Quitting Smoking: How long does this suck?

[Chugachjed]

Quitting isn't the hard part. Staying quit is.

Depends, I've been quit for ~ 7 years and I have no desire to ever smoke again. I got drunk at the bar almost every night when I was quiting so I broke that association and its never come back. Thank gods.

[Tech Tonics]

cool to see this bumped after 5 years (i'm anon)

next week will be 5 years not smoking (I had lost count) and I definately have no desire to smoke cigarettes again.

once i made the decision to quit i found it strangely easy. lots of road rage.

[OldLarry]

Still think about it all the time however many years later. Still believe I always will. It's just the way it is. The fact that it is so expensive and so inconvenient are important deterrents for me, as much as I hate the gubment being involved in any decision making process for me and my body.

[Tippster]

Yeah, I get to go through this again soon. Could beat the fuck outta myself for starting again after being clean for 7 years.

[senior researcher]

Eight months and the breathing is easy. I am still a fucking craver,tho not as much as day one.

[OldLarry]

If anyone is wondering about the difference between smoking Marlboro Reds vs Merits or other light cigs, it's roughly 3 years on your life as far as I can tell. And those three years and not all roses. My Mom (reds) died in 09, her identical twin (merits) is still living, though in and out of the hospital and not having lunch with her friends like the rest of their crewe...

[GiBo]

cool to see this bumped after 5 years (i'm anon)

next week will be 5 years not smoking (I had lost count) and I definately have no desire to smoke cigarettes again.

once i made the decision to quit i found it strangely easy. lots of road rage.

Last night wasn't as bad as I thought. Funny mind games though.

Thanks for the positve input. I'm going to do this. I'm excited about my runs and rides getting better!

[iceman]

If anyone is wondering about the difference between smoking Marlboro Reds vs Merits or other light cigs, it's roughly 3 years on your life as far as I can tell. And those three years and not all roses. My Mom (reds) died in 09, her identical twin (merits) is still living, though in and out of the hospital and not having lunch with her friends like the rest of their crewe...

That's just not right, light cigarettes are no "safer" or "healthier" than regular cigs. Some epidemiological studies show the opposite in fact. Sorry to hear about your mom though.

[OldLarry]

That's just not right, light cigarettes are no "safer" or "healthier" than regular cigs. Some epidemiological studies show the opposite in fact. Sorry to hear about your mom though.

Oh I know what the studies say- I'm just telling you our experience, which is about as close to an apples to apples experiment as you can get. Pretty much parallel lives, too. Not like one was rich and the other was poor (one was just richer than the other )

[OldLarry]

btw, the rich this is really just a character trait I play on the internet, in case anyone is wondering

[skiballs]

Yeah, I get to go through this again soon. Could beat the fuck outta myself for starting again after being clean for 7 years.

I've been wanting to quit for a long time , so what's the bet gona be ?
Does iceman want in on the bet ?
Hiking the ridge at Silverton this year , really got the point across for me .

[Crass3000]

Chantix makes quitting way easier if you don't have the wierd side effects. Cold turkey is 2nd easiest. Chantix is almost like cheating cause you really don't get much withdrawel because you are slowly withrawing (which you barely notice) the first week while you take Chantix and can smoke. All those patches and nicotine gum do is stretch out the withdrawel period which sucks. I smoked roughy 20 years and have quit quite a few times - mostly by starting to have drags of somebody elses cigarette at the bar. It's been about 8 months since I quit. I do have a cigarette at the bar now and then but after screwing up that way so many times I feel like I have things in check. The greatest feeling for me is going into the gas station to buy something small like a pop and realizing how cheap the trip to the store is when I don't buy a few packs of smokes. Smokes aren't $1.25/pack anymore.

As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, years ago when I quit without Chantix, it was comforting for me to have a pack of cigarettes within reach so I knew it was my choice to keep quitting. It drove me crazier when they weren't there. It just stressed me out WAY more when I didn't feel like I could have one any time I wanted. Basically made me less stressed because I knew I was making the decision to quit at any given time. When I took Chantix I didn't really feel the need to have them around. Chantix makes things so much easier but you still have to VERY committed to quit.

[Tippster]

Any thought on Chantix vs. Wellbutrin?

[iceman]

I've been wanting to quit for a long time , so what's the bet gona be ?
Does iceman want in on the bet?

Sure yeah. I'm away from home and in an environment where everybody seems to smoke so right now is not great but I'll be home a week from tomorrow so after that i'm in. I did it for three years and retardedly slipped back, it wasn't that hard once I got started so I'm ready to do it again.

[Tippster]

You're on, old man.

[WrongWay]

Stopped smoking pot about 10 days ago. Not liking it all. Sleep is starting to go a little better, but I'm a fucking mess during the day. I know this thread is about quitting cigarettes, but it's still inspiring to me. Best of luck to y'all.

[skiballs]

Good , I think a stop smoking summit at Good Guys is in order .

[Crass3000]

Any thought on Chantix vs. Wellbutrin?

