Advice and help needed from FReepers who've managed to quit smoking

me ^ | 4OVT11 | self

[Marie]

In January, I'm planning on having a major surgery and I cannot have this operation until I quit smoking.

I've been trying to quit for the last 17 years and I haven't been able to make it for more than a month.

I can get past the immediate horror of it all. I'm using Chantix to help me with that. (Chantix was the easiest way to quit that I've found so far.)

But what always gets me are the 'crazies that don't go away. Even after the habit is broken - after the cravings are gone - I find myself in a constant low-level anxiety. Grumpy. Pissy. Snapping.

The closest thing that I can relate it to is a state of constant PMS. Only it doesn't go away after 2 or 3 days. Noises are grating and too loud. everyone is getting on my nerves. I'm nervous and anxious all the time.

The thing that gets me, where I fall, is that I don't know how long this will last. How long I have to endure. I end up picking up a cigarette just to put an end this crap - and it's usually an act of mercy for my family. It really is a form of insanity.

I know that I'm not the only smoker that's gone through this. How long does this last? (I know that it's more than a month because I've made it for a month before.) What medications have worked for you? Are there any herbs or vitamins that I should try?

When will I be calm and happy again?

I've already had my dr put in a referral for a mental health professional, but it's going to take two months to get an appointment.

Please. ANY advice or insight would be helpful.

[Gerish]

Hubby quit cold turkey over 2 years ago and it was very hard for him at the beginning. First, you really have to WANT to quit and commit to it - keep telling yourself there is no going back and pray to God for strength. He would chew minty gum (for some reason minty gum and a cigarette tasted awful together for him). He also chewed on those coffee straws. He exercised more (walking) and kept busy (carpentry work). He didn't gain much weight at all. He said once the nicotine was out of his system, his anxiety became less and less.

My sincere prayers that God will give you strength and willpower to overcome the habit.

[USS Alaska]

I smoked from the time I was ten until I was 68, last May 1, 2010, and I decided that I'd rather be able to breath without coughing, so I put down the cigarettes, {used to use a pack to 1.5 packs per day} and quit.

Don't smoke cigars and weighed 178 last May and weigh 180 today.

It's called will power, who runs your life, you or a piece of paper wrapped around several strands of expensive tobacco?

If you choose to quit, you will, if you want excuses you will use chantix or other chemicals but it comes back to you.

It is as easy or as hard as you make it.

You can whine and say it's torture or you can say you rule your mind and body, and you choose not to smoke.

It's no harder than that.

[ßuddaßudd]

Good Luck !
I may need to consider quitting one day. . ▲

[califamily4W]

Several years ago, mom was in the same situation (although she had a single fusion).

We found lobelia (lobeline) flavored honey sticks for her suck on while she went through the various stages nicotine withdraw. Coupled with the patch.......it worked!

I'm not an herb guru you may want to try a google search. Here is a link I found:

http://www.quit-smoking-advisor.com/03-Natural-Methods/herbs-to-quit-smoking Expect 10 to 20 lbs weight gain....good luck!!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I smoked for 20 years (a pack or more a day when I quit). I haven’t smoked for 20 years. I quit cold turkey and my husband joined me 2 days later when I told him (I waited to see if I could make it for 2 days). We both have not relapsed.

I chewed a lot of gum in the beginning. Later when I had the urge (I think it was more learned behavior at certain times of the day) I did something different than whatever it was I was doing.

My best advice to you is, when you feel you want a cigarette know that feeling will go away. If you dwell on it it will stick in your head. Instead remove that thought by doing something to distract yourself and that urge will quickly pass. Stop thinking about it. Do something you normally wouldn’t do while smoking.

As time passes the desire to have a smoke will recede. Any habit (and I do put this more into the habit column than in the addiction column) needs to have you relearn how to occupy your time and your mouth and your hands.

Good luck. You can do it and you will feel so much better and freer — smell better and have more money in your pocket! Weight gain is more a symptom of eating to satisfy that oral thing. Chew gum and take a walk.

