Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Cigarettes suck, part 932

I'm making yet another run at smoking cessation on 12/1, for the umpteenth to the 32nd power time.

Damn - you talk about being powerless over an addiction. If you don't smoke this post won't make sense. If you do smoke, it may not make sense either. Your call.

Perhaps my motivation this time could be the 3rd cardiac catheter I'm having done December 11th, this time in preemptive mode, as the result of a sour stress test, as opposed to the prior two which were as the result of cardiac vapor lock. 49 years old and two heart attacks is probably not the best position to be in to keep puffin' the death sticks. (I'm Diabetic - 2 out of 3 Diabetics croak from heart attacks - thanks Grandma! )

I've had two significant Cancer surgeries, and a half a dozen slices taken out of me for assorted other not as serious skin cancers, so I'm fine emotionally from 'practice' if you will, and to tell you the truth, as a connoisseur of fine cardiac cath procedures, a heart catheter procedure is actually less stressful to me than going to the dentist. During the first heart catheter / stent install I asked the doc, "Is this going to hurt?" He replied: "I'm already inside your heart." I answered something deep, class I narcotic foggy, and prolific like "Cool!"

If one doesn't quit smoking after three heart catheters, perhaps the doctor should just mercy kill the smoker, and save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

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Phun phacts of little importance - a stent is a small piece of coated stainless mesh tubing. The doc shoves it into the blocked artery, then jacks it open with a little balloon on the end of his catheter. Parts cost for one itty bitty stent: $3,600. Labor - Oh, figure around 20 or 30K, depending upon how much they charge for the room & board.
http://www.heartsite.com/html/stent.html

I quit after having my head smashed open. Peeled my face off and sewed it back on. Mouth sewn shut for weeks, not much choice. Great for dieting too, though I did not need to lose 45 lbs.

Hang in there...this is my fourth or fifth attempt...and so far I'm 2 plus weeks in ...you just GOT to keep trying...sooner or later one might stick...at least thats my hope....

I tried numerous times unsuccessfully.When I finally beat the weed(11 years ago),I found that laughing at my cravings seemed to help.

Martin.

I feel for you man, really i do. Quitting smoking was the hardest thing i have ever done. I will be five years smoke free this febraury. I was a smoker, pack a day for the best part of 20 years.

I dont care what any one tells you, you cannot quite smoking because people tell you to, asks you to, scares you to. The reasons to quit have to come form within. My wife was onto me to quit smoking for years, but it wasnt until i saw the pictures of my children growing inside her that i reallised i wanted to be around to see them grow up. That is when i quit.

If its any help i used the three stage patch system. I know i have heard many say the patches dont work but they did for me. However, i didnt follow the guidlines on the box. I used step one for months and months. Every day putting a new patch on. The first few months were hard, but after a while i started to do OK. Then i went to step two, and again every day i would replace the patch. After a while i came to figure out that i had forgoton to change patches. I would wear the same patch for a few days some times a week. Then one day i noticed i didnt have a patch on and i didnt want a ciggie. I would guess and say that in total i was on the patches for about 6 months.

I wish you luck man, getting off ciggerettes is hard, really hard. But it can be done. But you gotta stick with it. Good luck.

Martin,

More power to you, man. You have my whole-hearted support. I don't smoke, but I really feel for those who do. I've smoked about 3 cigarettes in my whole life, and I got nauseatingly sick each time. That was extraordinarilly lucky for me, I think. I know I'd be a chain smoker if I ever got started.

Did you ever think about giving the above speech to an auditorium full of high school kids? Now, that would be something.

Cody

Best of luck to you. I never had a hard addiction to cigarettes although I did smoke in my younger years. I quit for good 15 years ago. funny thing I smoked even while I was a long distance runner to a degree. Not much sense there at all ....running some 40 to at times 60 miles a week and puffing on a few cigarrettes each day as well when having a beer or two.

I often wonder how much faster I'd have run 10K less the cigarretes?

Hopefully you can ditch the habit and replace it with another addiction like "exercise".

The best obsessive habit you can develop is an exercise habit as I see it. If I dont make it to the gym at least seven times a week I feel like a slacker.

