My advice.....if you want to quit, do not set a date. Do it
spontaneously. Do not wait until you have smoked the last cigarette in the pack. Rip up the pack and shred the individual smokes one at a time. If you do it this way...on the spur of the moment, you will have a better chance at sucess. Get mad at yourself and then do it!
That's what I did...I gave my pack to a friend and said, "Don't ever give me a cigarette, no matter what I might say." She never did, and I never smoked again. That was 30 years ago. I got tired of feeling like I was powerless over the craving.
My husband has lost both his parents and his brother to illnesses associated with their smoking. His brother was not quite 50.
"...on the spur of he moment..."
I had the flu really bad and was just too sick to smoke. The third day I thought that might be a good time to just quit. I did.
I quit rather than pay this outrageous tobacco tax. For some reason this seems to outrage some anti-smoking zealots. win-win.
No crutches, no patches, no game-playing, just a spontaneous decision that I stuck with.
I can't tell you how healthier I am in so many ways........and now I can even sing along with the oldie-goldie radio station instead of sounding like Clarence "Frogman" Henry (croaker of "Ain't Got No Home" on Rush show).
Leni
That is EXACTLY what I did - 36 days ago. I was planning on quitting for New Years', but on December 19th I finished the last pack I had and decided that was enough. I recommend it also - gets rid of the pre-quitting jitters.
I agree- cold turkey is the best way- if you get past the first week you are SET!!
The first week you will not sleep, and THIS IS A SYMPTOM!!
When you wake up and you want that cigarette so bad dont do it!!!
Sleeping pills help- ask your doctor
That's exactly how I lost my weight. I didn't "plan" to go on a diet. I didn't say "Starting next week, I'll give up ice cream and donuts." No! It wasn't like that at all.
I can still remember clearly how it happened. It was April 1, 2003 and I had just returned from a trip to Florida. I went to put on my pants for work and I couldn't get them to button. Now these were size 48 pants which meant that I now had to get size 50 pants! It was then and there that I stopped eating junk. That day at lunch, instead of getting my usual steak & cheese sub, I went for a long walk.
I never looked back. Went from 304 pounds to 197 pounds in nine months and I now wear size 34 pants.
You just have to decide you are going to quit and then do it.
The first time I quit I made sure to carry a pack of cigarettes on me just as I always did.
I figured by carrying them I could not use the excuse to smoke a cigarette the minute I was around people who smoked, using the proximity of cigarettes to bum as an excuse to smoke one.
Two days later a friend noticed I had not smoked a cigarette in all the time he saw me that day.
I told him I had quit.
He asked how I managed to quit, and I told him.
But here's the funny part: As I was telling him how I did it, my hand reached into my shirt pocket, removed a cigarette from the pack I carried and stuck it in my mouth.
I was about to light it when I noticed the strang look on his face--only then did I realize what I was about to do.
Pretty funny--all the while I was explaining how I managed to quit smoking!
That was the first time I quit--I was off them for three years.
I since quit again, and this time I've been off them more than a decade. And no problem.
I do miss tobacco, though--the same way I miss choclate pudding pie, for example. But not from an addiction.
I loved smoking. And if someone invented safe tobacco, I'd smoke again in a minute.