I have five cigarettes left. Damn. I'm really gonna miss tobacco....

[panader0]

I started smoking about 46 years ago. Always filterless, Camels, Luckys, Pall Malls, more recently Natives. I love tobacco and the nicotine rush, the inhaling and exhaling. I work outdoors in construction and it is great to take a smoke break, pause and think about the next step. Or when the concrete truck is pulling up and you light up that nervous smoke to calm yourself.
I have had my habit down to about 6 or 8 cigs a day for a while. I need to quit, I wheeze in my sleep. I've had 3 so far today. I have five left in my pack and that's it, I hope..........

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. You can do it.

If you are able, drink orange juice. It helps cut the craving.

[panader0]

3. I'm able to drink beer

That's the next thing on my list. I'm in good shape for 62. I lay block still, but I want to live about 20 years more.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

4. The beer won't help you quit the smokes.

I smoked for almost 45 years... the first couple of days I drank orange juice as I was advised. It helped. Good luck. I know it's not easy!

[Callmecrazy]

2. Nicotine is a mean mistress...

Especially when you ignore her. I've smoked for over thirty years myself and the saying goes that quitting smoking is easy, It's the not starting up again that's really tough.
Good luck and don't quit quitting.

[applegrove]

5. I quit 5 years ago and do not crave at all. I am so happy I did it. You can do it. And if you

need support, like during a 3 minute crave, sign on to the quintet.com and ask for help getting through it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. throw those five away and don't look back. good luck

you won't regret it, I promise.

[panader0]

7. I was thinking one more tonight and the last four tomorrow

but I think I'll keep the last one forever.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. Toss 'em. That'll show 'em who's Boss

I threw away a half pack the day I quit. First two weeks were the hardest ... only 14 days.



You can do it.

[hollysmom]

8. I quot 30 years ago - seems like a lifetime ago

But I have 2 friends that continued to smoke and they both have COPD - can't take them anywhere anymore - home bound and exhausted all the time, think of them.

[MuseRider]

10. Good luck.

It is very hard but you can do it. I smoked for 30 years, it took me forever to really quit. I did end up using nicotine lozenges and they helped a lot but you will still miss smoking and get hooked on the lozenges. Off of all of it for a long time now, I still want to smoke. It comes and goes but when I want to the worst I just picture some asshole sitting in a well appointed office with a cowboy hat and boots up on his desk making plans to use his jet to do something really fun using all the money he made off me and my illness. Not that that is a correct thought but it works.

Be tough on the habit and easy on yourself.

[MrMickeysMom]

11. Believe me... you made the right decision...

I won't go into the problems you could have, based on years of smoking. You just quit now and don't look back. You can modify what you do when thinking about "the next project". Most of the trick is replacing your learned habits and you know you can.

You have my best wishes.

MMM (a respiratory therapist)

[kwassa]

12. Here is a suggestion

You are quitting the way I quit some 29 years ago. I had been smoking two and a half packs a day, and decided to see how few I could smoke without going crazy. I also cut it down to about 6 or 8.

but I didn't try to do cold turkey from there. I continued to cut back until I was smoking one a day. (I had failed at cold turkey several times).

I spent about a month smoking one a day, and decided I finally had to give that up. I also decided that if I really, really wanted a cigarette, I could have one. I kept an unopened pack in a kitchen drawer for a year after that.

and it wasn't a willpower thing. I had so gradually reduced the nicotine in my body that I had no cravings at all, and within two weeks forgot that I had ever been a smoker.

I had made many attempts to quit before that, but this was the one that worked for me.

[UTUSN]

13. You can do it.

I hope this doesn't sound like a broken record or semi-sermonizing or "bragging." I smoked 29 yrs, 1-2 packs a day, & (had to) quit 18 yrs ago (chest pains), and I loved it/smoking. From the beginning, before anti-smoking information was widespread I knew it was bad somehow (the body talked with coughing and nausea) and took tiny steps to keep a barrier symbolically between me and the practice (paying by the pack instead of "saving" with cartons, even when our ship was in international waters and the cartons were ridiculously cheap).

During the 29 yrs I quit twice, once for a year and the other time for two, and when I started up again it was because I missed and liked it and just started up both times because of why-not/I-like-it, not because (by then) I was craving it. The three times I quit were all by cold turkey, the first couple of days the worst, but lots of fluids (water and juice and milk, not beer) washed the residue that I interpret as the craving, although we've all seen pics of black lungs and pink lungs and it takes six months to get the pink back?

I never sermonized about quitting to other smokers, and even now that it is such a proscribed practice I never object with the rare smokers left when one of them asks me whether I mind, and just make a joke about, "No, and I liked it and SNIFF in your direction."

Just for info, whenever a medical interview is done, after these eighteen years(!), when I say I quit back then, it still triggers some medical panic sometimes, their making me take lung capacity blowing into a machine exercise.

Look at it as a trade, keeping one or another bad habit for the next 20 yrs by giving this one up?

[olddots]

14. Fuck it ---it wasn't you -you aren't a smoker

I quit after 43 years 1-4 packs a day depending on occupation ,stress and more stress .

The hard part is giving up the prop of a cig and the bullshit reward thing . . Don't talk about it or think about it .

[Rowdyboy]

15. I smoked up to 3 packs a day from 1974-1991

I used filters to cut down the nicotine to approximately 3 cigarettes a day(took me nearly a year). Then I switched to nicotine gum for another year. Gave that up in the spring of 1991 and have had 2 since, both on New Years Eve with a friend who understands I've kicked the habit.

You have 2 addictions-physical and mental. Sounds like you have the physical well under control. I solved the mental by smoking pot but that may not be an option for you. Without that I'm really not certain I could have done it.

Wish you all the best! One of the best suggestions I ever read was to put the money you normally spend on cigarettes each day (okay at one a day its not jackshit but you get the idea). Save your "cigarette money" for a few months and then buy yourself something you really want but can't afford otherwise as a reward.

Again, I wish you the best!

[Iggo]

16. Yeah, you will. For awhile.

Then it gets better.

[Locut0s]

17. I wish you the best of luck. Nicotine is one of the hardest habits to quit...

But you know you need to do it for your health. I'm not a smoker but I have the addictive personality so I know what it's like to crave something that is doing you harm. I've stopped drinking after my last blood test came back with really bad liver numbers, my DR says I'm on may way to fatty liver. You know what, I still feel like buying a bottle, we will see how long I stop for.

[Tobin S.]

18. If you quit cold turkey

The rough stuff will be over in 2 weeks and it will just get easier after that. I smoked for 20 years and was up to 2 packs a day and that's how I quit. Go to www.whyquit.com and Joel will help you out. I've been nicotine-free for almost a year.

[vanlassie]

19. My ex said the best thing he found to do when a craving hit was to breath like

we learned in childbirth classes. That is to say, slow, deep breaths, concentrating on relaxing at the same time. He said it always got him through, possible because the deep breath was like smoking, only healthy. Good for you and good breathing!