Quitting smoking cigs cold turkey tips?

[Dubbag]

I gotta stop these things man, im 27 been smoking since i was 13. I've quit before like 3 times but always come back. I quit for a year and a half once and started again. Whats wrong with me lol. Any tips? I used to be able to quit on command no problem, not anymore. I've tried the patches the gum everything.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Dubbagdarrel

[tourniquet]

It's all a matter of mental strength and perseverance. Don't use nicotine gums or patches as the nicotine dose on these is often higher than in cigarettes and makes it even worse. Nicotine withdrawal only lasts for a few weeks, afterwards it's only the bad habit that still lingers. The first 2 months are hard but afterwards is getting better with every day. Try to fill the gap with something worthwhile like drinking water, sport, workout, especially in the moments when the urge to grab a cigarette becomes very strong. Don't drink alcohol for a while. Almost 3 years now since i quit and it was worth all the struggle. You'll become a different person and feel clean and free, nowadays i can't even stand the smell of that shit.  

[fraggle]

My wife quit years ago and used patches. You can cut them in half, in quarters, etc. to gradually ramp down. There is a strong physical dependency and it's important to recognise that.

 

The fact you've made a thread like this shows you have the intention to stop and that's the most important thing. Make a commitment to quit for good and find family and friends you can turn to who will help you through the process. Above all don't struggle alone.

 

I've never touched cigarettes myself even once. You're essentially a chemical slave to the tobacco companies who are making billions off you and all the others who can't stop giving them money. Kick the habit, break your chains and be free of them.

[Doom_Dude]

I'm so glad I never smoked. Tried it when my friend used to steal his dad's cigs. I told him not to take so many and that's how he got caught. Anyhow I did try it, but wasn't all that interested.

 

Like fraggle said about the patches. My bro smoked till he ended up with a heart attack and then with the help of patches he got off the damned things and has been off the cigs for about 5 or 6 years now. Hardest way to quit... having a heart attack. Something to think about tho.

 

It sucks to get off the cigs and get back on them again. I would certainly give quitting another shot. You may have went back on them again before but this time you could be off the damned things for good. Anyhow, luck with getting free of the smokes again.

[Vorpal]

Find a friend/coworker and do a 1 month challenge with them, maybe it'll turn into 3 month challenge and so on. Also keep a notebook or spreadsheet of the money you are saving daily.

[Liberation]

I found the patches a mixed bag tbh, some days they worked a treat other days I really struggled. Mornings were a pain as well.

 

I tried champix after that, which worked very well although I did go a bit strange when using them but I did stop smoking completely, but sadly slipped back to the cigs 6 months later as I was down the pub having one or 2 with a few beers...

 

So over a year ago I started vaping instead, started on the high nicotine level (18mg) and have decreased every 6 or so months. I'm now on 6mg and will be going down to the 3mg very soon, come next summer I will start mixing my e-liquids to make 1.5 mg strength and then aim to stop completely. So I made a plan and I'm sticking to it.

 

A habit takes 3 weeks to stop, but that does not count for nicotine. You need to plan ahead whether it's patches, gum or vaping, it does take time and NRT is far better than going cold turkey.

 

Cold turkey is 6 months of feeling like shit when there are far easier and better ways to quit, you also run a bigger risk of just having that one smoke....

 

Best of luck to you!

 

 

 

 

[Urthar]

I never had any success with gum or patches, but I've been vaping for a couple of years now. I can't say I'm completely off cigarettes, but I've cut down from 20 a day to about 20 a year.

[reflex17]

Just be very careful going cold turkey, I knew someone who got nausea and dizzy spells, it can be very tough on your system. If you're up on a ladder or something and you get the spins it could be very bad.

 

When you go to sleep that is a number of hours where your blood nicotine level drops, it's that first cigarette that's going to spike nicotine levels and set a pattern for the rest of the day.

 

If you eat well and drink enough water, the nicotine will be completely flushed out of your system in 2 or 3 days. After that it's a mental dependency and much less a physical one.

 

Replacing it with something else could just lead to another habit, but I have heard folks mention it helps to keep some sunflower seeds or other munchies on hand to eat anytime you get a craving.

 

I would say go slow whatever method you choose and stay hydrated to help get rid of the toxins.

[Eurisko]

I went cold turkey in May after having the Doctor scare the shit out of me by saying "I'm pretty sure its a viral infection but THIS is also a symptom of Lung Cancer. Come back in two weeks if your voice hasn't improved"

I've never quit anything so fast. No patches , nothing. 

Well I turned out to be fine but that extra incentive really made me push past any cravings that I had. Just concentrate on that end goal of being free of it.  You can do it dude.