Dude - take it from one who smoked and enjoyed many other addictions for years AND from one who is a medical biologist who works for a company that makes stents (amongst many other medical devices)....you can and must give up. Of all my addictions, cigarettes were by far the hardest to knock. Nicotine addiction is physiologically stronger than that of heroin. I cannot advise how best to beat it - that's got to be up to you but patches and gum a s*&t like that didn't do it for me. Cold turkey and staying away from people smoking for a while was my way - and that's hard. However, I can tell you it is the best thing I have ever done for my health and fundamental well-being and for my family. It is not too late at your age to make significant improvements in your health if you give up and the advances being made every day in cardiac care mean that the longer you're here - the better chance you have of staying here longer. The facts are, your past is most likely going to be the thing that's going to kill you and there is nothing you can do about that but you can do something about when it kills you. My best friend refuses to even consider giving up saying "You gotta die sometime - right!" This is true but I know when the time comes he's going to wish for just one more day, one more week, one more year.........Good luck man.

cold turkey and chocolate. as much chocolate as your system can handle.

My plan was a crash regiment of the Nicorette gum and as much oral sex as I could get ....however so far the gum seems to be the only part of that equasion that is easily located

Hey Martin,

Former smoker who quit over 25 years ago. Your hitting it right on the head, your health history is reason enough. In the event no one has told you why (or any one else reading) smoking is bad for you is it's affect on the blood vessels in your body, specifically the heart. It's noit just about the lungs.

It causes the blood vessels to constrict or tighten up. The affect this has on your heart when these vessels become clogged with the sludge of life (fat - or plaque) it causes an already shrunken oxygen delivery system to shut down all together and then deprive the heart muscle of oxygen...which = death of heart muscle cells or a Heart attack (MI =Myocardial Infarction.)

Diabetes has some bad affects on the heart in terms of blood vessel damage as well. It may well be the toughest thing you could ever do to quit, but you really need to because the alternatives are far worse, you die, or become a cardiac cripple who can no longer do any thing.

I have no doubt you are surrounded by a bunch of wonderful people that want you around. Find the strength to make it happen, Smoking is bad, and it will kill you. Do whatever it takes. Don't matter how many times, do what ever it takes.

Hypnosis worked for me.

eddy

forgot about hypnosis. My wife went that route and it worked for her. One occasion with the hypnotist and she never had another urge.

A friend of mine who is a drug rep told me that another drug company is working on a drug that makes cigarettes taste really horrible. It is in trial now, she had no idea when it would hit the market. Sounds promising. I am in the fifth month of quitting. I smoked two years after quitting for 7 years. I smoked 20 years prior to that. Unless you flip the switch in your head that you are going to quit, you can take all the hypnosis, patches and gum that you want and it will be an uphill battle. Good luck to you!

It was easy for me to quit. I just substituted my need for a cigarette with sex. Now, if I only had a girlfriend ......Angelis

I quit cold turkey one day 12 years ago after chain smoking all day at work for 20 years.

My wife almost divorced me, I guess I was a little cranky for a couple weeks. I chewed up 10,000 toothpicks and sticks of gum the first year. Then I was OK.

After 10 years off tobacco I started having a cigar once a week in the summer. I have no desire to smoke butts again.

Martin, if you use the patch, do the whole program. no skimping. That's what did it for me. Before that I would do the patch or gum for a few weeks and consider myself cured but I would go back to it. After doing the whole program through, it took. I bought my Triumph soon after that. The payments were the same as for the smokes.

I have quit a dozen times. I even made it 3 weeks once. The last time I only made it six days then decided to go to a bar...wrong move!!!

Sittin here hurtin this morning...I have had a "discomfort" in my left shoulder area for 5 months or so now, have smoked all my life, had x-rays and CT scan 2 weeks ago, all is good per doc. Discomfort is aggravated by cigarettes, but dumba$$ me just keeps a puffin...I rationalize myself into buying "just one more pack, then I will give them up", but I never buy that last pack. It's a constant inner battle that never ends, whether I'm smoking or not...I have been trying to quit for the last 7 months,have gone as long as 6 weeks with the patches, but never complete the program. I guess I'll quit when I'm dead and buried...

hang in there! 1991. my father had brain and lung cancer. at the same time my mother had lymphoma . i buried my mother on memorial day and my father on labor day. they both smoked lucky strike cigaretts most of their live. i miss them both. God be with you. keep trying. it beats the alternative. joe

The day that I quit smoking, I had an appointment with the hypnotist at 4:30 I ran out of ciggarettes at 3:30, was going to buy one more pack. Then I thought, at some point I will have had my last ciggarette, might as well have already had it.

