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Author Topic: How Did You Ex-Smokers Quit Without Relapse? Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 08-04-2003 10:21 AM                     I am sure there are many who tried. Can anyone relate to your experience on trying to ditch the nasty habit? Some things I know: 1. Nicotine gum makes me smoke more. 2. Zyban gives me very nasty nightmares. 3. Relapses are extremely common at a very high percentage rate. 4. Cigarettes are killing me. How did you do it?  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 08-04-2003 10:55 AM                     I just quit cold turkey. But slowed down for a year before I quit. I started smoking when I was 13 (Obviously just like a kid on and off with my friends, being as neither of my parents smoked), quit when I was 21. Did most of my smoking between the age of 18-20. I've cheated a couple times and had one now and again but for the most part I'm smoke free. I didn't find it that hard, possibly because I only averaged about 4-6 cigs a day. Probably had about 10 cigs a day in my worst period. Luckily I had the support of my friends to help me thru it...when I wanted a cig they always fed me V8...it was MY substitute to gum.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 08-04-2003 11:04 AM                        Wife also quit cold turkey... and never looked back. I had good results with the Nicoderm patch set.... but I had also weaned myself down to those "Vantage" sawdust cigs before I got there. Wierd that I couldn't flat get past that point, though. After 25 years, I haven't had a problem (or relapse)... 7 years now.  |  IP: Logged Fred Georges Master Film Handler Posts: 257 From: Lombard, IL, USA Registered: Jun 2000 posted 08-04-2003 11:09 AM                     Dear Paul, Cold Turkey worked for Me. 5 "false" starts before I finally had the gumption to dig my heels in and quit for good. 2 packs a day for 20 years. My advice 1) realize that you are giving up a friend(who's trying to KILL you) but a good friend none the less. 2)Find a short term oral substitute (No Wisecracks!) Mine was Miniature Reese peanut butter cups. When that demon nicotine urge would hit I'd pop a couple and it would pass. 3) Pick a smoker you despise and realize that your MUCH stronger then that Jerk cuz you can quit. (pain transference-LoL) 4) Contact the American Cancer Society..They'll give you good "How to" info. 5) If I Can quit...So can YOU! You'll feel like total Dog Shit for 3-4 days while the old body goes through Nicotine withdrawl (This really SUCKS) But, your big battle is ahead with the psycho addiction so you've got to have a substitute. After several months it will pass and your lungs WILL clear the old gunk out & you'll feel 30 years younger but, you have to tell yourself "It's OVER!!" And you can NEVER have a cigarette AGAIN!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!!  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 08-04-2003 11:16 AM                        We lost my wife's Dad to oat cell lung cancer. He started smoking while serving in World War II, kept up a 2-pack a day addiction despite numerous attempts to stop, and died in 1976 at the young age of 56 after months of radiation and chemo treatments, and finally, weeks of heavy sedation with codeine and morphine to control the agonizing pain from the metasticized cancer. If you smoke, STOP now. If you don't, NEVER start. Once they see that spot on your lung x-ray, it is likely too late. He lived only about 8 months after the day he went to the doctor with that first bad cough.  |  IP: Logged Don Bruechert Mmmmmmmmm, bird! Posts: 340 From: Manitowoc, WI, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 08-04-2003 11:39 AM                        My Mother had metastatized lung cancer as well, and she was an RN that got a chest X-ray every year. They found it in Novemember of 1986 and by July 1987 she was dead. They tried chemo and stuff but there wasn't anything they could do - she ended up dying of pneumonia as a complication. I think she was around 2 packs a day - a combination of pall-mall straights and filtered stuff. She still couldn't quit and still smoked a little right up close to when she died. My Father died in 2000 from a variety of things but emphysema was the primary reason for his death. They had fixed most of the circulatory problems and the prostate cancer. He smoked a couple packs of pall-mall straights a day for as long as I can remember (more than 35 years I would say). He actually quit for quite a while when they first diagnosed him, but did cheat on occasion. It was after my 3 year old neice died in a freak accident in 1999 that he just gave up and used them as a means to an end... Funny how he survived them taking a benign tumor out of his head the doctors claim was the size of a baseball in like 1983 or 1984, but he ended up dying from the cigs 15 or so years later.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 08-04-2003 01:35 PM                       I got a cold and my smoker's cough aggravated it so much that it made me mad. Never looked back.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 08-04-2003 01:57 PM                     I tried my first cigarette aged about 8; it tasted absolutely foul. I thought it could only get better, so I tried another one, it didn't, I gave up, and have never smoked since. Maybe 8 is getting a bit too old; if we were to give cigarettes to five year olds to try it would put them off for life! My parents both smoked very heavily, 40-50 per day each. Both managed to stop towards the end of their lives, and both come to rather unpleasant ends, but through diseases which were not smoking related. Not starting in the first place is much easer than giving up. A colleague at work who is trying to stop has a post card pinned up over his desk with a picture of two lungs, one healthy, and the other from a heavy smoker. I once went to the post-mortum of someone who had been a heavy smoker. If I had been a smoker myself I think what I saw would have made me stop. Not pleasant, but effective.  