Well...you won't stink anymore & neither will your clothes, your house, your car, your pets, your kids & anything else you are around when you smoke. Food will taste like food & not like smoke. You can stay inside where it is warm in winter & cool in summer with the rest of the non-smokers. No more holes burned in your possessions. Your teeth will be whiter & your breath fresher. You will be setting a good example for your children (50% of kids with one parent who smokes will smoke & almost 100% of kids with both parents smokers). You will not have to worry about spreading tobacco mosaic disease to your plants from your hands or discarded butts. You will have more money to spend on brugs. I quit when cigarettes went up to 63 cents a pack.

Linda (Do you smoke? Not unless I'm on fire!)

Here Here, Linda!Or is it Hear Hear?LOL
Theresa (I don't smoke!)

I am taking the quit smoking plunge once again this new year not as a resolution but I have chantix and my wifes insurance doesnt kick in till feb and we are waiting untill then so we can quit together.I have tried numerous times welbutrin,patches,gum,hypnosis,and chewing tobacco (snuff),and the ever unpopular cold turkey it is incredibly hard for me the cost seems to be my new motivation. Food is not much of a motivation for me as I would rather die smoking than overweight with diabeties etc etc etc plus I dont like 90% of what I eat sugar is gross to me ie candy,pie,cake it not only leaves a nasty film in my mouth forcing me to brush my teeth after consuming it it also hurts my stomach.sorry to drone on I must be dreading the experience again. But here in texas cigarettes are over 5 dollars a pack thats about 300 a month for me and my wife that will buy a lot of brugs.(or make a payment on a small house) good luck to you. by quitting smoking we have only somthing to gain and nothing to lose.

Something to GAIN alright! (grin) Like 30 pounds for me! That's what happened the last time I quit.

I'm going to have to. Illinois - we're going all "no smoking" in buildings.

Can't quit right now though - because there are some real "stressers" in our lives right now.

I think if I asked him to quit right now with me, he'd lop my head off and THEN pour windex in all my brugs. (grin)

Soon though. I'm going to try Chantix.

I wanna try the Chantrix also..I've tried everything else but the patch..Wellbutrin gave me hives the size of softballs..that was fun. God I hate smoking..been doin it for 19.5 years. My kids are always on me for it. Way too expensive..DH smokes too, keeps quitting but going back, prob cuz he sees me goin out to smoke all the time. We pay almost just about $7 a pack, and with both of us about a pack a day..Yikes. Just think how many brugs & other plants can be bought with that money!! And god, it makes me feel like crap. SO OK!! I'm with ya Sammy..when do we start? Think others will mind us using the brug as a quitting forum? God knows we WILL need each other's support. I KNOW we can do this!!!
Now, I just have to tell hubby he has to quit again..I hope this doesnt end in divorce, lol!!
Every time I get cranky and start yelling real bad, the kids always ask, are you trying to quit smoking again? I need to do it for them. I wanna see my grandkids.
Daniella

Nonsmoker here after several year of it. No on the Chantrix if you read the side effects. I have a friend that was hypnotized (hope I spelled that one?) and she swears by it!! Only took her one session and she doesn't remember a word.

I am quitting. I know it doesn't matter if it's New Year's, but that's the deadline I gave myself, and I promised my daughter as well. Hubby quit almost five years ago, after our second daughter was born, for the kids, as well. He used Zyban, which he said worked great, and he has no desire to smoke anymore, even when he sees me.
And, yep, it's darn expensive here too. More than $7 bucks a pack, and that's a lot of brugs. I once added up how much I've spent over the years, and nearly fell over. It was at least $25 000.00, if not more. That would pay off my student loans in one swoop, or be a nice chunk on the mortgage, heck, even a little greenhouse.

What's your favorite thing about smoking? Mine is the way the first cigarette in the morning makes me feel like vomiting. Isn't that nice? So why do I do it? I'm just gonna keep telling myself all the nice things about it, and feel the cravings as little victories. I am going to enjoy them. Sounds crazy, but I've been practicing (which sounds crazier) and it's easier than you would think.

Also, I haven't told anyone else except DD and the people here that I am quitting. Not because I think I'll fail, but because I want to surprise my family and friends. So I hope no one minds if we use this forum for some support. And we can talk about that fantastic brug that we've been pining for, that we will buy ourselves as a congratulations. We can feel fantastic about spending however much we want, and not an iota of guilt. I've seen the brug Sammy, and that's what I want!LOL I also want to try to find one with my DD's name, but haven't seen it yet. Maybe I'll have to try hybridizing, and make one myself.

So if anyone else wants to join in, please do.

Daniella, when are you quitting? It's hard, but we can do it!!!