Just don't let it get to the point of having a Doc say something like that to you. Not nice.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Eurisko

[Dubbag]

3 hours ago, Eurisko said:

I went cold turkey I'm May after having the Doctor scare the shit out of me by saying "I'm pretty sure its a viral infection but THIS is also a symptom of Lung Cancer. Come back in two weeks if your voice hasn't improved"

I've never quit anything so fast. No patches , nothing. 

Well I turned out to be fine but that extra incentive really made me push past any cravings that I had. Just concentrate on that end goal of being free of it.  You can do it dude.

Just don't let it get to the point of having a Doc say something like that to you. Not nice.

 

That would literally scare the shit out of me. I'd quit so quick

[xvertigox]

Switching to vaping then lowering the nicotine level is a viable tek.

[Dubbag]

I heard vaping is worse than actual cigarettes. Especially Juuls

[xvertigox]

5 minutes ago, Dubbagdarrel said:

I heard vaping is worse than actual cigarettes. Especially Juuls

 

Definitely not - you can find a lot of papers on pubmed if you feel like researching. If someone tried to put all the bullshit that's in cigs in ejuice they'd be told to get fucked. Actually inhaling smoke on top of that makes it even worse.

[Dubbag]

I think for me its the oral fixation more than anything. (make your jokes now). But seriously

[jval]

You can try vaping, no tar on the lungs and it tastes better.

[Steve D]

I feel for you. Quitting nicotine is incredibly difficult for most of us, while some do it with relative ease. I suppose that comes down to minor differences in our body chemistry, along with differences in willpower.

 

I had smoked various things for 20 years when I quit. By that time I had a 2-pack a day habit. This was in the late '90s when I lived in Seattle, where the sin tax on cigarettes was spiking rapidly. I used to buy cartons for ten dollars, but before long, the price rose to fifty dollars -- 5 bucks per pack. This was costing me $300 a month, and I wasn't rich. I started to panic.

 

One thing that helped me was a mounting aversion to the overall impact of smoking. I grew up in the old days, when everyone thought nothing of smoking in their house, apartment or car. I remember visiting my grandparents as a little kid, both of them smoking like crazy so the apartment was filled with coiling blue clouds of smoke, and I coughed. As an adult, I began to notice how my white shades turned yellow, and because Seattle has a damp climate, condensation on the walls collected tar into brown, gooey spots that were hard to clean off. It was actually impossible to clean the whole wall. And then there's the smell. It was on everything -- clothes, furniture, my hair. When I opened the main door to my apartment building, I could smell my apartment immediately, from all the way down a long hall. It was embarrassing.

 

I noticed that once every 2 or 3 months, I'd reach a point of physical disgust where I said to myself, "I can quit right now if I want to." It was my body rejecting more cigarettes, but in a few hours that feeling would pass and I'd go back to smoking. I knew such times would come again, and I planned to take advantage of it someday. One day I did.

 

Quitting cold turkey wasn't easy. It necessitated going through nicotine withdrawal. This took 3 days. I spent most of those 3 days sleeping. My body did a little shaking. At times I felt mentally vacuous, not really connected to the world. My motor control left something to be desired, but in the end, I woke up cured. It was over, forever. I think I had one moment of craving 6 months later, overcame it, and never smoked again. This happened back in 1998. We had nicotine patches in those days, but no vaping so far as I know. Your options are broader now.

 

Your body chemistry is clearly different from mine, since you've been able to quit at will, apparently without suffering heavy nicotine withdrawal, and stay smoke-free for months, or even more than a year. I have a friend who can do the same thing. She can stop on a dime and not smoke again for over a year. But she has a much milder habit than I did, and can make a pack last over a week, as opposed to me smoking one in 6 hours. 

 

One thing to be careful of is weight gain. Smoking for me became an oral fixation as well as nicotine addiction. Within a year of quitting smoking I gained enough weight to develop Type 2 Diabetes. I just had to have something in my mouth, and if not cigarettes, food would do. This won't happen to everyone who gains weight after smoking. It was just my luck that my family has a tendency towards Type 2 Diabetes that I knew nothing about. Indeed, hardly anyone knew about Type 2 Diabetes back then, and I always figured diabetes was something you were born with, not something you can fall prey to as middle age approaches. Nowadays, it's a well known epidemic in the USA. 

 

I don't mean to discourage you in any way. Because you've been able to quit several times, you should know by now if you have a tendency to gain weight afterword. If so, plan now to deal with it, and discuss it with your doctor. Whether it's vaping, or low-calorie snacks as others have said, be ready. We want you to have the best experience and safest landing possible when you conquer this habit, which you will do. You've already shown that you can. Now, it's just a matter of making it permanent. 

