JB 883

Part of what helped me ease off the cancer sticks though - for about two years prior I mostly smoked roll-your-own smokes. The Top-o-matic machine with the crank handle that crammed tobacco into a tube. The tobacco sold in bags is cheap for a reason - it sucks. Probably lower nicotine. It is like the "low calorie" version of your favorite comfort food. I do not know how easy or hard it would have been if I were smoking real cigarettes.

I think the biggest reason I decided to "quit once" is because I am too much of a tightwad to spend money on cessation products. I always heard that they don't even work for everyone. I figured I wanted to "quit for free" cause i am a cheap skate.

Once again I am late to the party. But yes, do you remember when you went through the "three month battle"? You even mentioned something to me about it because i had had mine. But now, actually over a year since you quit. Congrats. And about BKP's Mars year, oh what the hell, you will make that one too. Put the date Nov 21 2019 - THAT will be a martian year. An Earth year today, a Martian year tomorrow.

I do not get in here much but noticed this. Well this is awesome. I remember when you first joined and had just quit. Now it is actually over a year since smoking. Great job.

I told the nicotine habit to go F... itself about 16 months ago. AND I still get smoking dreams. Like a couple nights ago i dreamed my room mate and i were working on her car and I found a cigarette in the garage and smoked it. In the dream though, I found some way to control the crave so i only wanted to smoke every few days. But in reality we know how THAT works - "just one" sets off the habit pretty quick again. You know all the things we imagine and wish it were like to smoke? Like it is harmless, tasty, and all that? In smoking dreams, it really is. Like my sister put it - "the satisfaction of smoking but without any of the consequences".

I still believe that snuff (Copenhagen and Skoal) is deadlier than cigarettes. You know how that first morning cigarette made us feel a bit dizzy? Snuff has that effect all day and it is gross, like wanting to puke. thank goodness I am not the only one to think that.

So basically then once they start vaping, they are stuck? I have a very hard time believing that vape is any safer than a damn cigarette.

Not my room mate's gas for once, no, something else... I was at work the other day and in the break room rummaging the paper for the comics. There was this entire page advertisement for one of those vape things. Of COURSE it was saying something about using vape to quit cigarettes. Imagine. But here was the LOUD part - the entire top 1/4 of the page was blacked out with the words in white about this product contains nicotine and nicotine is addictive. Now folks, not even cigarette and snuff ads got a warning label that big. All tobacco ever got was a puny space in the bottom corner of the page, easily overlooked. Even though I have never vaped, i still hate it. I hope the vape companies are losing sleep knowing that they are under fire quicker and harder than tobacco ever has been. It is kind of like when someone lies to you, the first time you believe it but when you figure out it is BS you get mad. But then they try to lie to you AGAIN and you f*****g explode! The anti-nicotine people (especially us ex-smokers) are probably more pissed than anyone. I love seeing vape companies getting their asses kicked. I just hope these kids who see vape ads will ask, "how come that warning is so huge...?"

Yeah, one needs to QUIT quit. No vaping, juuling, smoking, dipping, gums, chews, patches etc... Those bastards who invented vape KNEW for years that tobacco was in trouble. They just launched a new weapon to keep addicts addicted. Stay away from nicotine, period.

I pointed this out when I was new to the forum and nearly got banned over it. I guess for some it helps though. For me, I just got tired of all the BS that came with smoking and decided to clean house. Of course at first I didn't have too hard a time quitting and people got mad over that also. I was thinking, "Excuse me for having some G.D. willpower".

You know it sounds silly to do that but it does help somehow. Even just breathing a couple breaths in the same manner as if smoking a cigarette somehow takes the edge off. I have had to do that a few times. If nothing else, roll up an ordinary piece of paper and use that to "smoke" a couple breaths. Of course do not light it.

probably 10,000 for me. I donated my unused smokes to some guy who is on oxygen but still cannot quit smoking. Ok joking aside - you all know that if there were a cigarette bonfire, you would NOT want to get a whiff of the smoke. that would be the same as taking a hit or 50 off a cigarette again.

