HELP ME STUB iT OUT!!!

[Twenty Inch]

It helped me enormously to move past "I'm quitting smoking for ever" to "I'm not having a ciggie today". That stopped all the feeling hard-done-by. I actually have a pack of ciggies at work and another pack on the allotment, but I can't remember the last time I had one - no, I can, it was after a huge row with the wife about 5 months ago, and it was foul and I stubbed it out after 2 drags.

Mind you, it's been a long process of cutting down, and then eventually using nicotine gum for a long time.

Throughout this I was always very fit, but the difference in general well-being is amazing. So just try cutting down, doing without the next one, going without one day at a time, if you can't stop altogether.

Good luck.

 

[tyred]

I generally hate self help books with a vengeance, but Alan Carr's Easy Way is very useful.
Nothing you won't already be aware of, but helps you to rationalise your thoughts and reinforce what you already know is the right decision.

I read that book a few times, stopped easily without any cravings or anything, exactly like he said for about 2 months. Then I somehow ended up starting again when someone who I hadn't seen since before I had stopped handed me a fag and I lit it without even thinking, thought that's horrible and stubbed it out after a few drags but somehow the damage had been done and I started to constantly crave fags until I gave in. That was 6 years and I've been smoking ever since. I don't smoke quite as much as I did before I stopped which I suppose is good. The problem I have have now is that having starting exercising regularily in the past few years and losing four stone, for the first time in my life, I actually feel fit and I think that has removed my desire to stop smoking.

 

[stoatsngroats]

Everyone can stop.....here's how I did it......

I realised that a smoke lasted only 3-5 minutes, and then I could go for a couple of hours without one.

SO, I need only control the '5 minutes in 2 hours need'........


So, each time you need a fag - give up for 5 minutes..... if you think about it then...you're only giving up in 5 minute intervals.......the rest of the 'couple-of-hours' you'd not be smoking anyway......

I found this easy.......I hope it helps you too!

 

[Bill Gates]

Giving up smoking is hard i.e. if you have been inhaling for more than 5 years.

There is no trick to it but it does require a committment. You have to adopt a new mindset. "Trying to give up" implies that there is a possibility nay even a probability of failure. Afte having "tried" unsuceessfully three times I finally succeeded by becoming a non smoker. No more was it a case of two days without a cigarette then three days, a week and so on. When you are a non smoker then all that's irrelevant.

Good Luck.

 

[AWG]

I have a somewhat bizarre theory, but it worked with me. I never crossed any borders or shut and locked any gates behind me on smoking. But just simply stopped buying them on a regular basis.

We spend around 6 weeks a year in Spain. You know the price of 20 is less there than the price of 10 here. I occasionally buy a pack in Spain. Nice to sit on a balcony in the morning with a coffee and have one. But always end up after two days crushing the pack in my hand and throwing them away. The other 46 weeks in the UK I probably get through maybe 20 cigarettes and 12 or 15 cigars IN TOTAL, that's it.

I think I am lucky in a sense that I enjoy tobacco very occasionally, but have never actually been addicted to it for nearly 30 years. When I was in my late 20s and working 6 nights a week as a lounge pianist on summer seasons I would get through 20, maybe 30 a day (but of course everyone smoked then).

So tobacco is a bit like chocolate to me. I never said "never again", so I don't have any resolutions or promises to break.

Hope you understand the process I explained here.

 

[ASC1951]

What you actually mean, is that winning the psychological battle as to whether or not you WANT to give up smoking is not easy.

Well, I take your point, bonj, although that's really just a semantic difference.

Where I think you are being unfair is that you and I found that a fairly easy step to take. A lot of people aren't so lucky and that doesn't mean that they 'aren't trying' or are inadequate human beings; it may have a much bigger hold on them than it did on you and me.

 

[QuestionableCarro]

Ok lots of advice and tips there for me to take away and try.

I have set a date - 17th June.

Too many social engagements coming up that will get in the way. After that I am a non smoker.

It also coincides with the purchase of my new bike, so an extra incentive to get ready for the 100 miles I have mentioned in another thread (lap the lough)

Ta

 

[bonj2]

Well, I take your point, bonj, although that's really just a semantic difference.

Where I think you are being unfair is that you and I found that a fairly easy step to take. A lot of people aren't so lucky and that doesn't mean that they 'aren't trying' or are inadequate human beings; it may have a much bigger hold on them than it did on you and me.