[Dubbag]

3 hours ago, Steve D said:

I feel for you. Quitting nicotine is incredibly difficult for most of us, while some do it with relative ease. I suppose that comes down to minor differences in our body chemistry, along with differences in willpower.

 

I had smoked various things for 20 years when I quit. By that time I had a 2-pack a day habit. This was in the late '90s when I lived in Seattle, where the sin tax on cigarettes was spiking rapidly. I used to buy cartons for ten dollars, but before long, the price rose to fifty dollars -- 5 bucks per pack. This was costing me $300 a month, and I wasn't rich. I started to panic.

 

One thing that helped me was a mounting aversion to the overall impact of smoking. I grew up in the old days, when everyone thought nothing of smoking in their house, apartment or car. I remember visiting my grandparents as a little kid, both of them smoking like crazy so the apartment was filled with coiling blue clouds of smoke, and I coughed. As an adult, I began to notice how my white shades turned yellow, and because Seattle has a damp climate, condensation on the walls collected tar into brown, gooey spots that were hard to clean off. It was actually impossible to clean the whole wall. And then there's the smell. It was on everything -- clothes, furniture, my hair. When I opened the main door to my apartment building, I could smell my apartment immediately, from all the way down a long hall. It was embarrassing.

 

I noticed that once every 2 or 3 months, I'd reach a point of physical disgust where I said to myself, "I can quit right now if I want to." It was my body rejecting more cigarettes, but in a few hours that feeling would pass and I'd go back to smoking. I knew such times would come again, and I planned to take advantage of it someday. One day I did.

 

Quitting cold turkey wasn't easy. It necessitated going through nicotine withdrawal. This took 3 days. I spent most of those 3 days sleeping. My body did a little shaking. At times I felt mentally vacuous, not really connected to the world. My motor control left something to be desired, but in the end, I woke up cured. It was over, forever. I think I had one moment of craving 6 months later, overcame it, and never smoked again. This happened back in 1998. We had nicotine patches in those days, but no vaping so far as I know. Your options are broader now.

 

Your body chemistry is clearly different from mine, since you've been able to quit at will, apparently without suffering heavy nicotine withdrawal, and stay smoke-free for months, or even more than a year. I have a friend who can do the same thing. She can stop on a dime and not smoke again for over a year. But she has a much milder habit than I did, and can make a pack last over a week, as opposed to me smoking one in 6 hours. 

 

One thing to be careful of is weight gain. Smoking for me became an oral fixation as well as nicotine addiction. Within a year of quitting smoking I gained enough weight to develop Type 2 Diabetes. I just had to have something in my mouth, and if not cigarettes, food would do. This won't happen to everyone who gains weight after smoking. It was just my luck that my family has a tendency towards Type 2 Diabetes that I knew nothing about. Indeed, hardly anyone knew about Type 2 Diabetes back then, and I always figured diabetes was something you were born with, not something you can fall prey to as middle age approaches. Nowadays, it's a well known epidemic in the USA. 

 

I don't mean to discourage you in any way. Because you've been able to quit several times, you should know by now if you have a tendency to gain weight afterword. If so, plan now to deal with it, and discuss it with your doctor. Whether it's vaping, or low-calorie snacks as others have said, be ready. We want you to have the best experience and safest landing possible when you conquer this habit, which you will do. You've already shown that you can. Now, it's just a matter of making it permanent. 

Well thank you very much man, and thank you to every one else as well. Your kind advice its taken and I'm going to try quitting after this last pack I have. I've been concerned lately. I'll be at my desk making a WAD and will smoke like a half a pack right there. I'm tired every morning no matter how much I sleep. When I was smoke free I did gain alot of weight, I'm 175 now but when I was smoke free I gained 20 pounds with two months and was almost 200. and it was because of what you said about needing to eat food to keep cigs out of your mouth. There is a history of diabetes and heart disease in my family so yeah I need to stop.

[wolfmcbeard]

Something I did for a bit was vaping, it did work but due to a lot of things, I stopped for the time being.
so even though I do still smoke, I do it far less and once things calm down for me, I'll go back to vape to try and kick the habit.
It seems many others have had luck going that rout and quit, so it's worth a try.

[joepallai]

The only way I was able to quit was going cold turkey and immediately doing as much physical labor and exercise as possible to sweat out the cravings and any nicotine in my system.    I still ended up gaining 40 lbs. after I quit smoking; then later found out that my smoking was masking my diabetes so there's that.  

 

Good luck.  It is not easy and even after 10 years I still have the occasional craving.