I have always suspected that that atitude played into the success of the hypnosis working for me. The truth is, at some point you will have had your last ciggarette, might as well be the one you already smoked!

Just thought about a Nurse I wrk with a couple of months ago tried a brand new medicine. SO new it wasn't covered by insurance and cost her $130 I think. It worked, she said it was painless and removed all the desire to smoke. The drug blocks teh receptors in the brain that are stimulated by nicotine and there by short circuting the addictive part. I'll find out what it is and post it. She was a 30+ year smoker.

Here is the link for that new medicine for stopping smoking. My friend that used it, was a 1 1/2 - 2 pack a day 40 year habbit who tried everything and every cure there was. Patch multiple times, hypnosis, accupuncture, meds the works. This stuff worked for her.
Stop smoking

eddy

Best thing is to realise a couple of facts:

You can give up. You don't physically NEED nicotine. You THINK you do, it's a psychological addiction.

Cigarettes do NOT calm you. Cigarettes raise the heart beat and put the body under stress. If you don't believe me, check your pulse before and after having a cigarette. It's the mental association of feeling stressed with the smoking of a cigarette that makes you reach for one whenever you get stressed. They do not soothe stress, they make it worse.
That's a huge leap to make, because it sounds completely the reverse, but it's true.

Read Allan Carr's book (RIP - he died of lung-cancer last week - his 100 a day habit eventually caught up with him years later). It is not difficult to give up.. you just have to have will-power. To me, patches and gum etc etc prolong the agony. They're just giving you nicotine by another system.

Every time you think you want a cigarette, mentally force yourself to switch that thought off and think of something else - don't dwell on it for a second. Use anything to distract yourself, bike, wife, hard-core porn involving bananas, whatever!

You CAN do it. It's NOT difficult. Now go and DO IT!

Good luck, not that you really need it.

(3.5 years non-smoking and no desire to take it back up, cold turkey.. I'm a stubborn b'stard basically, and would not let a stupid addiction beat me).

Well, the very best medicine I have come across to quit smoking was a Triumph Bonneville America. I was worse than the previous mentioned user, 2 to 3 packs/day. I, after seeing the bike made up my mind to purchase it using the money saved if I quit smoking. Well, I am now the happy owner of an America, smoke no more and am paying for it in the manner described.

Go rent, "Thank you For Smoking" It will help you.

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette,
puff, puff, puff yourself to death...
Tell Saintt Peter at the Golden Gate,
I just got to make him wait,
I just gotta have another cigarette.

I much prefer the Commander Cody version too.

Heavy sigh....last cigarette 11/10/06 in the morning before I went to my dental cleaning.....I've mentioned I'm using the NRT lozenges, like 3 or 4 a day- which is not according to the "instructions", rulebreaker that I am. . Also reading and re-reading the Alan Carr material, which is really helping me to hold on to "the lie" of nicotine addiction ( i.e smoking is relaxing, etc.). I've tried cold turkey before, and I just run out to buy cigarettes. The crazy part is that nicotine addiction is so "mental", meaning with alcohol or heroin, cocaine, people truly get physically sick and unstable during detox/withdrawal....I HATE it that nicotine just has me so fooled.
I worked in drug/alcohol treatment for many years,sober and clean myself for 20 years- here's what I say to anyone who's trying to let go of any kind of addiction (including myself with these f^%&%in' cigarettes)... Keep stopping till you stay stopped, get support, "ask for help", never give up. There is no wrong way to quit, if it works, and it's never to late to start to stop.

It's really good to hear the other opinions, thoughts and motivations here.

Hey Goddess (we wont discuss the last time I addressed a woman as goddess). Do the lozenges give you the hiccups?

I tried them a long time ago and couldnt handle them.