[Jack of all Trades]

Regular exercise, and not just the resistance training/slogging away on a treadmill kind. Find something that occupies the mind as well: yoga, Tai Chi, martial arts. I found my way back to a karate dojo about four years ago, and can't really understand how I lived without it. Every care in the world disappears for the hour and a half that I'm there, and when they come back, they seem more manageable.

I started quitting cigarettes about 3 years ago. Did several rounds of Chantix (miss the dreams). Finally quit for good (so far) about a year and a half ago. Keep with it. Good luck.

[little jeremiah]

Looks like tons of good advice already. So I’ll just encourage you.

I quit cold turkey and didn’t look back, I was very busy at the time doing a lot of singing - that helped clear my lungs and gave me something to do, along with other things that totally kept my mind off of the habit.

About 9 years later I started running (for heath, not competition) and coughed black crap out of my lungs for a while. I would suggest when you are recuperated from your surgery to get moderate exercise and do lots of deep breathing to help clear your lungs out.

Find something to do with your hands that you like to do, or learn something. If you are a Catholic do rosary more, I do a similar prayer with beads and that helped a lot. Embroidery, knitting, something with your hands.

I wish you all success!!

[FarmerW]

I will never take another puff again..never.

I am over 4 years out. I was about 2 ppd when I quit cold turkey. I did not do it alone. I used the quidence of a professional. His name is Joel Spitizer. He has a website. It is free and no registration..nothing..sells nothing. I promise. Joel will explain to you why you are feeling what you feell, how long it will last and what to do about it.

It does get better. Whatever you are feeling now passes as long as you never take another puff.

http://www.whyquit.com/joel/

Joel Spitzer has provided smoking cessation and prevention services since 1972, first as a volunteer speaker and then a member of the professional staff of the American Cancer Society. Later he served as smoking programs coordinator for the Rush North Shore Medical Center’s Good Health Program, and then as a consultant for the Skokie Illinois Health Department and the Evanston Department of Health and Human Services, providing state funded smoking cessation clinics and seminars for the two Chicago suburban communities. Here at WhyQuit, since June 2000 Joel has served as education director at Freedom from Nicotine, a free education oriented nicotine dependency recovery messageboard support group.

[Arrowhead1952]

and I haven't been able to make it for more than a month.

I had the same problem. I finally left a half pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment of my pickup during the summer. I wanted one so bad, I grabbed the pack and fired up one of those dry cigs. It burned so bad, I put it out and threw the rest in the trash. Never lit up another one since. I never gained a pound after quitting. I actually went from 200+ to 185 and now back down to 178. I am a 6' 1" tall male.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I developed pneumonia some years back and wound up in the hospital for five days. I was on oxygen and couldn't sneak a smoke. My ‘roommate’ was in a coma (90+ years old) and for five days I listened to him gurgle as his lungs filled with fluid. The nurses would aspirate every eight hours or so to remove the fluid and keep him from drowning.

When I went home I quit cold turkey, I did gain some weight but never went back to smoking. The old man was still hanging on when I left. Tough old buzzard!

Good luck,
GtG

[califamily4W]

I forgot the most important thing she did...........pray.

[jmax]

You don't really want to do what I did to quit. Last summer my aorta ruptured (aorta is the main vain from your heart that provides blood to all your main body parts ie; kidneys, brain, etc). Was rushed to hospital where they immediately started surgery. Worked on me for 12 straight hours. Woke up 25 days later, with wife standing over me in either CCU (Critical Care Unit) or SCU (Surgical Care Unit). She wasn't sure which, as I went thru all 4 Care Units. She said I had been hard-piped; to life support for about the first 2 weeks. Spent a total of about 7 weeks in hospital, then had home health nurse coming to house 3 times a week for 2 months, along with a therepy nurse twice a week for a month.