[Soundblock]

I had a few months-to-a-year long spells of quitting, just based on the "mental fortitude" thing (ruuaah!), but I had the most success by far timing the quitting nicotine with starting a near-daily training rigor, sweating my ass off on a treadmill for 20-30 min & then lifting weights while I was still warm from the jog, for the next 30 min. Obviously start with shorter intervals if you're outta shape. It's torture at first, but once you get into a pattern it get's much more bearable. The extra endorphins from the workouts eventually erase the nicotine cravings. Also, the longest quit I had just based on attitude, was much helped by the book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, so that's reccommended reading if you're not willing/able to do the gym thing.

 

[j4rio]

Oral sprays seem to work the best for most people, with gums, patches and pastilles not as frequently successful. Yeah, you can get hooked on nicotine replacement therapies and it's still the lesser evil compared to cigs. Isolated nicotine in products is almost harmless when compared to burnt or chewn tobacco products. The downside is the cost, as most of these products are definitely not cheap. Quitting cold turkey is almost never adviced in almost any case with any pharmaceutical product other than unexpected allergy or manifestation of side effects.

 

Also, as was mentioned here, there's also varenicline or off-label bupropion, both of which I'd consider only if nicotine replacement therapy fails horribly.

 

[Dubbag]

the reason patches aren't successful for me is that they work when I'm using them but as soon as I take them off I want to smoke again.

[joepallai]

also don't try to quit any other bad habits when you go cold turkey--focus only on quitting cigarettes.  You can only handle so much stress and quitting smoking is very stressful.

 

Drink plenty of water to help flush your system.

 

Find a way to combat cravings as they come.   I ended up doing a 5 minute stress walk to get through the cravings.   A guy at work would eat a can of soup to get through the cravings.  

 

 

 

 

[Seeker_of_Truth]

My dad quit smoking cold turkey roughly 15 years ago. Whenever he got the urge to smoke, he instead ate a Tootsie Roll Pop. It took a while (several weeks to probably a couple months), but eventually he got passed it. As far as I know he hasn't smoked since. I know there were a number of reasons why he decided to quit, but I think the biggest was the fact the doctor told him his lungs looked like they belonged to a person who was in their 70s. I know he was diagnosed with diabetes around this time too, but that could have been after he quit. It's hard to remember now.

[Barry Burton]

I quit on a Saturday morning, probably the hardest time to quit. You just gotta stay busy and have some strong will power. I would play guitar a lot or video games. It's hard to replace every day habits (riding in the car, social events, lunch break, etc...) but you gotta stay strong.

 

I'm lucky my wife at the time put up with me. It was hard, but I'm 4 years not smoking as of September of this year, so there's that.

[FractalBeast]

Most important thing is that if you grab another cigarette after stopping for ages, you don't lose hope and just start smoking again. It's just one cigarette. Big deal. Keep on trucking.

[Megalyth]

Quitting smoking is a real bitch. I haven't smoked a cigarette in over a year, but I haven't truly quit because I still chew nicotine gum, and a whole lot of it. I still can't breathe right, but it's getting better. At least the gum isn't destroying my lungs.

 

Some people say cold turkey is the best way, but you need some powerful mental fortitude to follow through.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Megalyth

[TwinBeast]

I smoked some 3 years. Then one day I had only one cigarette left in the pack, told people around me, this is my last cigarette, I'll quit smoking when I've smoked it. That worked until I got drunk and forgot I had quitted smoking. It happened couple of times when drinking, but then next day, I was like bleh, why did I buy these and throwed them away. Eventually, maybe month or two, I remembered I had quitted smoking even when I was drunk.

 

@tourniquet Yea, seems like a good advice to not get drunk when have just quitted smoking recently. It's probably "safe" to get drunk when cigarette smoke smell feels disgusting, then it probably feels disgusting even when drunk.

 

Suppose I replaced smoking with candy, fortunately back then the candy shop was some 2km away from where I lived, and I always walked there and back. Later replaced candy with chocolate, after half of one tooth had cracked off.

[AndrewB]

Never smoked, but high dose magic mushrooms are reported to be 80% effective for quitting smoking after a single dose. The best (legal) alternatives are no better than 30% effective, and definitely not with one dose.

 

Similar efficacy reported for alcoholism and possibly other addictions as well.

[Billy Baron]

   I have to agree with what TwinBeast said, drinking and quitting smoking can be a hazard. Just a laugh and you're off puffing away again.

 

The last time I quit, I quit five and a half years ago to this day, Cold Turkey. I opened up all my cigarettes and tried to chain smoke them, like 35 cigarettes. I smoked two or three at a time, and then just quit. I had tried to quit unsuccessfully three or four times earlier that month. It was hard, and I was back on my habit after only a couple of hours, and smoked several more days.

 

Quitting smoking Cold Turkey was about as easy as quitting laughing at retards. Good Luck.