The one solution to quit is Chantix. It takes all the craving away. Then you have to work on the mental part. Chantix and time you will quit if you want to. I am weak and can get real mean so cold turkey was not a option. I tried it and people bought me smokes. Only a smoker knows the addiction. Nicotine is highly addictive as the tobacco companies reconstitute it or quitting would be easy.

Start Chantix now and in two weeks you will find yourself looking at a smoke and saying why am I smoking this it doing nothing for me. I am really surprised the tobacco companies have not started a big lobby on how bad chantix is. It has to be hurting them. Chantix- rocks..............

Techno-- Hubby lop your head off and kill the brugs--Too funny. Thats how I was on cold turkey method.

Oh it was a bit bad for me when I stopped the first time.

Anyone remember the movie alien with the nasty piece of baggage that used to pop out of people's chests and make faces and be absolutely vicious to people?

Yea, you get the idea. . .(sarcastic grin)

Whisper sound: geeeeeeeeeeet ouuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwt. . .

Jeep, Dweeb, thats me all the way, lol. I have had th same thing happen to me Jeep..even my hubby does it! Last time I tried to quit cold turkey, a couple months ago..he couldnt take it, and went and bought me a pack. Gee, thanks for the support dear.

Sammy, I want one called "Amber Rose". Amber is my 8 year old's name, and Autumn Rose is my lil ones name, so its one I HAVE to have!
I am the same way with that 1st morn cig..makes me feel like pukin..but I smoke it anyway.
Ugh kids r killing each other..back in a bit..

Thats how I am when I try to quit. People go buy me cigarettes and tell me to just smoke it and shut up, lol. Where do you get this Chantrix stuff. Is it a prescrition? I tried wellbutrin and it literally made me want to kill people. I am normally a very mild and laid back person and will not fight for anything and this stuff had me telling off everyone if they said one word I didn't like. If I could find something that made me not want them without the side effects I would try to quit.

F4F, do you think it was the Wellbutrin or just not having the nicotine? I was the same way the one time I tried to quit... And yes, what's the deal with the Chantrix? Prescription? I remember the doc telling me that nicotine was more additcive than drugs like cocaine and such.

Sammy, the question you asked sums it all up.. "Are you ready to quit?". I think that's the key...From reading what you've written I can tell you are and you WILL succeed. I wish you all the luck in the world, but I don't think you need it!! Keep us posted on how you're doing.

From what I gather, Chantix is prescription.

Sammy, my daughter's 4th bday is Wednesday, so I dont wanna be a total psycho b**** for that, lol. But I do plan on calling my dr Wed to get an appt for the scrip.

Kristy, it was prob a combo of the wellbutrin and the withdrawal. Wellbutrin and Zyban are the same exact drug. They used it to give to people in institutes n such for depression. Then they realized these people were also not smoking anymore. Before they put it out as a drug for smoking cessation they figured they'd better change the name from wellbutrin to Zyban so people would be more likely to take it and not associate the 2. DH also used it same time as me, and let me tell you he was heaven to be around, lol.
But at the same time, some anti-depressants have the opposite affect on certain people, and make them very nasty..suicidal urges..violent, etc..that kind of stuff. Did you tell your doc?

I am hoping that this time I can really do this. For the last few weeks I cant even finish a whole cig anymore. DH complains how I'm wasting them, lol. I take 5 or 6 puffs and thats it, I chuck it..I dont want to smoke, I hate it, makes me sick..yet I need that lil fix. Anyway, since I have been like that, I think I have a better chance of kickin this thing.

Sammy, I will let you know when my dr appt is, and when I am starting. When are you starting?

Daniella

Tell them you want a combo so you do not kill anyone and stay employed. LOL Estazolam to sleep and an antidepressant(lexapro or what ever they have in their back room) a prescription is even better. There are no physical cravings but there is the mental of having tried before. It feels like you should have some but never happened to me. If you do not have these you could get a big energy boost while your body adjusts and that could be a problem. This way nobody but you knows you are quitting. I like to feel no pain.......

I'm happy to say that Thursday will be the 9 week mark for me. I've quit before but had always started back up. I hope this time is for good. I had an upper respritory infection 9 weeks ago and couldn't catch my breath. It scared the $&%! out of me. My kids are also always on my case about it and the guilt was really getting to me. They'd say that they didn't want to grow up without a mother. That hurts. I didn't smoke in the house or in the car when they were with me but that didn't stop them from giving me a hard time. Good luck to all of us that are trying to quit. It's the hardest thing I've ever done and I don't know if the craving will ever go away.
Karyn

I quit about 5 yrs ago. I did it cold turkey and didn't even want to either. What happened was, my best friend and my sis both said they were gonna quit the same way and got me to go along with it but really I didn't want to lol, because I had tried like a billion times to quit before.It was really hard but I did do it. Needless to say they both started again LOL! So far so good for me- don't know why it stuck this time, the only time I really want to smoke now, is if I am out and have a few drinks-really hard then not to light up!

