I quit when I was in my 20s. I did take a program to help me quit, called Stop for Life. It was amazingly easy, and I have never again been tempted to smoke.
My husband smokes @Janice Martin and he will be going to our Doctor on Wednesday to ask for help to quit smoking. Here in Louisiana there is a Trust Fund for Smokers that will pay for meds, counseling, Doctor's visits, etc., basically whatever they need to help them quit smoking. My husband is going to sign up for this and I pray that he will be able to quit for good. I pray you will be able to do this too Janice.
I quit cold turkey years ago and I was a 3 to 4 pack a day smoker. No pills, no gum, nothing except willpower. I have watched many use these methods only to return to smoking. Your mind is your greatest asset if you really want to quit. When I got the urge I walked the dog, drank ice water, ate something, preferably something sweet, went to the garden, patted a cat, sewed something, talked to a neighbor and most important when the urge got really bad I would look at the list of reasons I had made to quit and told myself I had gone through the worst of the withdrawal and did I really want that cigarette that would lead to another cigarette which would lead to going through withdrawal once again.
I quit about 9 years ago and I used Zyban which worked for me. At the same time my ex was using Chantix and it didn't work because he stopped it, said it gave him terrible nightmares. I also walked a lot and did all sorts of things to keep my hands busy, also had a box of sugar free lollipops. Good luck!
I didn't smoke enough to have any kind of problem quitting. I smoked about a pack and a half a week, which some smokers I talked to, considered me a non-smoker. When I met my wife and learned that she didn't smoke, and that cigarette smoke irritated her asthma, I had no problem stopping. Thing is, at the time I stopped, I was also using Skoal "dipping" tobacco. Using the Skoal didn't bother her much, because I didn't use that much of it. But, in the summer of 2005, I started getting a "tingling" sensation in my lower lip just before my hip replacement surgery. We both agreed that I should stop the Skoal. However, the following Spring of 2006, I bought another can to take fishing with us. I opened it, took out a pinch, put inside my lower lip and, less than a minute later, took it out, put back in the can an threw away the can at home. I found out that, compared to many folks, I was not only a light smoker, but also a light Skoal user.
I only smoked about a half pack a day, but still failed the first few times I tried to quit, and I had only smoked for a few years. The (Stop for Life) program that I went through didn't seem like it should work, and there may have been some hypnosis involved, although we weren't told that. The guy who put the program on spoke normally before and after class, and during breaks, but while he was doing his presentation, his speech pattern was all off, as if he were an ESL speaker or something, with the emphasis often on the wrong words, or the wrong part of the word. It was a one-week, Monday-Friday program, but Friday turned out to be nothing more than making the financial arrangements, which weren't a problem since I paid upfront. Monday and Tuesday, we were encouraged to take a cigarette break during the program. On Wednesday, at the time that a break would come in, we were to quit. However, we were encouraged to carry a pack of cigarettes and the means to light a cigarette with us at all times. Whenever I realized that I wasn't wanting to have a cigarette, I were supposed to take a cigarette out of the pack, look at it, and then decide that I wasn't going to smoke it right now. Maybe in fifteen minutes, but not right now. The suggestion was that we not tell anyone that we had quit, or even tell ourselves that. Just that we're not going to smoke one right now. When the pack of cigarettes that we were carrying around began to look stale, we were supposed to buy a fresh one. We were discouraged from avoiding places where we might usually smoke, such as the lunch room at work, or wherever people usually smoked, and to not avoid people who were still smoking. If we were used to going to a designated smoking area during breaks, we were supposed to continue doing that. We were told that if we were taking that program, we were smokers and we would always be smokers, just as an alcoholic who isn't drinking is nevertheless an alcoholic. If we ever decided that we would have just one cigarette, and smoke it, within a month, we'd be smoking as much as we had before we entered the program. I don't know if it's true but I never wanted to test it. The actual physical withdrawal, he said, lasted no more than three days. The rest was all in our heads, but just because it was in our heads, that didn't mean that it wasn't there. From that first Wednesday, I couldn't once make myself think that I wanted to smoke a cigarette. For a while, I did what I was told, and bought one more pack of cigarettes when the open pack that I had began to look old, but I couldn't persuade myself that I really wanted to smoke one of those things. Cigarette smokers weren't segregated in most places at that time, so I sat in the lunch room every lunch hour, and during breaks, where more than half the people around me were smoking, and that didn't make me want to smoke. Now, I find the smell of cigarette smoke to be slightly nauseating, especially the smell of stale cigarette smoke, such as a smoking room in a motel, but nothing can make me want to smoke a cigarette. The closest I can come to tempting myself is wondering what some of these new brands taste like. The people from the Stop for Life program, which is no longer in existence, I think, called to check in with me for five years. They even found me after I had moved from California to Texas.
Once when my Honey tried to quit in Jacksonville his Doctor prescribed Chantix to help him, and he had terrible nightmares too Chrissy that made him stop taking it. He has never tried to stop again since then until now...and I sure am praying he will quit for good.
I think that might be one of the side effects of Chantix. Zyban is Wellbutrin an antidepressant. It's the exact same thing but they realized that it could be used for smoking cessation so they named it something else. I forget the instructions exactly but you don't quit right away, you taper off..so you are allowed to smoke for the first week or so but for some reason I smoked very little the first week...think it affects you're cravings.
@Janice Martin For sure, do it, do it for yourself. You count, and this may be the single most rugged decision you ever made, and had to abide by! Saying "good luck" is stupid, luck is not a part of this. Your health and welfare are the most important things. Frank
Well, I never smoked a lot. There were times I smoked more (it depended on the situation I had to deal with at the time). One morning I woke up and I just decided, 'today is the day'. I've tried again after that, but cigarettes simply give me a headache. So, the small pleasures I had like smoking once in a while or having some red wine, they're gone. However, there are other ones which have brought me satisfaction - and have kept me healthy. Between us, sometimes I wonder... and if... No way, I can't.
I have never smoked and never wanted to smoke. When I was little , I was fascinated with watching my dad blow smoke out of his mouth and nose and I really wanted to do that, too. He gave me his cigarette and I blew into it , watched the end turn red, and then blew out my mouth and ....surprise......nothing happened. I am sure that my dad was chuckling as he explained to me that you have to actually suck the smoke into your mouth to be able to blow it back out again. So, I tried that next, discovered that it tasted terrible, and never wanted to try one again. My dad told me that he wished that he had never started smoking; but it was what all of the boys did when he was growing up and now he couldn't stop. I knew that my dad could do anything, and so if he couldn't stop something that he didn't like doing, that reinforced the idea that this was not something that I ever wanted to do. My dad smoked all of his life until he was in his 70's, and one day, he just stopped smoking. He wasn't trying to stop, he said he just didn't feel like smoking a cigarette, and since he was sure he would want one soon, he just left the pack in his pocket. He said that he carried around the untouched pack of cigarettes for several days, and then decided that he was not going to want to smoke after all, and threw them away since it didn't make any sense to just keep carrying them around anymore.
Both my parents smoked ,all of my younger, siblings smoked but I've never even tried smoking ,I've asked people who smoke if they taste any better than they smell,because to me they have an awful smell