HAVEN'T WANTED, NEEDED OR HAD A SMOKE SINCE THEN (July 3, 2010). If I get around smokers, the smoke smells good, but I have yet to think I'd like to have one.

FYI....I had never heard of a ruptured aorta before, but State Dept's Richard Holbrook later had the same thing happen to him, but he died on the table after 24 hours of straight surgery. Conway Tweety just plain fell over and died from one, a few years ago.

I'm sure there are thousands of stories like mine that all say 'quit smoking while you can'.

GOOD LUCK

[chris_bdba]

I quit in Jan of 1987 and haven’t had one since.I quit cold turkey but had a massive cold then and frankly did not feel like having one.The things that helped me was to go brush my teeth after each meal so the urge would not be so strong...I never liked to smoke right after brushing my teeth and I found carrying around a pencil or pen gave my hands something to do.

[toothfairy86]

Congrats on deciding to quit! I don’t know where you live, but PA has a free quitline with lots of great suggestions and tips, as well as telephone support with trained cessation counselors. People tend to get demoralized with every attempt to quit. Many people require several attempts before they finally succeed permanently. Don’t give up! For medical reasons, quitting smoking will definitely improve the prognosis of your surgery being a success and ensure faster healing. Good luck!

[OutbackBob]

There is only one way to quit smoking.

***** DON’T SMOKE. *****

Nothing else is as important. JUST QUIT.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Because smoking is such an “all body systems involved” phenomenon, I believe that whatever replaces it has to occupy as much of or very nearly as much of your being as did/does the original habit.

You already know that your hands, your eyes, your lungs, your breathing, your neurosis level are all involved.

It may be that you have to get all of those elements involved. It is a viciously and seriously insidious habit and I know, as a smoker and half a dozen times unsuccessful quitter, that you have to have a fully “theatrical” plan.

By theatrical, I mean that you have to have the stage, the orchestra, the building, the actors, the producer, the script...you really have to construct a multi-front attack on the habit. You’re going to have to become a full-on Nazi on yourself if you really want to quit....assuming you’re not one of those lucky people who can just decide. The truth is that all of us can just decide but it is awfully difficult to make that decision and have that decision come out the same way each of 173,528 times you will want to smoke over the next several years.

The things that have come closest for me but ultimately failed are:

Hypnosis

Poliacrix gum

The things that have completely irritated me so that I want to smoke a cigaret or three just out of irritation are:

“becomeanX.com” the whole support group and making a diary and bowing to the East and tying rubber bands around your pack of smokes and all that stupid nonsense.

Now that does not mean that those things will not work for YOU.

I think you have to become quite systematic and orchestrate upon yourself a complete program.

You can search for subliminal hypnosis downloads and burn them to CD. My suggestion: try a couple of them. If you blow $10 - $20, that should be worth it. IMO this is superior to going to a live hypnotherapist. To use them, you have to have a quiet room in which you can be uninterrupted for about 1/2 hour, headphones, and a comfortable chair. Doing it at the same time every day is allegedly a plus.

The gum, I usually have to cut the pieces in half or they sicken me to chew.

I think exercise is also important. Did I mention that I HATE exercise?

Those are my thoughts. Best of luck to you. It’s a massive bear to quit.

[VeniVidiVici]

Looks like many of these suggestions will help you :)

I was a 3-pack a day smoker and what finally got me to quit was a website someone setup that showed how quickly their mom and dad got sick and died from smoking. Complete with bedridden photos. So from that link I followed other links with more *detailed* photos that were pretty gross. All stuff that I had laughed at before and pretty much made fun of.

I researched what other folks had gone through and found that the physical withdrawal symptoms last about 72 hours. After that it is all in your head. For me at least, that alone was enough to keep me going after 72 hours.

