G'don you guys that are wanting to quit.
I quit a two pack a day monkey 25 years ago, after 17 years of smoking.
I did it cold turkey, but do what works for you, a buddy of mine who I swore would never be able to quit, did it seven years ago with the patch. Use whatever help you need.
Keeping busy helps, and starting some exercise program will help speed up the detoxification of your systems. Now I don't mean you start training for the Olympics, but start taking a walk every day, and gradually increase your distance. It's good if you start to run out of breath, helps encourage healing the ravages of years of smoke.
Which brings another point: You often hear about quitting adding years to your life, and it's true.
But it's much more than that. It's the quality of those years.
If someone smokes all his(her) life, he almost assuredly will die from a smoking related illness.
If he's lucky, he'll have a major heart attack or stroke that gets the job done quickly.
Probably won't happen though. The medical personnel are better able to save you these days, so you can live for years afterward despite the major neurological damage that can leave you impotent, incontinent, in a wheelchair, and drooling.
Maybe you'll get lung cancer and get to take all kinds of wonderful toxins that kill the cancer cells, hopefully before they kill you. But people I've known who go through chemo say they don't care which it kills, the cancer or them, just make it stop.
Or that wonderful killjoy emphysema (that's the one that got my dad). You can live for quite some time with the big E. You get to pack an oxygen bottle wherever you go, and you know that "smoker's cough"? Kid stuff compared to spitting out pieces of your lungs.
And the time comes when the oxygen supplement no longer keeps up with the bodies need for it. Your mind goes. Similar to Alzheimer's you develop dementia. You no longer know your loved ones or even who you are, so you finally die. Alone. In a diaper.