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 08-04-2003 02:53 PM                        Paul,This was brought up by Randy Stankey back in March 20, 2001 you can find some answers on Page 81 where we posted then.I started smoking at age 6 steady at age 10 and stopped when I was 61 three years ago.Have no desire at this time.It was the hardest thing to give up. I still think of myself as a smoker and have three cartons of camels in my trophy case. The one's that will never be lit by me.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 08-04-2003 02:57 PM                     Thread from the archives  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 08-04-2003 03:15 PM                        My stepfather (really just the doofus my mom got remarried to after I had already left the house) has emphysema and asthma. He's on oxygen now 100% of the time. He can't walk from one end of the house to the other end without running out of breath. His feet are swollen up like melons. He's about 100 pounds overweight. And he chain smokes, probably over 2 packs a day. Even though he's hooked up to oxygen. "I don't care if I blow the house up, I'm not going to quit smoking." When I go there to visit, I have to stay in a motel because their house reeks so bad of tobacco I can't stand to be there for more than short periods. Last time I was there, I noticed their TV picture looked kind of yellow. Upon close inspection, I found that the face of the picture tube was heavily coated in what I assume to be nicotine or at least smoking-related residue. It took lots of Windex and scrubbing to get that crap off. I feel sorry for anyone who can't quit smoking. As far as anybody *starting* smoking now, all I can say is "Loser.".  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 08-04-2003 03:52 PM                       To say nothing of what it's doing to your mother!  |  IP: Logged William Leland III Master Film Handler Posts: 336 From: Charleston, SC, Registered: Aug 2002 posted 08-04-2003 04:06 PM                        I smoke, started when I went to collage. So I guess I started older than most. I smoke maybe 5-7 a day, but when I drink i'll kill a pack. I guess I'm addictied but I feel like I can quit cold turkey but a beer a cigarette go together hand in hand. I do want to stop but that day is still over the horizon. I always say, when I have a kid i'll stop.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 08-04-2003 06:08 PM                  Years ago I started smoking cuz when I went out clubbin' "everyone" smoked and it was "supposed to be" cool. Well, I did that for about 5 years and then one night many years ago at 3 AM, I ran out of those cancer sticks and ***had*** to have one. So, I got dressed and went out to a 7-11 to get a carton. While driving back home and lighting up, I thought to myself... "Gosh, I really am addicted and a slave to this crap." I threw the cig, the pack, and the carton out the car window and never looked back! I know it's hard to quit...especially cold turkey, but ya GOTTA do it.... PAUL!!!!!! To this day, after certain meals and at certain times, I still get a twitch for a cig. BUT I will never go back! It's a dirty, filthy, unhealthy habit! I got sooo sick and tired of going to bed or leaving the house trying to remember if I put that cig out. NO MORE.. NEVER AGAIN!! >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 08-04-2003 06:26 PM                     I'm in complete agreement with David's judgment on smoking. I have a lot of sympathy for those who have been smoking for decades and started during a time when popular culture heavily promoted it. In the 1940's, 50's and 60's you were pretty much a pansy if you didn't smoke. The health concerns about it only started getting a lot of serious attention in the 1970's. During that age many people did not fully know the addictive nature of nicotine. They didn't know the full extent of health problems that go with cigarette smoking. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin and just as difficult to quit (relapse rates among cigarette smokers and heroin users are roughly the same --only drugs like crystal methamphetamine are more acutely addictive). The tobacco industry sure as hell wasn't telling anyone the truth during this time --even though they knew how dangerous their product really was. So I cannot fault anyone who started smoking during this time. Both of my parents smoked when they were younger. And I mean they smoked a lot. Growing up, I hardly ever saw my mother or father without a lit cigarette. If we went driving somewhere, they'd both have cigarettes lit up, flicking ashes out the window --and having molten hot "cherries" fly back and hit my brother and I in the face. There's no sensation quite like having a glowing tobacco ember fly up under your eyelid and burn your eyeball. But then my mother's father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1976. I remember my grandfather rolling his own cigarettes as he taught my brother and I how to ride a dirtbike. He was really cool, but didn't look so cool a month before his death. His left lung had been removed. He had this bandage on his ribcage covering a hole in his chest. There was mucus or some kind of fluid dripping out from underneath it. I was 10 years old when I saw that, and that's the image I think of when it comes to cigarette smoke. When my grandfather was buried both of my parents quit cold turkey and never smoked again. My brother and I swore never to start. These days everyone knows cigarette smoking is the #1 preventable cause of death. Everyone knows the damned things are addictive, expensive, filthy and lots of other bad stuff. So whenever I see some 15 year old junior high schooler lighting up, I freely judge that kid to be a stupid f**king idiot. And I don't think my tax dollars or insurance premiums should help out his dumb ass when he develops health problems over it decades from now.  |  IP: Logged

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