Karyn, and SJN, way to go!!!!
Last year, I was having angina attacks, and I thought I was having a heart attack. Scared the crap of me, but I kept smoking. I finally had a heart to heart with myself, and that's it. My dd who is six, has said the same thing, 'Mom, smoking can kill you. I don't want you to die.' I don't smoke in the house, or the car, either.
But I swear, this book I read, really opened my eyes. I've tried the patch, I've tried cold turkey, but always with the thought that I'm giving something up. The truth is that you are not giving anything up. Every cigarette you smoke gives your body the poison that make you want more. Smoking is not pleasant, it makes you feel gross, etc...
Yes, I'm still having pep talks with myself, but in one week, heck, one day without smoking, I'll be shouting off my roof. If I can do one day, then I'm fine.

I think its the antidepressant part of it that made me crazy. They tried me on some others for nerve pain and did not do well with any of them. The wellbutrin was the worst though. I think I smoked more while I was taking it since I was so angry all the time. That only lasted about 3 days. I get really grouchy when I try to quit cold turkey but not where I really want to just choke somebody, lol. I don't think I will ever do the antidepressant thing again.

It was funny where I was working and I had stopped. I had a swisher sweet (cigar) that was all taped up because I had battered it so badly. It was in my pencil holder.

And all my pens were chewed beyond belief. No one EVER asked to borrow one of my pens.

Someone brought a new employee around introducing them in the art department - and there I was with this long swizzle stick sticking out of my mouth saying "HI" - heard her as they walked away "She's quitting smoking - she generally doesn't have stuff like that in her mouth." Heard the new lady go "Ohhhhhhhhh, that's good she's quitting!"

LOL. . geeeeeez. . .

Yea - i've got to try again.

Congrats to all of you who have made it. Gives the rest of us something to strive for!

Yeah, that is a big accomplishment. I think I will try again this year. I could afford more flower beds with all that money I would save.

I will be rooting for ya!I know you can do it!
Theresa

I quit smoking my beloved pipes and cigars in the early 80's after losing my hearing on several occasions and ending up in the hospital 5 times to get it back. Tests showed a severe allergy to tobacco. My ENT was not sure if I were losing my hearing due to the severe allergy of if I was losing it because nicotine, causing artery constriction, cut off the supply to my inner ears. I didn't know if I was going to stop, and it was very hard because smoking can be physically addictive and psychologically addictive, of course.

The physical addiction property of nicotine, as you all know, has been made worse by manufacturers who have increasingly used tobacco with higher nicotine levels and psychologically addictive because smoking is a mood changer.

Studiess show that to maximize your ability to stop smoking, use multiple means. Medication can be enormously helpful. But medication alone is not nearly as effective as medication and a treatment group. Even more success with medication, a treatment group, and a support group. Even much more enhanced recovery with medication, a treatment group, a support group, and exercise.

Hypnosis is also beneficial 50 percent of the time, when used alone, but that is not a very high percentage, so I seldom used it in practice as an only treatment. Much more effective when used along with the other multiple strategies. If you choose to use hypnosis, please use it as only a part of the treatment and please see a person with good credentials, not a fly-by-nighter. Ask at his her office what their training is in hypnosis.

When I was smoking and saw no effects on my health, I could always separate my emotional reactions and the knowledge that one day, smoking would probably kill me, as it had my family for generations on both sides. I would think, "Well, I feel pretty well, and I don't have cancer, what the hell, I'll quit another day."

My brother, 15 years older than I, was my childhood hero. I flew him back from the Virgin Islands 15 years ago to get treatment for his throat cancer. He died 3 days later.

Eight months ago, my beloved niece, his daughter, who had smoked for 40 years, developed COPD and emphysema. Visiting her in the hospital in Hattisburg after emergency hospitalization because she couldn't breathe, I asked her if she had been smoking just before she was rushed to the hospital.

Indignantly, she said, I KNEW you were going to ask me if I still smoke?" She thought I was fussing at her, when instead I was trying to point out the link between her emergency and smoking the night before she was hospitalized.

She also then developed cancer and just before she died on the way to the hospital two months ago, she had a cigarette and couldn't breathe. After the funeral, mourners including her huysband, their grown children, and her nieces and nephews talked about how it was such a tragedy for her to die at age 55. And this was said in the parking lot, as the whole family gathered to smoke in the parking lot after the funeral. I could only shake my head as I left.