It doesn't mean they are inadequate human beings, but they aren't "trying to give up", they are trying to want to give up. NOBODY is forced to smoke - either you want to smoke, or you want to give up. If you want to give up, you do. If you don't give up, it can only possibly because you want to carry on smoking. Whether you are happy with the fact that you want to carry on smoking or not is another matter entirely, but that is the fact of it.
The crux of it does all boil down to whether or not you want to smoke.
A lot of smokers peddle out the same types of phrases that fat people say - things basically suggesting that it is something out of their control - when the reality is that it's completely within their control.

 

[bonj2]

Ok lots of advice and tips there for me to take away and try.

I have set a date - 17th June.

Too many social engagements coming up that will get in the way. After that I am a non smoker.

It also coincides with the purchase of my new bike, so an extra incentive to get ready for the 100 miles I have mentioned in another thread (lap the lough)

Ta

I'm curious as to how you say you sometimes smoke while riding, yet in your sig you say your bike is a downhill bike. So you've got a fag on the go while riding your DH bike?
So do you mean when you have got to the bottom of a run and you are fireroading it back to the car park, or actually on a run, or what?

 

[QuestionableCarro]

I'm saying I sometimes light up while riding the bike.

 

[RSV_Ecosse]

I have set a date - 17th June.

Too many social engagements coming up that will get in the way. After that I am a non smoker.

^THIS.

It's difficult, but try not to fall into the trap of "Well, we have a few social things on the cards but I will stop after they are passed".

Trust me on this. See the first time you go out to a "social engagement" and can sit right through the whole thing without having a smoke?. You will quite literally have "cracked it" at that point and feel on top of the world.

Personally, this one one of my smoking milestones. The ability to go out for the first time with friends ( a good few of whom still smoke ) and not get up and go for a fag when they leave the table etc is a big hurdle to cross but once you manage it the first time you actually begin to enjoy it and a massive amount of pride in the fact that you no longer smoke.

Also and I don't know if it's been mentioned here in the thread yet, but remember the "jealousy factor".

Many of those that you socialise with on a regular basis who are saying "Go on, just one wont hurt you" are actually jealous of the fact that you are managing to resit the temptation to smoke. They wish they could give up too, but they can't face doing so and feel like you should still be smoking with them.

It's not an easy road, despite what some folk have already said in this thread. But stick at it m8, and best of luck to you.

Giving up smoking is THE best thing you can do for your health, no arguments. It takes a huge amount of effort to do so but keep at it and you will get there in the end. Then go out and get some miles in on the bike and start to feel that buzz for life again!!!.

 

[bonj2]

I'm saying I sometimes light up while riding the bike.

what, while riding it down a downhill track or riding it on the flat?

 

[John the Monkey]

Also and I don't know if it's been mentioned here in the thread yet, but remember the "jealousy factor".

Many of those that you socialise with on a regular basis who are saying "Go on, just one wont hurt you" are actually jealous of the fact that you are managing to resit the temptation to smoke. They wish they could give up too, but they can't face doing so and feel like you should still be smoking with them.

Ha! Very true.

People you couldn't get a cig out of for love nor money will suddenly be offering you one every five minutes - can be a help if you're a bit bloody minded, that

 

[mookie]

Ok lots of advice and tips there for me to take away and try.

I have set a date - 17th June.

Too many social engagements coming up that will get in the way. After that I am a non smoker.

It also coincides with the purchase of my new bike, so an extra incentive to get ready for the 100 miles I have mentioned in another thread (lap the lough)

Ta

Just wanted to wish you best of luck for the 17th... I am a reformed smoker of 20 years on and off (think I've given up about 5 times, including two pregnancies). Sadly my enormous weight gain has impounded any increase in fitness so I can't say how fantastic that bit is, but what I can say is that I now feel completely free (no: "where's my fags" as I'm heading to the car/shops/pub, or "have I got enough to last me" the 8 hours I'll be asleep for), feel sorry for people who are trapped as a smoker (it really is an horrendous addiction) and can honestly say that the smell of it actually makes me feel nauseous. I stopped January 2008 - not as much as some on here, but for me, this is such a massive achievement as I've not put a cigarette near my mouth in that entire time.

As several have said, you need to want to do it, but when the "click" finally happens, you'll never look back.

 

[SimonR]

Sorry - I'm coming to this thread a little late but given the fact that this is a giving up smoking thread on a cycle forum what I've got to say is particularly apt!

The reason that I'm in to bikes at all is that when I was 3 apparently I asked my father to roll me a cigarette as he'd always been a smoker - this was enough to make him give up immediately. The way he did it was to work out how much a year's worth of cigarettes cost him and then go out and buy a bike with the money instead - thus he had a lovely Raleigh Record Ace and no money to buy cigarettes. He and I then spent the next 20 years going out for bike rides.

So that's it - my advice is to do the maths and buy yourself a shiny new bike!

Good luck with giving up....