Lia here is an idea, it is how I managed to finally quit. Mine was in Oct 2017 though. So New year's eve is on a Monday. If you do not work the weekend, that might mean you have a three day weekend. That will give you those first three and hardest days to suffer in peace without the stress of being at work.To clear your mind. Three days might not seem like much but I believe if a smoker can make it THAT long with no nicotine/tobacco, he or she has proven to themselves they CAN do it so they can feed off that accomplishment as motivation. Between now and Friday, maybe cut way back on smoking (I went from 30 a day to three a day) then Friday night before you go to bed, that will be your dead last cigarette. Also by that time, all your cigarettes, ash trays, and other smoking stuff should be gone. Give it away, throw it away, whatever. Saturday you wake up a non-smoker. During those first three days, start cleaning everything you can. All laundry, bed sheets, walls, etc. You are done smoking at that point so might as well get it completely out of your life. Of course if you smoked only outside, it won't take as much cleaning. Maybe you are scared to quit, like "Oh my god, how will I do it?" I remember thinking that but when I put out my final smoke and went to bed, the first day wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Most important, you have to want this quit. You have to demand it. You have to reach out and TAKE that quit. Push past every crave and temptation and be GREEDY with that quit that is yours. Do not let temptation have it. If you are able to quit THIS day then even better but I was not able to just quit with no solid plan. Many decry the "cut back" method but for some of us it did work. If you can make it even ONE complete day without smoking, like from wake-up to bed time again, you have just proven it IS possible to quit. The reason stop-smoking drugs, patches, gums, getting stabbed with needles, hypnosis, whatever do not work is because if they DID, people would stop buying them when the nicotine crave vanished. They do not want to lose customers any more than the pricks who make cigarettes want to lose customers.

Oh come on. Some people enjoy quitting smoking so much that they relapse over and over just so they can quit again and again. THAT is the spirit of wanting to quit.

Might I ask - If this person is toxic, why not cut ties? I mean dealing with her is no better for your mental health than smoking is for one's physical health.

Things are hard yes but I find it even harder to believe that someone with a solid year quit would go back to smoking. Even after a year some of us still do get craves but it is not enough to give in. If you pick the cancer sticks back up, you are really gonna feel like crap.

When I quit, i cut back from 30 smokes and for three days, I allowed myself three cigarettes. My quit date was set up for a Friday so I would have the weekend to suffer the initial shock. I do not work weekends. So my last smoke was right before i went to bed so I could wake up to a new life of not smoking. That would be my advice. If you cannot quit today, then pick a date in the near future where you will have a couple stress free days, a couple days that you can go through the initial shock or whatever. Just keep something in mind though. Some of us have different emotional triggers that make us want to light up. For some it is stress, for some it's boredom, and for some (like me) it is when we get excited or want to "celebrate" something. If you are a "stress smoker", keep in mind that after the first is when companies want to "roll out" their biggest bullshit that is going to cause grief for the employees. If you can quit even a few days before THAT hits, all the better. At least you will have a few days of getting used to not smoking before that.

This one is a couple years old but yeah...

Flooding sucks. Thank goodness it doesn't happen when it is freezing out. At least notsmokinjo has the feet and is able to fly if waters get too wild.

Hey I remember you! That is awesome that you kept your quit for a solid year now, you and your mom. You notice how just by quitting, one really does live better? No weird coughing, nothing stinks, no wasted cash on tobacco, just everything is better.

I have quit on a whim many times. It typically lasted four hours. I had to set up a more structured plan of attack to quit. Went from 30 to 3 cigarettes a day for three days then to NONE. Not sure how well the step-down method works for most but it is what I had to do.

Weegie, it looks like we speak the same language PREACH IT! Safer. Probably more rewarding for your health to climb too. So you have mentioned a few times about saving your feet. I am just wondering, if I haven't asked yet - when your doctor layed that bit of news on you about possible foot amputation if you did not give up the cancer sticks, how did you handle that news? I mean to be told that - HOLY SHIT that would be like, one's heart would just drop to the floor. So you set aside that money in a separate savings? I am tempted to ask how much but that would be nosy. And holy crap martian, I remember when you sent me a PM about coming up on your three month mark and the battle that may ensue. But NOW you have just two weeks, two weeks til you hit a SOLID YEAR. Congrats, I mean you might as well say it is done. I never set my savings aside, i kind of dwindled it on other silly things but yeah now i think, "I should have set it aside". Would have only been about $500 (I smoked RYO so they were cheap) but anyways...

I heard Mary Poppins used to smoke. Instead of NOPE or HALT or SNOT or whatever, she used to say - Supercalewhateverthehellitwas.

That is awesome. Over two months quit, there is no reason to relapse at this point. You made it through the hardest parts. What we have here is a catch 22. Maybe do something that people often smoke after but just forego the smoke.

Yes, I ask cause I am THAT bored... Anyways, I am not an easily excitable person but when I do get such or if I am happier than normal, I find myself thinking, "A smoke would be great right about now". The most common occurrence is when I learn that some sort of "bad news" isn't nearly as bad as I imagined. It is weird cause i could be almost in a rage of anger and the thought of smoking is never there. Same for being sad or having the "Monday Blues". But let it be something good like, "ALRIGHT! That neighbor I hate is being exiled to Pakistan to be sold off into slavery!" and my mind seeks nicotine out of pure joy and excitement. Luckily the only time I normally get excited is when I find a fantastic deal on clothing. What about you?