One of my beautiful grand nieces, as she lit her cigarette said, "Uncle Jimmy, it's hard to find people who don't smoke." I thought that I'd save for another day the fact that our state, Mississippi, has the nation's highest percentage of smokers, at 25 percent. I also saved for another day the information that with both her and her husband smoking, their close relationships among friend will be likely limited to other smokers.

France puts in a country-wide smoking ban in restaurants this week, as their research shows half their smokers die os cancer and another 5,000 die each year from second-hand breathing.

I well remember my dad saying that he'd rather smoke than live a few more years. Such is the power of this addiction to change normal thought. I remember how he made fun of his elderly cardiologist, who, speaking in a foreign accent, said, "Mr. Chaney, each cigarette you smoke is living driving a nail in your coffin." And we'd all laugh--my dad was a hilarious guy. When he died of his fourth heart attack, sitting and smoking at the kitchen table with my mother in 1972, we never again brought up our dad's hilarious sense of humor making fun of his heart doctor.

To my mother's credit, she stopped smoking at age 65 after she developed emphysema. When she couldn't breathe right, she quit. Two successful fights with cancer had not been enough for her to stop. But she did, and she lived until nearly 80.

Truly I will hope for your internal strength to go to those treatment programs and to stay with them. Fighting an addiction alone typically subverts your attempts at quitting and reduces you to using "strong will", an ineffective idea in treating addictions. As we all know.

Jim

5 bucks per pack is enough incentive for me not to start smoking again lol! Especially since I used to smoke a pk a day easy..
My grandfather smoked unfiltered ciggs since he was 14 and he lived to be 88 and never got lung cancer, but he did get bladder cancer and emphysema!

I'm so glad he didn't get lung cancer, SJN. He must have had exceptional genetics, and I am so glad that there are people who can smoke and not experience health damage. If I could smoke and not get health damage, I would still be smoking.

Jim

My father died of lung cancer when I was 5 and he never smoked. I think that is what I've been using as an excuse that you can get it anyway but I have noticed getting out of breath a lot easier. If I can get my husband to quit with me I'll try again. The worst problem I have is when we go to our friends house they have a lot of get togethers and if I am going to drink enough to sing kareoke it will be hard not to smoke, lol.

Well actually bladder cancer can also be caused by smoking, come to find out, so he did have that. Here is what is wierd tho, he never ever smoked in the house-my grandmother wouldn't have that lol, and she never touched a cigg. in her life, but she now has some emphysema via second hand smoke. She made a point not to be around him when he was smoking too- so it is strange. I am now wondering if perhaps the smoke is carried on clothing or something like some of the other carcinogens are?

I don't know, my great grandmother smoked a pipe, hand rolled cigarettes and dipped snuff all her life and live to be 98. She died from an infection she aquired in the hospital after a hip surgery. I guess you just never know.

Jim, that is so sad. My friend's mother came to stay with her until she died from COPD. After watching that poor woman gasping for breath, begging her daughter not to smoke & finally dying in her arms. My friend said she was going to stop the day her Mom died. She didn't. It's been about 6 years now & she was diagnosed with COPD a couple years ago. She still smokes. She says she will kill herself before it gets really bad. If anyone wants my help, email me & I'll give you my phone number. You can call me day or night when you think you are going to smoke one & I will try to talk you out of it.

Linda

So far so good, guys! I'm enjoying reading all your stories, even the sad ones, gives me determination! The real evil of smoking, is almost everyone knows someone who smoked two packs a day, and live to one hundred. They are the lucky flukes, not the norm. My dad used to smoke, he quit when he started getting emphysema, although it took him several tries over a couple of years. He did it cold turkey, and chewed a lot of Hall's cough drops. The other thing that I've learnt is that smoking really does absolutely nothing for you, so you are not giving something up! It doesn't help you lose weight, it doesn't calm your nerves, it doesn't relax you, etc...So many bad things that it causes though. We all know what they are. And second hand smoke is pretty horrible too. There was an add campaign featuring a waitress, who had terminal lung cancer, from all the second hand smoke, she didn't smoke herself. Anyway, thanks for all the posts. I hope everyone else who wants to quit, will do it! Stop telling yourself that it is hard, that's just psyching yourself out of it.

Jim, thanks especially for your stories, that's what I need to hear. Very sad, and unnecessary death. Makes you pretty mad.

Good luck to you Sammy, I wish you well. Hubby just bought cartons a couple of days ago and there is no way I can talk him into throwing them away since they cost so much but will try after these are gone. I think I will start trying to cut back before I run out and it won't be as bad as quitting all at once maybe.