h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been wanting to quit in the last couple of months, and I've found out that the hardest part of it is my mental addiction to smoking. I don't think I'm very addicted to nicotine, and even if I were a nicotine inhalator can help me out fine.
Holding a cigarette and smoking it is comforting and reassuring and i'ts very hard to quit that ! Smoking fills out those small empty spaces of time were you don't know what to do with yourself (every party-smoker will probably agree with this).
It's all a question of finding new things that can grab your attention and fill out the spaces. (And then of course the willpower to quit).
EL

That's why I started smoking, to do something during those times when you aren't 'doing' anything. You don't need willpower to quit, you need it to keep from starting again.

This probably wont work for many other people, but I found it came down to how you thought of it. I convinced myself that smoking was a fairly dull experience, then stopped. Pretty much dead, for a while I smoked occasionally when I was really drunk, but even that petered out in no time.

You're right. You've got to make smoking a not-nice, not-comforting thing to do. Right now I've stopped smoking when I do other things. If I want a cig I stop what I'm doing at the moment and only smokes. I find that very often I don't want to take that time out, so I'm smoking much less.

That's a pretty good idea. If I hadn't already quit, I might try it.

I'm an ex smoker (or a failed smoker?) who gave up about 15 years ago after a lifetime of ciggies, hand rolled tobacco, and a pipe in the evenings. (this is the second time that I have given up - my previous best was two years, then I started going out with a girl who smoked......)

Anyway, you need motivation - finance, health are good starters. Mine was sport - I was at an age when I couldn't compete with youngsters who smoked; stopping smoking gave me the edge I needed.

The other thing that helped me was to replace the habits of smoking with something else. I made a sort of rosary thing in my workshops, consisting of pebbles with holes in on a leather thong. This was really therapeutic because it meant that I had something to do with my hands instead of fondling a cigarette.

Yoga relaxation exercises will also help to get over the urge for a ciggie.

Thoughts - the blood of a smoker has a reduced capacity for carrying oxygen. The effect of this is that if you are on top of a 3000feet high hill, your blood will carry the same amount of oxygen as if you were at 8000 feet! I don't know whether this is due to the nicotine or the other poisons in the smoke, but it sure seems like a good reason to give up!

Of course, now I no longer smoke, I am concerned that if too many people stop, the loss of taxes will eventually mean that the price of good Scotch whisky will have to go up. So please keep smoking - it is saving me money!!!!!!

hic

I just gave up smoking yesterday. This is the first time in over 4 years that I have gone without a cigarette for a 24 hour period. It has taken me about a year of psyching up, a stern talking to from my doctor the last time I was sick, and a really great stop-smoking book.

Basically there are 2 addictions to get over. The physical addiction is the easy one. It peaks in the first day (hence my ridiculous failure to get through the 1 day barrier before)and then drops off dramatically after 3-5 days. After 3 weeks, over 99% of the nicotine has left your body. Once over that first day there is the mental/psychological addiction.

This is the really insidious one that will pull you down a week/month/year later. This is the addiction supported and constructed by the tobacco marketing companies. Things like:

"Smoking relaxes you"
"Smoking is enjoyable"
"Couples smoke after sex"
etc.

All these things come at us in the most devious ways through direct marketing or indirectly through watching people smoke on films or on TV.

Anyway, for the first time in years I am a "non-smoker". I know it hasn't been for very long - I am still counting the hours, but I know why I used to smoke, and why it was so hard before. Every time I get a small "pang" for a cigarette, I can figure out why I think I need that cigarette, and then realise that I don't actually need it after all.

All of the above I found in that book I mentioned(EASYWAY to Give Up Smoking, by Allen Carr) which I heartily recommend. It has given me what I really needed to get going on not smoking...

Best of luck in your endeavours! It sounds as they you have the resolve to succeed! The trick that you are using of analysing why you need a ciggy each time you get the urge is a good one.

Good luck - I'm a year to the day given up, and I have to say it gets way easier after the first month...
Of course, working out that I've saved £1000 makes a huge difference too....

Smokers subsidise my Scotch whisky with the extra taxes that they pay - so please don't give up!

Seriously - best of luck, I've been without a ciggie since about 1983, so I know it can be done. Just keep thinking about the money you save!