Hang in there mate,I packed up in november 98 after my Dad died of the big C,I went cold turkey,I know it doesn't work for everybody but it did for me,I have six kids and I want them to look after me when I'm old,providing that I get there

Jack- the gum gave me hiccups, so this time I'm trying the lozenges, at the 2 mg dose. I had tried the patches once before as well- on the patches I had bizarro dreams that gave me too much insight into the depths of my subconscious( EEEEK), even after cutting them in half as my doc suggested. (Clinical trials often base medicine dosage on 185 lb men for absorption, etc.)

Patch gave me strange dreams also...I like the gum....more interactive and far less passive than the patch....
with the gum it's like smoking in that I have to feel the urge. then get the gum...
open those F'n little bomb proof blister packs...
stupid F'n moron designer...

who's F'n bright Idea were those!!!!! You NEED a Flippin Jack hammer to get the Frigggin thing open...

LOOK MO FO I NEEEED A HIT OF NICCOTEEN NOW!!! G-DAMM IT!!! I DON'T HAVE TIME TO F AROUND WITH YOUR STUPID CHILD PROOF PACKAGING!!!!!.......

Sorry I need to chew some gum I guess

But other than that I doing ok!

The name of the new stop smoking drug is called Chantix.
I'm sitting here looking at my kit my doctor gave me after my recent hospital stay for my Kindey Stones. The nurse caught me smoking in the bathroom.

They stuck the patch on me and I made the next three days without a problem. As soon as I got home I saw a pack of smokes in my office and started up again.

According to my doctor this new drug is the best yet in stopping smoking, but you must want to quit.

I just read the instructions and I'm going to give it a try, they say start in the morning which is the worst time for me I love having a smoke with my morning coffee.

Rob, good work keep it up three weeks under your belt, maybe you should declare the Mid Winter rally a smoke free zone.

John

John ..do you need a script for that?

nobody likes a quitter

O.K. It's Saturday, 12/02...Here I go again,,,trying to quit "cold turkey"...I don't know why I put myself through this...I am at work (my friday), but already it's challenging, as the shift manager is cussing up a storm, (GD's, MF's as loud as he can),and mechanics are "horse playing" at the "out of control" level. I have a patch on, but man this is hard...Hangin though....these guys are the epitome of professionalism.

Motorcycles stopped me from smoking. I can still remember the day. I had enough money for a pack of cigs or to put gas in the mini-bike. I looked from the cigarette machine, to the bike and back again. Then I gassed the bike up and never looked back. To give you an idea how long ago, gas was 33 cents a gallon and cigarettes were 55 cents a pack.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01370.html
here is the website for Chantix this is the stuff I referred to in above link, but hid it is a link.

Just did a little digging about nicotine as an addictive substance as noted above. I recall that it is not addictive because I remember hearing that back in the late 70's. I wondered if it was still true.

It would seem that current information says that it is quite addictive on teh same lines as heroin and others and that is the approach of the new medicines take and why it can be affective. These are good reads no matter what.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4753
http://www.nida.nih.gov/researchreports/nicotine/nicotine.html

Bottom line, even with meds, it takes the will to follow through. You have to want to stop, more than anything is the key to success no matter what it is you want to gain control over in your life. The meds will help over teh physical portion, the head part is a tough one, but like GB says below, place your focus on what you could do. That kept me from returning to it. I bought my first bike with teh money I was spending each month. It went to my bike payment as a reminder why I didn't want to smoke.

Here's something that might help. Pick out something you want for your bike that you have been putting off because it costs more than you want to spend, maybe a bore kit, whatever. Every day, twice a day, however long it took you to finish off a pack, put the price of the smokes in a jar. Keep a running tally of how much you've saved up and how much to go before you can go buy whatever you wanted. Any time you are thinking about giving in, remind yourself that it will mean you will never be able to get what you were saving for.

Morning of day 3....man I could "eat" a cigarette!!!

Keep at it geezer..

You don't want a cigarette.. quit thinking about them. Go think about something else. Don't dwell on it. In a couple of days time there'll be longer and longer gaps between thinking about them, and eventually, one fine day, you'll realise you didn't think about them the whole of the previous day.. and that day will be much, much sooner than you think.