HELP ME QUIT SMOKING!!!

Anybody who has done this give me some guidance and some inspiration. Im a 29 year old who has been smoking since I was 12. Thats 18 years. Ive got two daughters that are young and am pretty sure they want their daddy around for a few years. I need info on websites, tricks, secrets and the like.
Any help greatly appreciated
Jason

Do what I did, start dipping.

I havent turned back. My dentist told me that dipping increases your chances of mouth cancer by 1%.
Smoking increases your chances of mouth cancer by 30%.

My dentist just told me that every month switch the spot in your mouth where you "dip". Wintergreen Grizzly is 2 bucks a can. Tastes just like skoal.

Worked for me, i quit dipping about 4 months ago after 5 years of dipping after 8 years of smoking.

Go for it!!

-PSM

1st rule. Only you can do it.
2nd rule. Don't smoke.
It's tough as hell, but well worth it.
Good luck! Your daughters are counting on you.

I see Policescannerman...
Quit one habit and start another. l.o.l. Im a different breed in that everything i do i over do it. I chew a huge pack of gum a day. A 12 pack of pop a day.. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day... See the dilema, so chewing would be like 2 cans a day.

My wife used to work at the cancer dept in a large hospital. Drop by there sometime.

Take up another habit instead.

When you avoid buying cigarettes, take that $ and spend it toward something else. Pay bills, buy flashlights, start a college fund.

Maybe burn a dollar bill everytime you want to light up?

Your smoking ENORMOUSLY increases your daughters' chance of smoking. Smoking greatly increases their/your chance of drug abuse.

I feel for you.

I started chewing toothpicks... smoke free almost 3 years now...

I can only give you my own experience. I quit cold turkey. It was very hard and I tried and failed for about a year before I was able to make it stick. The one little trick that worked for me was to modify the AA saying of "One Day At A Time." For me it was, "One Urge At A Time." It really works. It helps you not get overwhelmed by the idea of never smoking again. Instead, when you feel the urge to smoke you just say, "Not this time!"

The patch was either not out yet or was still real new when I quit so I didn't even consider it but I would now. I think it's much better to go cold turkey on the smoking and just get over the habit while not dealing with the nicotine withdrawls then slowly wean off the patch.

Good Luck! And whatever you do, if something doesn't work either try again or try something else. Just keep trying, you'll make it.

I smoked a pack a day for many years and found it relatively easy to quit. It's been over ten years now and I haven't wanted a cigarette since two days after I stopped.

I don't mean to sound glib about the process of quitting. I tried numerous times before and failed, even stopped for two years at a stretch a couple of times, then went back. What it took for me was really wanting to quit. I mean deep down in my heart wanting it. Once I had that feeling the rest was pretty much a breeze. The need for a smoke passed quickly and was completely gone in two days. When I felt the craving during those two days I reminded myself that the need would pass in a minute or two (it really does). Then I was okay for an hour or so until the next craving came. The desire to smoke got progressively weaker.

What Pydpiper said earlier is true.....
"1st rule. Only you can do it.
2nd rule. Don't smoke."
I'd add that every time you take a cigarette from the pack you make a conscious decision to do so. Every time you light that cigarette you have to make another conscious decision. And every time you put that cigarette in you mouth it's because you decided to do so.

Could you quit smoking if your life depended on it? It does you know.

I quit by using the patch.

Went on a business trip, got drunk and took a hit from a cigarette with the patch on. I got violently sick. Was sick for 4 days. Never smoked or used the patch again. I ocasionally will have a fine cigar but that is it.

Try the patch, cigarette thing. When you get that sick and feel like crap for 4 days, it'll convince you to stop.

Not only is will you breathe better, you won't smell like cigs either. No more worries about burning the house down, and smoking related diseases will lessen in chance. Plus, you will feel empowered over the accomplishment. And, with the money you save...You can buy more flashlights!

Without speaking from experience, it seems from recants from people I've talked to, the level of addiction must be different for each person. I had a high school/college restaurant job. My boss, 64 years old at the time quit after a case of pneumonia. Next summer back at work, he had still not smoked and completely hated the smell of the cigarette smoke. A good friend of mine, an athletic, healthy, trim woman now in her 40s quit in her early 30s. Says after a decade of not smoking she still has to fight the urge to not light up at times. So it seems like everyone I've talked to that has quit smoking has done it their own way. Good luck in your efforts. I will certainly root for you.