Chantix for sure. Chantix actually somehow fills the nicotine receptors in your brain so you can smoke the first week. You don't really know it but you are not getting the full amount of nicotine from your cigarette -- less nicotine from each cigarette the further into your first week. From my experience, even in the first week I felt like I didn't want to smoke as much. You have to give up the cigs after a week of Chantix but at that point it is a lot easier than cold turkey. The only thing about Chantix is some people don't react well to it. I guess I could say the same thing about Wellbutrin as some people I have talked to told me it made them edgy. The ex-wife was a raving lunitic on Chantix. Chantix worked for her though. Chantix is not perfect though. You still have to want to quit and get yourself through some cravings but I think the cravings are less extreme to be sure.

[Snow Ranger]

I smoked for about 14 years. i quit by slowly eliminating one smoke per day. I loved to smoke in the am with coffee so i quit that cig, then i quit smoking while driving... and then i quit after eating and so on and so on. Its been about 10 years since i quit. However, I allow myself to smoke when i travel outside of the country, so far its worked. i have spent months in Central America smoking and can then return to the US and not smoke at all its weird how easy it has been. Wow i need to go on a trip, havent been out of the country for a year and a half.

[SkiBall]

Any thought on Chantix vs. Wellbutrin?

I chose Welbutrin (the whole suicidal tendency propaganda w/ chantix). Did it help or was I just ready, hard to tell. Took me a month or so after starting before I finally stopped smoking and went hard with the lozenges and a little patch supplementation for the first few weeks. That was 10 months ago. I stopped taking bupropion (WB generic) over a month ago with no side effects that I can really tell (weened off).
#1 you have to be ready, #2 you have to be ready, #3 commit to it and just do it even if it involves temporary white knuckle. Plan on the desire to be there for quite some time but the compulsion to smoke lessened.
Oh, and DumDum pops and Jolly Ranchers are GTG. Good luck bro.

I've been wanting to quit for a long time , so what's the bet gona be ?
Does iceman want in on the bet ?
Hiking the ridge at Silverton this year , really got the point across for me .

I've done it so far with one, two should make it a breeze.

[Chugachjed]

Any thought on Chantix vs. Wellbutrin?

My vote would be not to take some drug. Make a mental shift and believe you're a non-smoker. Do or do not there is no try- Yoda

Stock up on white bic pens. The oral fixation is the hardest part of the habit to break. I chewed a pack of pens a day for a week or two before I was free.

[iceman]

I tried Wellbutrin for one day only but I can say with confidence that you shouldn't decide to take both daily doses at the same time just because it's late in the day. I was tripping my ass off, and not in a very pleasant way. So, don't do that.

I reacted very poorly to Chantix. I had the whole insanely-vibrant-and-weird-dreams thing, which wasn't fun, exactly, but was tolerable. But after a few days I began to feel really extremely sick and my piss rapidly grew brownish and evil-smelling (and it continued to get worse until I stopped taking the Chantix two days later and didn't get all the way better for well over a week after I stopped). My best guess is that I was undergoing some level of kidney failure. It was very much not good at all.

Just because I had these reactions is no real reason for you not to try the drugs but use caution.

[GiBo]

The mental shift thing is key. I quit dipping years ago. I've quit smoking before. So I know the drill. It really is a mind game. Maybe it's worse for others, but for me the craving isn't that bad. It's like a little annoying empty feeling that goes away in a minute or two.

I talked to a friend last night who is the same kind of smoker as I was- Just one in the morning. A few at night with his cocktails. Binge here and there. He was doing all of the cognitive dissonance stuff that all smokers do: "It doesn't hurt to have just a few a day." "I think our bodies can handle it". "It really relaxes me, I have so much stress!” So I said, "Dude, not to sound like a born again preaching to you, but do you really think our lungs where designed to breath smoke deep into them several times a day?" And I went on to give him some of the stats and facts I've been reading. And he said, "But the indians even smoked!” "Yes," but their life expectancy was 40. You'd be dead if you were a pipe smoking Miwok.” Like I told him, if was possible for a dog to smoke, you'd never even concider giving your dog a smoke. No matter how much it begged. Yet we'll eagerly grab a smoke and choke that shit down. It's a really trippy thing to me.

It's just funny how the mind works. I've been playing the mind games. The pleasure center in the brain is pissed. It wants its nicotine. It's trying to convince me it's ok to have just one, just give it a little sugar. Fuck you pleasure center! You’re not the boss of me!

This will be my third day without a smoke and it still sounds weezy when I breathe. That fact alone makes me feel strong about not picking one up. As smokers, we just get used to weezing and coughing- but think about that shit man. We're all here because we love outdoor physical activities, most of which require some level of fintess, yet we'll overlook that we have a habit that causes our lungs to weeze and for us to cough brown shit out of our lungs in the morning. Come on man!

[Aldo]

Cold turkey people, only way.

Wait, there's nicotine in cigars? nfw.

[OldLarry]

Again, Ganj+exercise+furious masturbation.

Oh, and might want to remove yourself from anyone you'd like to remain friends with/colleagues/related to for a coupla days...