Anyone remember the movie with John Candy where he goes from cigarettes to cigars etc....?
That is close to the method that I used and was actually successful with. It is going to sound strange but I have been without any form of nicotine since 12/31/04.
Here goes...
I had 3 major problems with quitting smoking.
First - I enjoy smoking. The act of inhaling smoke was pleasurable to me. The rituals that surround smoking were enjoyable. That was the biggest problem.
Second - Utterly hooked on nicotine. If you had asked me I would have told you that it was only habit. I know differently now.
Third - I am a curious person by nature and am awfully afraid that I am going to miss out on something. Quitting meant that I would never know what brand x tasted like. When I smoked regularly I smoked one brand - I didn't even know that this one would be a problem for me but it was....
I decided to work on the first problem first. I had to get away from the cigarette. I decided to switch to a pipe. Yes, a pipe. This did several things.
It allowed me to quit cigarettes without giving up the ability to smoke. I was able to experiment a little with different flavors and satisfy my curiosity a bit. It also severely limited my public / in car smoking because I looked like an idiot smoking a pipe. I stayed on the pipe for about a month.
The next step was hard. It involved not smoking anything at all. I switched to spit tobacco. Yup - it is nasty. Yes it is messy. It is a pain in the rear. It also tastes really nice. Gobs of nicotine in the stuff but it absorbs slowly. At this point I was getting rid of #1 and the added nicotine helped out a bit. I stayed on dip and chewing tobacco (mainly chew... the dip was a real pain) for about 3 weeks. I will warn you that you can get yourself even more hooked on nicotine this way.
At this point I had used almost every form of tobacco known to man. Cigars, cigarettes, little cigars, bidis, chew, dip.... everything but one. The oldest one there is....
I switched to snuff. The real snuff. Sniffy snuff.
I can hear all of you that are reading this cringe in unison.
This was to be the final step in my "tour de tobac". There are websites that you can order nasal snuff from and boy do they range in varieties. You could spend a long long time with snuff if you wanted to. I am not here to get anyone started on snuff, the stuff is dangerous and addictive - but I will tell you that had I started on snuff I never would have smoked. Snuff is utterly enjoyable. You can also control the amount of nicotine that you are getting quite well. I stayed on snuff for about 5 weeks.
At this point I had effectively beaten the #1 reason for smoking. I no longer associated the nicotine craving with smoking - I associated it with snuff. I had also largely (although never completely) satisfied #3. So even though I had traded in wanting a cigarette for wanting a snuff - it was exponentially easier for me to quit snuffing than smoking. The only booger left was #2 and let me tell you that it is in fact a booger.
For the next 2 weeks I had nicotine cravings. They were strong. Very strong. The good news is they were not so strongly attached to any specific nasty habit. This helped me out quite alot. There was tension. ALOT of tension. To the point of physical pain there was tension. I bought a mountain bike and started excercising to help out with the tension. I also drank alot of water and avoided things like alcohol and coffee to reduce the frequency of the attacks. Did I mention the tension?
Would I recommend this method of quitting? I can not say that I would, although if it works for anyone other than me then I guess that is great.
What I would recommend is:
Writing down the reasons that you smoke.
Deal with #1 first.
Deal with the others in the order that makes the most sense.
Find some way to deal with tension before it hits you.
Do anything it takes to quit.
A few more things:
-3 months (roughly) without nicotine and I still have cravings now and then but they are generally weak and easily forgotten.
-Cigarettes stink like you would never ever believe! Someone can be smoking 3 cars in front of me and I can smell it even with the windows rolled up. No lie. They really stink. I can tell if a smoker was in an elevator 15 minutes ago. Did I mention that they stink?
-Excercise - especially the kind that makes you huff and puff and gasp for air helps alot. Keeps the tension down and reminds you exactly why you are quitting. It also helps keep the pounds off.
-There is no easy way. You have to suffer through it. It is worth it.
-Use the suffering as a reminder and get really afraid of ever touching anything with nicotine in it again. I have an abject fear that I will ever get exposed to nicotine and have to go through it again.
-Pray. Lots. Every time you get a nasty craving - pray. Pray in between cravings. Tell God that you are angry that you ever smoked. Tell God how it feels to quit. Ask him to remind you how it feels to quit when you get tempted again. Thank him for his help.
