Stopping Smoking - wish me luck!!

Hi RBers,

The title gives you a clue as to the content. I have decided to stop smoking again and hope it will work this time.

I have been smoking since i was about 14 or 15 and i am now 45. I have stopped three times before and this time it needs to work.

The background - My smoking started at school/outside school with the odd one or two. Both my parents smoked at the time so there was never any chance that they would notice the aroma. I then went out with a girl who smoked and that was where my career started. At 17 i smoked 20 a day (JPS - cool packets), almost all (if not all) my friends smoked then but maybe not to the extent that i did. We smoked before school, at school, after school and in the evening. I was young and fit and it never affected me in any way.

I started work when i was 18 and a majority of my colleagues smoked, so i continued - probably working up to 40 a day. As i got older and into my 30's it became an annoying habit although i never really considered stopping. I think i smoked 60 a day (B+H) at my peak and now i wonder where i actually got the time to do that!

I got married and my wife smoked but only socially, but we were very social and it continued. Then my wife told me to stop and i tried. I used an inhalator and went to the health centre weekly to speak to a nurse who organised the anti smoking stuff. It worked and after 3 months i had stopped. About a month later we went on holiday and i had a cigar - you can see where this is going ... 20 cigars a day and i went back on the cigs.

My wife became pregnant and she stated that i MUST stop as we had a baby coming, again, i tried and sorta succeeded until my wife went into hospital with pregnancy complications and she was there for 3 months before the birth. I was on my own at home and stressed - back to the cigs. I promised i would stop once our baby was born and when my daughter was one, i went to the doctor and he prescribed drugs for me.

The tablets Champix worked - apparently they were developed for people with mental problems (schizophrenics) and the doctors discovered that the patients did not recover from their mental illness but they did stop smoking (whether this is true or not i do not know). I had one bad day - the first day where i had a bad reaction to the first tablet - i felt ill for a day - i sat with my head over a bucket all day although i was not sick. After the course of tablets (13 weeks) i was a non-smoker. The tablets make smoking an awful experience with the taste which is very, very peculiar. I remember lighting a cigarette and taking one puff and thinking "jesus, that is bad" I put it out and went about my business - it was a very peculiar sensation and hard to explain. Anyway, i completed the course and was happy. About a month later we went on holiday....

Can you see a pattern? I went back to my doctor after about 6 months and we discussed what to do. After i explained what was happening at home - family illness and a lot of it, he said i should keep smoking until things quietened down and stress levels were reduced.

Here we are 3 years later and things have got to a point where i can think about it again. In the interim period my father died - he had respiratory illnesses and cancer which were put down to his smoking. I remember thinking how bad it looked that i was smoking on the day of his funeral but i couldn't help it. My daughter, who is 7, has been asking me to stop for a while, my wife mentions it as does my mother so, in light of all that, i am going to try - and hopefully succeed - forever this time.

It is after 2am and i plan to take my first tablet at 0800, i then plan to stop on Sunday, 6th October, 2013 - or before, dependant on the tablets (i think they worked earlier than my fixed date the last time.

Smoking is a nightmare hobby but i have to say that over the years i really enjoyed it, it will be hard to stop but i need to do it and forget about all the wasted money etc and concentrate on my life in the future - i hope not to follow my father in his later years - that scares me a lot.

On a final point, those of you who read this (and my doctor) are the only people who know i am stopping - i have told no one as i do not want the additional pressure from my family - encouragement is good but it also increases the stress to prefrom. (am i still talking about smoking? LOLOLOL

Wish me luck,

Richard

Richard,

I quit cigarettes about 15 years ago so it can be done.

I was a bit of an odd case because I would not smoke all day and then go through half a pack between 5 and midnight with my friends at the bar (funny how those go together)

For me it was important to break the behavioral habit. So when I did quit I broke up with a girl that smoked and I (temporarily) quit going out to bars. Also around that time I moved back to California where smoking inside was against the law.

(breaking up with the girl was well timed as well cause I almost immediately met the woman that would become my wife)

Steven

Steven,

Thanks for the advice. We have a smoking ban here in bars etc In my ideal world (with my rose tinted glasses on) I would love to still be able to smoke but only when i am out having a drink (i have a friend who can do that) but i know - as per the big post, that it will not happen for me so it is all or nothing (to quote a great song).

Thanks,

Richard

I quit smoking some 13 years arround, and to be honest it was never an easy task. once a smoker - always a smoker ! Since then I never touch a cigarette; I knew, if I ever start to smoke a single cigarette, I would have been a smoker again. I always admire the people, smoking only when they are out with friends, having a drink or two, and smoking some 5 cigarettes that evening, and than refusing from smoking for the next two weeks - but that wont work for me.

Dont reduce the quantity of cigarettes a day, when you want to stop - just stop !

Good luck !

I tried tablets etc but didn't work after various hickups and deaths in the family

then I discovered the e-cig been nicotine free for 3 years after 35 years

and given the e- cig up

All the very best of luck. I gave up 24 years ago, I smoked from 9 till 22, that was a lifetime for me. I used rolled up rizlas as a mock ciggi, but those ecigarettes look a good idea to me.

What was great for me as a kid was my mum was given a potato sack full of tobacco, and so i had a lifetimes supply without her ever knowing I'd taken any.

All the very best

Alison

Good luck to you mate, I quit 2 1/2 years ago using patches and gum, I'm still on the gum unfortunately but at least that isn't doing me any damage.

Quit for your daughter if nothing else, you want to live to see and enjoy your grandchildren so what better incentive!

For those trying to give up, how do e-cigs stack up? Helpful, a panacea, or just a bit of a distraction?

I know people who've smoked for a long time, and have talked of various schemes or attempts, over the years, that they were going to give up - especially these new programs at doctors / clinics where they try their level best to help you. Last thing I saw they'd dived on that bandwagon that is e-cigs, but were still smoking some normal cigarettes a day, but at a claimed, reduced rate.

To me, that just sounds like every other attempt, where they've claimed they were smoking less for a while, then after a bit, revert to form - but e-cigs do seem to be becoming much more popular - that'll have to be stopped, there's a revnue stream to consider, selfish B'Stards - it's prime case for needing taxing - sorry - regulation, after all, they're clearly quite dangerous, people are dropping like flies from using them, aren't they...?

When I gave up after 13 years I didn't find the so called addiction to be any problem at all, gave me a bit of a cough, but what I really struggled with was the habit, the not having one with my coffee or after doing something or after dinner, you know what I mean, so the rolled up rizla's were brilliant, I'd have definitely used an ecigarette if they'd been around BITD when I gave up. It does help also if you've decided these taste shiite, but if the loves still there it is much harder.

Alison

Having now stopped smoking for over 6 years continuously, previously 18 months interrupted ironically by 3 months smoking while my Dad lie dying from lung cancer

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you can only give up smoking properly when you have decided that enough is enough and that you want to quit.

Remember what Yoda says....................................... Not try or try not.. DO or DO NOT !!!!