Ex Smoker Advice

blankscreen

My experience if you realy want to give up smoking thats the only way you will acheive it. No point in using economic argument as you will always go without something else to be able to buy tobacco.

I worked as a service engineer, if the client did not smoke i also would not. They were paying my company for my very expensive time, so disappearing outside to smoke was not really on. If the call was a long one, i'd get signed off and head for the car, turning it into a fog zone , so first and secindary smoking = crazy.

I tried several ways of reducing but the eratic opertunity to smoke made it impossible, like most i'd resolve to give up but keep an emergency unopenned pack to hand - useless as i could always leave trying properly for 'just' one more day, whats the harm? = doomed to failure.

If deep down you want to kick smoking you need 1st to pick up on derogatory comments and use them against the evil weed, one very pretty girl stated 'smoking was a tube with a fire at one end, and a fool at the other' - and she was right, with my self esteem severely punctured.

Orher comments like 'snogging a smoker was like sucking on an ash tray' i see that one plastered across the back of a bus.

I don't think e-faggs will help it might abate the craving, and might be safer but still has the addiction of tobacco to drive buying them, and thats not giving up no matter what way you paint it. To me they seem the same as the 'lite' reduced nicotine ciggarettes, you just smoke more to the joy of the goverment coffers.

Mindset is key, reason that the act of smoking only serves your craving, it is that easing that makes you feel more calm.

For me 'cold turkey' was the only way, but then i am by nature very stubborn. Remove all vestages of smoking (why i say e-fags won't help), no backup packs, throw away lighters, you need to remove the triggers that remind you to smoke, reaching into your pocket, feel your lighter, follows you check for your fags, it is a very strong habit trigger. I lost count if the times i wanted some change, felt my lighter and by auto response looked for my fags, caved in and bought more.

This is highly important, do NOT announce you have guven up smoking, others will simply try harder to ensure you fail. It only takes one to goad you enough for you to completely fail.

Refuse any offered saying you have a sore throat or a cold, but NEVER that you have given up, at least for a year.

You will eat more, mainly as a substitute because there is only so much gum you can chew, a stress ball is good so you have something to do with your hands, and you don't tend to stick it inyour mouth as you might with a pencil. That stuff you put on your nails to stop chewing them is good on pens and pencils to stop you sucking them.

Hope i helped someone else, if succesful you will soon notice the positive effect on you car, clothes, drapes and decor - and be dusgusted at the smell of an ashtray a 100 yards away!

Timmy C

Having given up for 2 and a half years (some years ago,I ended up back on them) I agree with a lot of what you say but I don't agree ecigs can't help. It's true I'm no doubt just as addicted to the nicotine in ecigs but for the first time in 20  years I can honestly say I have no interest whatsoever in smoking real cigarettes. I proved this to myself a year or so ago when my ecig failed and I had no back up, it was 12am in a bar in Chicago with a smoke shop across the street that had no ecigs. I bought a pack of smokes in desperation, smoked 2 (hated the first one but thought I could fight through it) and decided to call it a night and go back to my hotel where I had a back up ecig. The real thing is no substitute for a good ecig for me now to the point where I would rather end my night early than stay out and smoke a real cigarette.  So I can have lighters, ashtrays or whatever around my house and garden and have friends smoke away around me and it's not going to trigger anything....not only am I no longer a smoker but I have zero interest in smoking again even if they suddenly became harmless....I have something much better now!

NewfieDrool

Ecigs are not a way of quitting smoking, it should not be classed as a medication.
These are just another form of smoking and as such are free from some of the regulations involved with medication.
I enjoy the odd cig, ecig and a nice fat cigar.

Timmy C

I would put it as an alternative to smoking rather than another form of smoking and as such would call myself a 100% ex smoker. However to class them as medication to me seems as crazy as classing A grade cocaine as medication as it's an alternative to smoking crack.

blankscreen

Just to say here i am not a medical or psycologist person, these comments are of my observations (memmories more like) on how i overcome my addiction.

I gave up 35 years ago after over a several dozen failed attempts over i'd say two years, i have no personal experience of e-fags, but think they offer a different threat to your lower regions from exsploding.

Nicotine addiction is not the only part of the smoking habit. part of getting away from smoking is realising the fact with a normal fag you get nicotine and something to do with your hands, and when you 'stop' your hands are still 'addicted' but starved of activity (kets leave iut the obvious quips). So Many fiddle with pencils, lolly sticks and the like but still seek this soothing activity once given by ciggaretts.

It is why i say while they may be 'safer' than fags, but as a give up stratagy - and i mean give up totally - i feel they are counter productive. My reasonning is you are prolonging a compulsive habit to twiddle, all the while refreshing (possibly after or during sex), the biggest auto trigger to smoke.

Cold turkey is not easy, i had nightmares i was in the firms local (where i hardly ever went) and get offered a ciggarette which i accept, and the genuine horrer of then everyone looking at me with scorn as just another spinless failure. Many will laugh and good on you, but now think to yourself just how many times you have said "i enjoy smoking but i'm not addicted" then bragg "i can give it up any time i wan't to"!

REALLY.? - so  go on, prove me wrong - because i really really hope you can.

When you are seriously gasping Technics like goading yourself as a wimp, think get a spine man and so on i found can help, clinging to that aim of being free to show you do have will poer to your self, and as you progress you can turn down fags with 'no thanks i don't smoke' and you honest, is a very smug feeling.

You will likely put on weight, this is because you would normally smoke in place of eating properly, especially when busy. You will likey by crisps, snack bars etc. it is why you won't save much money due to buying bigger sized clothes. I was never more than 9 stone, that soon changed lol! but you will have more energy and breath for exercise to help combat it.

blankscreen

just a question, how many find the sickly sweet smell of e-fags as repulsive as tobacco? where as due to legislation you can no longer smoke in bars and cafes etc. i have noticed people seem to think they are exempt.

My grandson plays rugby, so i go an watch but have to keep moving to get away from this pong every time theres a change of wind.

I suppose unlike packs of fags you don't tend to offer e-ciggaretts around, perhaps there is a market for having models with two or more mouth peices, great for doing the hokey cokey or carry your own mouthpiece, bit like a breathalyser?

NewfieDrool

You are a wind up yes?

Unfortunately the forum rules are that I'm not able to give you advice for medical conditions.

Timmy C

I don't think you'll find it's people thinking they are exempt, I think it's more a case of it's illegal to smoke  cigarettes in bars but not to vape. They are two different things that you personally are classing as one. I must admit I've never sat in a bar, or anywhere for that mater and thought 'I can smell someone vaping' but if they tried to ban them on grounds of smell I would like to also see all perfumes, aftershaves and strong smelling coffee banned from pubs too in the interest of keeping things fair.

blankscreen

To me the smell of them is sickly sweet, reminds me of the Mars factiry in Slough.

I think we can agree nicotine is the addictive agent, e-cigs are simply a different delivery method, heated as vapour then inhaled. If you really mean to get of smolking then nicotine patches don't smell anywhere near as bad, and do not reinforce the act of habitual smoking to use them.

Client of mine has every USB port in his house occupied by charging them, he has simply changed one form of addiction for another option. you might argue against my pov on that but he can't give them up so i don't see why it should not be treated the same as other addictive tobacco products

Even been discussion to sell them in plain packaging to dissuade our youth from treating them as 'cool' fashion accessories and a likely pathway to real cigarettes, seems to have merit as why do they need to have a fake glow to imitate them?

blankscreen

The extra mouth peices were a bit of levity, not a serious suggestion lol! but hay, bet Dragons Den might go for it?  .