askchapo

First week is awful. Avoid stressful situations, focus on why you want to quit and remember that the cravings are lies. This shit doesn't calm you down, it works you up and then undoes that. How you feel right after a smoke? You will feel like that 100% of the time once you quit except you can actually breath now.

Have stuff you want to do after quitting as motivation. Savings —> some treat, be able to run up a flight of stairs, whatever.

I found the easy way to quit smoking a helpful tool for understanding what my motivations and expectations really were.

Also personal advice? spend day 3 and 4 stoned. It takes the edge off the peak.

Oh jeez. Yeah this one was hard for me. I’m sure you’ve heard, 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months.

First 3 days clear your calendar. Go do stuff and keep yourself distracted, but it you’re not going to be able to do anything really productive. I played a ton of video games, mostly call of duty.

For me, I already had been also vaping with my own vape battery and everything. I got 0 nicotine vape juice and hit it constantly until my craving would subside. Cravings come and go for about a half hour to an hour and if you resist, they will subside until the next time you have a craving (for me, cravings were massively triggered by meals).

It is difficult. Find something that you can replace it with that works for you. Vaping 0 nic worked very well for me, and eventually I just stopped doing it because I stopped being addicted to the actual nictotine (took me about 4 or 5 months to stop vaping the 0 nic juice).

I was a smoker for 11 years, and I quit because I was going on HRT which was a strong motivator for me

Get a fidgeting toy to be safe.

One of my grandparents is leashed to an oxygen hose and can't walk more than 15 feet without getting winded after smoking for most of their life if that's any encouragement.

it seems dumb but I found toothpicks to be very useful as alternatives to a cigarette in my hand or mouth

I have successfully quit smoking twice. I know it sounds silly to say successfully when it happened twice, but still: I smoked for about 10 years, about half a pack to a pack (rarely more, if drinking heavily). Then I finally decided to seriously quit, cold turkey, and managed to stay off nicotine for over 3 years. At that point I periodically tested smoking again, by asking friends at parties like "hey can I just see if it does anything for me" and could literally not pull a proper drag even, I felt as if I lost the ability to smoke, similarly to how I was before even starting.

Then I had a very stressful situation in my life, bought a pack of cigarettes on a whim, and started smoking again. After about 6 months I decided that it was a super bad idea and stopped again. Now it's been about 5 months clean, again.

Anyway, the first two weeks are the worst. If you get through them, it will get way easier. At this point I can't stand the smell of smokers, i.e. them just standing close to me. Hydrate properly, have a snack, go for a walk (though admittedly walks can suck if you're used to smoking on them).

Also not sure about the blunts slang, but I was able to smoke joints and take bong hits without nicotine addiction piping up.

Good luck, actually wanting to quit instead of feeling a responsibility to makes it much easier. It's still gonna fucking suck though so I'd both warn your partner now that you're going to be kind of a pissy dickhead for a couple of weeks and make sure you apologise for anything you've done or said afterwards. One thing I found helpful was reassociating my breaks - going outside and just playing on my phone or something for 5 minutes instead of having a cig. After 10 or so years a break and a cig were essentially the same thing in my mind, so breaking that association helped a lot.

Good luck, comrade! Quitting nicotine is absolutely no joke. I tried several times but the only thing that made me quit cigarettes was vaping. I'm still addicted to nicotine, of course, so this is absolutely not advice for you.

The thing that can be understood as advice, though, is that the main reason why vaping made me stay away from cigs was the fact that it replaced the smoke break ritual. My ADHD ass gets bored very easily, so I started smoking because it was an excuse to say "fuck this" at work or school and just go outside for ten minutes.

My point is, try to find something that engages your attention for short periods of time and takes you away from situations that would trigger your "I need a smoke" reflex. Short walks, stretching, fidgeting, doodling, whatever works for you. I replaced that smoke break with vaping, but don't be a dumbass like me, no half measures, Walter. Kick that nasty habit for good.

Finding some way to taper off the nicotine will dramatically improve your odds of quitting for good. The oral fixation is a bit harder to deal with but nicotine-free electronic cigarettes can emulate some of the experience of smoking and chewing gum can give you something to do with your mouth. Working out also helps with cravings for some reason. One of the biggest obstacles to qutting can be the social groups/situations you smoked in. I was lucky enough to wind up without any other friends that were hooked on nicotine and that made it easier.

The the second week off of it is the hardest for some reason but after you get past that its all downhill. Getting past that threshold may take multiple tries. Because of how addictive nicotine is I would HIGHLY reccomend abstaining from any form of nicotine once you decide to quit completely. If you let him get his foot in the door youre gonna wake up with him in your bed again, metaphorically. A behavior can be forced into extinction but addiction only ever goes into remission.

I've been off the stuff for exactly two years and two days at this point and I still get occasional cravings, particularly after crying or exiting a high-stress situation.

Good luck. Sorry for the word vomit. You CAN do this and it WILL be worth it, I promise. If you fuck it up, thats alright, just keep trying.

I failed a few times before it stuck. Imo the most important thing is to know deep down in your bones, that there is no such thing as 'just one'. Otherwise you get complacent a few days/weeks in and it's game over. It sounds like you're at that point though, so fingers crossed this is the time 🤞

I got lucky and had the worst flu in my life at the time I decided to quit, literally gagged every time I took a hit.

After I got better it was brutal though, feel like it took me almost a year to not get bad cravings, but the worst went away after about a month.

I gained ~20 pounds after I quit, and chewed a shit ton of gum, other than that drinking water helps a lot whenever you get the feeling.

The last time I quit, my doc wrote me a script for nicotine patches. They made it so much easier.

I replaced my smoke breaks with short walks, and avoided going into specific gas stations because the urge to buy a pack was huge.

Good luck, you can do it!

Good luck! You got this.

For me the physical discomfort only lasted a few days, from there it's the forever slog of just not doing it. I read some BS dopamine hacking stuff about how this part of the addiction is just about your body's expectation of a dopamine hit in response to any particular event you associated with nicotine (fight with your partner, a drink, work stuff, etc). Being conscious of this expectation helped me, and I'd find ways to give myself a little treat to satiate my monkey brain. No idea how grounded in real science this all is, but it kind of worked for me (over a year with just a couple slip ups after a few too many beers).

Good luck! I'm rooting for you