I was doing the gum and lozenge. Following their instructions it was pretty clear that what little nicotine I was getting from them was NOT on par with what I was getting while smoking 3-packs a day. So they were pretty useless until I tallied up how much nicotine I was getting from 60 cigarettes a day and then that determined how many gum/lozenges I would take. I’m sure this isn’t recommended but it worked for me :)

However, after the 3d-day, (remember the 72 hour withdrawal) I decided that I was not going to suck on gum or lozenges for 12 weeks as the program suggested so I just quit. On the third day. I was jumpy for about 12 hours after that and then - fine.

For years after hearing about how hard it is to quit smoking, and how addictive it is, comparing it to heroin, who the hell wants to go through that? And then I found out, at least for me, it was a piece of cake. Hell, I would have quit years ago had I known it was going to be that easy for me.

[darrellmaurina]

Marie, your story reminds me of both my mother and father. Mom was a three-pack-a-day smoker beginning back in the 1950s when women reporters needed to prove they were as tough as the guys and often took up smoking to do it; dad was a two-pack-a-day smoker who started when the Army gave him virtually free cigarettes, as was standard in that era when most servicemen smoked.

The biggest reason my mother kept smoking is her behavior became horrible when she stopped. When you say the “crazies” keep causing you to go back to smoking, I hear your pain; I saw it myself firsthand and it's not pretty. As others here wrote, it can sometimes seem like a mercy to your family to start smoking again.

Some “mercies,” however, have consequences far greater than the benefits.

My mother died about a decade ago of what the doctors said were the consequences of long-term smoking; my father said she had quit smoking but the medical tests showed otherwise. I have no way to know whether the tests were wrong or whether my mother was sneaking cigarettes my father didn't know about. What I do know is that my mother's inability to handle the anger and rage — not just mild irritability but outright rage — resulted in her being unable to quit and led directly to her death.

Personally I love the smell of cigarettes. I'd smoke today if it weren't for the fact that they cost too much and will kill me sooner or later. What I saw my parents go through with obvious addiction was more than enough for me to decide not to take up the habit, even though to this day I love to inhale smoke, especially some good aromatic pipe smells, or to sniff a freshly opened pouch of tobacco. I need to realize that wonderful smell is not something good for me but rather a powerful addiction waiting to pounce if I would permit it to do so.

Why do I say this? It's to rebuke in the strongest possible terms what Humblegunner wrote. Smoking **WILL** kill you eventually. It's already messing up your life and draining your pocketbook.

Fortunately not one person on this thread on Free Republic agreed with him.

Surround yourself with people who hate smoking and will encourage you to quit. Don't listen to people like Humblegunner who will give your addicted mind the idea that maybe, just maybe, he's right and you don't need to stop smoking to have the surgery you need.

Lots of good practical advice has been given. Some of it is probably better than others; some of it may work better or less well for you than it did for others.

What counts is that all of the advice is better than what you're getting from people who want to keep you from quitting. If they stop you from quitting, they are helping you kill yourself. Flee such advice. You're obviously addicted or you would have been able to stop on your own, and you need to surround yourself with encouragers, not discouragers and excusers.

Best wishes to you.

[humblegunner]

Don't listen to people like Humblegunner who will give your addicted mind the idea that maybe, just maybe, he's right and you don't need to stop smoking to have the surgery you need.

Darrell, you never fail to show up at the most unexpected
times and provide "insight" into things you imagine that you
understand. Not the least of which are my motives and the
underlying reasons behind them.

You may provide this fine service to others, I'm not intrigued enough to check.

I've been meaning to thank you for your concern and for the
thirteen (on average) paragraphs you devote to either explaining
or debunking my statements. I'm glad you are not my parent.

I'd run away.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Thank you for that description of your wife's experience with the e-cigarette. I've been wondering about them and haven't taken the time to look for reviews.

I quit cold turkey five years ago on the 28th of October. To this day, I will have a craving that comes out of nowhere and lasts for a second or two and it is gone.

I don't miss the smell, my stamina and health in general has improved, the money is spent on something better, etc. etc. etc. Thing is that I really enjoyed something about smoking and have been curious about the e-cigarette.