Thanks for all who have gave their insight. Burning down the house wont happen because I never smoke inside. Smoke has never reached my wife or my daughters lungs, atleast not from me. I also never smoke in the family vehicle. I do want to quit something fierce. Just so many things are smokin triggers. Work is probably the hardest.. Everyone smokes there and continuously.. One right after the other. Ugh. Cowboy up.. Thats what ill have to do..

I quit smoking about 6 years ago, and I had smoked since I was 18, (quit on my 40th birthday). The first thing is you have to WANT to quit, which it sounds like you do. I used the patch, and it worked, the dreams are INCREDEBLE, I am tempted to use the patch just for the dreams, lol. But truthfully, I only partly quit on the patch, I used incentive to quit completely. I took every cent that I would have smoked and first bought myself something nice, in my case it was a nice Pectonconica River Transitional Kentuck rifle kit I had been eyeing for a couple years. Then I bought my wife something equaly nice. With smokes almost $5 a pack around here, I can imagine you coudl get something VERY nice rather quickly.

The biggest thing is to really want to do it, if you are not 100 percent ready, you will not do it.

I started smoking as a freshman in college. Smoking one cigarette was a good length of time for a study break, and the nicotine buzz was a nice bonus. Of course, if you study a lot then you end up smoking a lot too.

I quit seven or eight years later, after developing a pack a day habit.

Actually, it took about ten or eleven attempts. Quitting gradually didn't work for me. My final, successful attempt required quitting cold turkey. I wore a rubber band around my wrist, and every time I was tempted to scrounge a cigarette, I would pull the rubber band and SNAP my wrist very hard. I think the aversion therapy helped.

I also gained some weight, since eating replaced smoking as a stress reliever. When I stopped exercising frequently, I gained a *lot* of weight.

In the last three years, I've resumed regular exercise and lost the weight. Without the smokes, I can honestly say that in my late 30s I feel better than I did throughout my early 20s.

What a waste of time to have smoked. I could just kick myself for mucking up my body with cigarettes in my absolute physical prime. Oh well. Live and learn.

I wish you the best of luck in quitting. It will be tough, physically and mentally. Think about your little girls, and how sad your babies would be if their daddy got lung cancer.

I smoked for over 30 years and quit many times during the last ten or twelve years I smoked. Just before my 49th birthday I decided to try it again. I bought a box of patches, completed the program, and havebeen smoke free since. I just celebrated my 59th birthday and qutting was the best present I have ever given myself.
More than the money and the coughing and the smell and on and on, I enjoy the freedom from nicotine. No more cravings. I can fly to Hawaii and not suffer the last 8 hours of the flight. I don't have to leave important times with my grandchildren to go outside for a smoke. The freedom is the best part of all.
Give it your best and if, this time you cave, prepare again and repeat the process. When you want to quit bad enough you will somehow muster the willpower to make it all the way.

Good luck,
Terry

I applaud you for wanting to quit. I never smoked, so I can't be of help there.

I know it must be hard, my mother had a brain anuresym (sp?) in the 70's. She had surgery and survives to this day. She quit smoking after the surgery for about 10 years. Then started going to bingo and picked the habit right up again.

My father was told to quit smoking his pipe after 1) Open heart surgery 2) and throat cancer. He still smokes it, just not as much.

It must be some powerful addiction going on there. Just read on some science web site a few weeks ago about how smoking at an early age actually re-wires the brain to keep the body craving nicotene. Can't find the story now but if I do I will link to it.

I actually like curby's suggestion. Getting sick from it will help, I think it's called the "garcia effect" where you body remembers vomitting, etc and then you will avoid the thing that caused it.

Even then, it's not that easy and I've tried a lot too. Problem is, those "triggers". Those triggers do it for me, just make it very very hard.

If you can get through the first 48 hours, your body is no longer dependent on it. I'm actually trying again this weekend, I'll have to check back here Monday and let you know if I did-that's another thing that helps, telling people you are going to do it.

good luck!

Its amazing how people are here are so helpful. Im still looking for that one idea i never thought of. Thanxs alot guys for the info and the drive from people who don't even know me.

You probably aren't gonna want to hear this one, but from what you've written it seems to me the best way for you to quit and successfully stay smoke-free is to find another job where you aren't around smokers all day. One thing I did to make it easier on myself was to stay out of bars for a while after I quit.

I never did smoke at work. If I had it would be doubly hard to quit and nearly impossible if all my co-workers smoked.

Besides, if you want the full benefits of quitting smoking get away from the second-hand smoke too.

What about having your wife rag your arse out about it? Kinda being funny, but it's worked for me a lot times. Women are amazing at that, you'll do anything to just get them to shut up.

Or, post here that you're quitting and keep us updated? We're all pulling for you.