That is close to the method that I used and was actually successful with. It is going to sound strange but I have been without any form of nicotine since 12/31/04.
Here goes...
I had 3 major problems with quitting smoking.
First - I enjoy smoking. The act of inhaling smoke was pleasurable to me. The rituals that surround smoking were enjoyable. That was the biggest problem.
Second - Utterly hooked on nicotine. If you had asked me I would have told you that it was only habit. I know differently now.
Third - I am a curious person by nature and am awfully afraid that I am going to miss out on something. Quitting meant that I would never know what brand x tasted like. When I smoked regularly I smoked one brand - I didn't even know that this one would be a problem for me but it was....
I decided to work on the first problem first. I had to get away from the cigarette. I decided to switch to a pipe. Yes, a pipe. This did several things.
It allowed me to quit cigarettes without giving up the ability to smoke. I was able to experiment a little with different flavors and satisfy my curiosity a bit. It also severely limited my public / in car smoking because I looked like an idiot smoking a pipe. I stayed on the pipe for about a month.
The next step was hard. It involved not smoking anything at all. I switched to spit tobacco. Yup - it is nasty. Yes it is messy. It is a pain in the rear. It also tastes really nice. Gobs of nicotine in the stuff but it absorbs slowly. At this point I was getting rid of #1 and the added nicotine helped out a bit. I stayed on dip and chewing tobacco (mainly chew... the dip was a real pain) for about 3 weeks. I will warn you that you can get yourself even more hooked on nicotine this way.
At this point I had used almost every form of tobacco known to man. Cigars, cigarettes, little cigars, bidis, chew, dip.... everything but one. The oldest one there is....
I switched to snuff. The real snuff. Sniffy snuff.
I can hear all of you that are reading this cringe in unison.
This was to be the final step in my "tour de tobac". There are websites that you can order nasal snuff from and boy do they range in varieties. You could spend a long long time with snuff if you wanted to. I am not here to get anyone started on snuff, the stuff is dangerous and addictive - but I will tell you that had I started on snuff I never would have smoked. Snuff is utterly enjoyable. You can also control the amount of nicotine that you are getting quite well. I stayed on snuff for about 5 weeks.
At this point I had effectively beaten the #1 reason for smoking. I no longer associated the nicotine craving with smoking - I associated it with snuff. I had also largely (although never completely) satisfied #3. So even though I had traded in wanting a cigarette for wanting a snuff - it was exponentially easier for me to quit snuffing than smoking. The only booger left was #2 and let me tell you that it is in fact a booger.
For the next 2 weeks I had nicotine cravings. They were strong. Very strong. The good news is they were not so strongly attached to any specific nasty habit. This helped me out quite alot. There was tension. ALOT of tension. To the point of physical pain there was tension. I bought a mountain bike and started excercising to help out with the tension. I also drank alot of water and avoided things like alcohol and coffee to reduce the frequency of the attacks. Did I mention the tension?
Would I recommend this method of quitting? I can not say that I would, although if it works for anyone other than me then I guess that is great.
What I would recommend is:
Writing down the reasons that you smoke.
Deal with #1 first.
Deal with the others in the order that makes the most sense.
Find some way to deal with tension before it hits you.
Do anything it takes to quit.
A few more things:
-3 months (roughly) without nicotine and I still have cravings now and then but they are generally weak and easily forgotten.
-Cigarettes stink like you would never ever believe! Someone can be smoking 3 cars in front of me and I can smell it even with the windows rolled up. No lie. They really stink. I can tell if a smoker was in an elevator 15 minutes ago. Did I mention that they stink?
-Excercise - especially the kind that makes you huff and puff and gasp for air helps alot. Keeps the tension down and reminds you exactly why you are quitting. It also helps keep the pounds off.
-There is no easy way. You have to suffer through it. It is worth it.
-Use the suffering as a reminder and get really afraid of ever touching anything with nicotine in it again. I have an abject fear that I will ever get exposed to nicotine and have to go through it again.
-Pray. Lots. Every time you get a nasty craving - pray. Pray in between cravings. Tell God that you are angry that you ever smoked. Tell God how it feels to quit. Ask him to remind you how it feels to quit when you get tempted again. Thank him for his help.
