I know it’s gross, unhealthy, a stupid habit, makes no sense.
Trouble quitting cuz it’s something to do with hands, fidgety, restless, oral fixation I think, and it gets me out of the house. Can’t find a habit to replace it with.
Get a dry herb vaporizer like the arizer air max as the smoke all be much cleaner for you
Buy some cheap hemp flower or pot and mix it with the tobacco, slowly skew the ratio towards hemp flower/pot over time. Throw a little dried lavendar in there too if you have access to the plant
Micro dose on magic mushrooms daily, not enough to trip just enough to feel good, for some reason I hate smoking anything while on mushroom trips and have heard personal stories of people quitting cold turkey
Got a lot of really good tips, thanks to everyone for chiming in. I was a serious alcoholic for decades, and haven’t had a drink in 5 years. So I will be able to quit smoking. Thanks again!
It took me 6 tries to quit a 30 year habit. In the end you have to want to quit. Realizing that quitting is the smart move is not the same as wanting to quit. I finally wanted to quit when I just didn’t want to go to the fucking store again and smoke in a parking lot because I can’t really smoke anywhere else. I decided that I was just done with that shit.
Spent another year on lozenges and quit those for the same reasons.
Smoker for 35 years… This might not help you directly, but I went to Australia for 3 months where cigarettes are USD$50 per pack. At that price I’m not buying. Went cold turkey and it’s been 6 months and still not purchased a pack, even though I’m now in another country where a pack is just USD$2.
Not sure if it’s atypical, but you could try reading “Alan Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking” and “The Freedom Model of Addictions”. The basic premise of the books is, that if you really want to quit, you will quit easily, and that in order to really want to quit you need to reevaluate the reward value of your habit instead of focusing on the negatives. You smoke because you find it pleasurable. The books guide you to better understand what part of your habit you find pleasurable exactly. Is it the nicotine rush? Or maybe the you like the social aspect of it? After finding out what exactly you find pleasurable about your habit, the books will give you pointers on how to reevaluate if the pleasure you derive from it is really all that great compared to other activities or whether it really solves the problem that you set out to solve with your habit.
Had a good doctor who told me you can’t “try to quit”. You can’t “cut back”. You can’t quit for other people or before you are ready. But once you are… he said every successful quitter he helped, quit cold turkey. You have to stop 100% or you won’t stop. He offered meds to help with the emotional and physical side effects. I declined.
I was a smoker for 20+ years, many of those I was well over a pack a day and I worked in a smoking bar for over a decade. It’s probably too late for me is what I thought, BUT I DID IT.
Quit 2 and a half years ago. It hasn’t gotten any easier yet. I still want to smoke daily. But I haven’t had a single puff. I still hang out with friends that smoke but I did change my normal environment. (Quit while I was moving to make breaking associated habits easier.)
The things I found most helpful when the craving kicks in… Exercise was the best. HARD physical labor. Also sleeping and eating. Luckily I was in decent shape already so eating a bit more often wasn’t a huge deal. The tons of extra exercise just burned it off or helped build up some muscle mass I didn’t know was possible.
The thing that worked for me, which I had literally never heard anywhere for some reason, is to quit drinking for about six months when you quit smoking.
At least for me, all my relapses happened when I was at a bar or a party having drinks.
Way I quite. First I swapped to vaping. It was an easy switch. It tasted better smelled better and gave me the same rush. Though it did take 2 times for me to guilt switch. After that lowered the nicotine level slowly. Got down to 0. I never said I couldn’t have one. I just played the game of how long I could go without. Started off delaying a few minutes. Then progressed to 15 minutes the half hour. Then I’d skip a break at work. At some point I crave one then tell myself later and if go hours without one. Changed to days. I don’t remember my last one. Also jolly rancher hard Candy or the like helped with cravings or delaying the need to go have a smoke. Could skip the vaping but I found it so much better that smoking.
I got up to a pack a day when I decided to quit. The biggest thing that helped me quit was getting an app on my phone which tracked the cost and how many you’re smoking. When you start reducing the amount smoked etc it tracked how much money you’ve saved, how much healthier your lungs are (lung capacity etc), how much more time you’ve added to your life expectency, all that sorta stuff.
Having numbers and stats to track, made it feel more tangible and felt like I was making actual progress towards something.
Mindfulness. Don’t resist the urges, but every time you smoke, practice being present - literally just try to keep your attention on what you are doing. Don’t judge yourself for doing it, just notice. If you are able to do this, it will help with much more than just quitting smoking.
This is the answer. There are many tricks and coping strategies, but at the end of the day there is no shortcut. Once you truly decide to stop, you just stop doing it.
There’s a TED talk with this advice, super interesting research outcomes too. I think he’d also said paying attention to the experience, how it feels, tastes, smells. Being present in the sensations for the whole experience every time.
I used Nicotine patches and would use dip patches on occasion, as well as eating a lot of cough drops while I was quiting. Not sure how good eating cough drops was but it worked better than candy for the oral fixation.
It took me too many years to finally quit the habit from when I determined that I was going to, but I am very glad that I did. Good luck, I am rooting for you.
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