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

I stopped smoking on the 20th July after numerous attempts. There were two reasons - firstly it was costing a fortune (average £10 a day), secondly my wife has emphysema and it's kinda wrong for me to be smoking around her.

So I stopped. Not entirely unaided. I started reading "The Allen Carr Method" - basically an attempt to hypnotise the reader into stopping. Didn't really work but it put me in the right frame of mind. The Doc gave me Champix - a drug that basically makes smoking taste foul. I was given a four week supply but I stopped on day 10.

If I've learned anything it's that you've got to want to stop. Relying on all the different drugs/patches/alternatives won't work. Something that all the research and articles seem to miss is some smokers smoke because they actually enjoy it. Yes it's a habit and yes, there's nicotine addiction, but there's nothing better than a satisfying draw of a cigarette/cigar. Feeling the hot smoke fill your lungs is exquisitely satisfying in a way that no number of gums/pills/patches/mechanical aids will ever match. You can feel every little pathway in your lungs as you draw the smoke in - it's lovely.

So, without a really compelling reason, it's easy to see why so many smokers find it hard to quit.

I had a mini-relapse over the summer. When I crocked my knee I sat up all night in a cottage in Devon with nothing but whisky and cigarettes to entertain me. Up until last week my intake was creeping back up to around 4 or 5 a day (before then, it'd been three years smoke free, more or less).

But the Missus has knocked it on the head now, so I'm back on the wagon. I'm barely noticing it, but she's chewing the walls. I forget just how horrible it is quitting.

Congratulations.

Motivation is the entire thing. Without the proper motivation no method works. So much of it is the mental struggle with ourselves. As I've mentioned elsewhere, one important thing to do is to not set yourself up for failure by using language like "I'm trying to quit" or to feel defeated if you have one cigarette. Since you're nearly 2 months into it, you've overcome the worst of all that.

again.

I think one aspect of quitting is the obsessional nature of quitting. You're intensely aware that you want a fag. It's all very well saying use distraction techniques, but it doesn't take away the longing. I think the Champix helped because the last cigar I smoked tasted foul and I could remember the taste for days.

Just over 10 years since I last had a fag. (24/08/99)

Which is also the date I had the heart attack.

Even I catch on eventually.

Hmmm. 8 months on and I've added eight inches to my waistline, gone up 4 suit sizes and put on nearly four stones.

Does stopping smoking make you pregnant?

"Does stopping smoking make you pregnant?"
It's more about putting things in your mouth surely?

If you listen to the cranks even that will get you pregnant

Congrats though, SWL! Never smoked in my life but coming from a family of smokers I've always hated it. However, from various members of my family in their efforts to give up, I understand that it would be easier to give up heroin so kudos to you