fags, i hate them and i can't (although i have now) given them up.

Starting and learning to smoke is not about nicotine its about being accepted into the smoking gang.

People start smoking due to peer pressure and herd mentality. Start working in an office full of smokers and you'll end up joining them. Parents smoke, then kids smoke, then every now and again someone will break the chain and be a non-smoker. I've no doubt that loads of kids have tried their parent's patches or gum but found that they don't get a hit and it isn't cool, nicking their fags on the other hand.....

...and smokeless tobacco..? Incredibly popular with baseball players for some reason..? although not outwardly visible still a tempation for the kids..

Peer pressure might start you but nicotine carries onwards and upwards.

This is not a dig btw just my observations. Anything that helps people to quit without exploitation is cool in my book.

What stopped me dead in my tracks with 19 fags left in a box was the fact that every cigarette plugs the hole created by the previous one and even then, because of the rate of decay the plugged hole has leaks so you're never as comfortable as a non-smoker. Stop for a week and there are no more holes to plug. QED. non-smoker.

[nsd_user663_3029]

Yes, I'm aware that smoking has a lot more to do do with psychology than physical cravings, which is why I am treating this attempt at giving up as a mental game with myself rather than a way to deal with physical cravings. That's why I'm going cold turkey - I want to underline to myself that the physical cravings will remain as long as I allow my various triggers to be triggers, and my main aim is to stop the cycle of trigger -> hit -> automatic smoking.

I can deal with the physical cravings largely by putting myself in situations where smoking is simply not possible. I work from home (and alone) so I have nobody to tell me I can or can't smoke and nobody to complain about it, apart from myself.

So I've got two fags, which are only just physically out of reach. I can therefore deal with any physical symptoms very quickly and fairly easily, should I let myself relapse.

However, I am deliberately associating those physical cravings with stupidity and pointlessness. I started to falter a few times this morning, so to get at my "crutch" I now need to move a heavy wardrobe.

This is MY way of dealing with giving up and is an ad-hoc method I've invented over the last 36 hours or so, based on the contents of this forum. Writing nonsense about it is the only way I can make any sense of it at all, and to give my fingers something to do other than smoke. I've always been a fidgeter, so handling fags is probably the single biggest reason I've been unable to quit before. Typing is as good a replacement as any.

P.S. I have interrupted writing this message because the postman's just arrived with your book, Andy, which you've kindly sent me. I am now going to stop writing this and start reading your book - regrettably, reading books is one of my triggers so this is gonna be tricky!

[nsd_user663_2933]

Austinlegro,

The bit you right about the plugs/holes and making you stop dead? Can you give more info on that , where did it come from ........something which i think will help me , i like to read something new about the quitting and why.......sometimes you need more than just the norm facts

Thanks in advance

Casey

[austinlegro 11 Years Smoke Free]

Erm…

That’s a tough one Casey. It’s a sensitive subject to write about without offending / upsetting those that are still using nicotine. Someone currently suffering cravings and agro just doesn’t want to be told how easy it is by someone else, it’s almost a kick in the groin.

I'll give it a go but don't anyone shout at me...

All my resources came from people like Neil Casey and Allen Carr and websites like whyquit.com and smokeworm.com and they all say the same thing.

Each cigarette fills the void left by the previous one. The only calming a fag does is to calm the anxiety of needing a fag. The only stress a fag relieves is the stress of not having a fag.

I’ve drawn you a couple of pictures…

rocktopus.co.uk/stn2.jpg

The blue area is that contented happy feeling of being alive and knowing the Noel Edmunds isn’t on the TV tonight. The horizontal black line is that level of contentment etc displayed by a non smoker. (of course it’s a relative theoretical horizontal line because non-smokers have ups and downs in their life too)

At point 1 everyone is cool.

Point 2 is the peak the non-smoker gets when he smokes his first fag. The nicotine high, the buzz, the dizzy (no oxygen) feeling.

Point 3 is the come down, the return to normality, back to being a non-smoker..or is it..?

Point 4 is the little void created by the nicotine. The little feeling of fancying a fag again and more importantly the contentment level is now an ever so tiny bit less than if you hadn’t had the smoke at all…

Point 5, after the next cigarette is a little less contented than it was before. (of course the vertical scale is grossly exaggerated)

rocktopus.co.uk/stn1.jpg

This picture shows the scary conclusion.

After a while the blue area will NEVER reach the black line.

(This, of course, doesn't happen one afternoon behind the bike sheds, it take a while for the nicotine addiction to fully develop.)

The nicotine fix never gets us to the same happy state of a non-smoker, “they” are always feeling happier than “us”

Why do you think a non-smoker can be brave enough to go on stage, to speak publicly, to take that exam, to celebrate that win, to mourn that loss etc etc without a calming / soothing cigarette.? It’s because a smoker needs a load of fags just to feel as calm and content as someone who never smoked…!

It's an eye-opener to think that in all those years that you smoked that you were sort of playing catch up to a non-smoker and that calm relaxed feeling that you were getting as you sat there with your fag and your pint / book / whatever was the same feeling that a non-smoker felt from the moment they woke to the moment they went to bed.

bummer huh...?

I apologise now to anyone who might feel that their addiction was totally different. They're my charts...

[nsd_user663_2861]

Don't apologise - I think it's great to see how other people view things - that's what forums are for!

Cheers for taking the time to post all that - it made an interesting read!

[nsd_user663_2861]

Edit... I must disagree about Noel Edmunds though..

Deal or No Deal ROCKS!!

[nsd_user663_2933]

Thankyou , i see what you mean now very interesting and thanks for risking it lol , im sure no one minds us all being open about our different thoughts and feelings and im sure some will benefit from this posting .........like me , i always kinda thought that though never really heard anyone say it or explain it with diagrams!

Fab, thankyou

Casey

[austinlegro 11 Years Smoke Free]

ok

I retract my statement about Noel Edmunds...

until last year, i'd always felt that as a smoker i'd had to put up with the persecution, the health risks, the nagging, the taxing, the banning, the smelling etc but it was worth it for the buzz, for that relaxing drag on a cigarette especially that dot the last "i", cross the last "t", job well done sort of fag. I never actually thought it as such but i guess i felt, "it's a shame non-smokers don't have this feeling"

The moment you realise that that is what non-smokers feel like every single, waking moment, it sort of deflates you a bit..!

On the flip side, there's suddenly no single reason why you could possibly ever want to light up another fag.....

Note: The graphs are mine (bored at work) but they're a graphical representation of the facts as i understand them.