How to quit smoking ?

What I did to help me quit after smoking for about a decade;

1.  Decided I didn't want to be an addict to them anymore.

2. Picked my last couple of packs.  Like I said outloud that the last two packs I bought were my last packs.  

3.  Metered cigs to myself slowly over those last two packs with a reduction each day or two.  Like the first day I would get 5.  Then a couple days of 4 each.  Then 3.  Two cigs a day for maybe four days in a row.  Then a few days of just 1.  I didn't finish the last pack.

That's it.  No patches or gum or whatever.  

It took me several tries after 10 year of smoking. I ended up using the patch, on the try that was successful. 

My wife quit at the same time, so it was helpful to have someone else going through it with me. 

The hardest part wasn’t the nicotine withdrawal, it was just the habit of having a cigarette at certain times: like when getting up, while driving, after meals, and before bed. That was where having another person going through it was helpful to keep from giving up too easily. 

Or do what my dad did: quit cold turkey after getting the E36 M3 scared out of him because he woke one morning and couldn't breath. Bad enough that calling on the phone for help winded him for about a hour.

Quit now,  any way you can, before it kills you.

Quitting is easy. Staying quit is the hard part. It was never the nicotine, rather the habit or going deeper, the ritual to it. 

You guys wouldn’t know a canoe if it swam up and offered you a smoke.

poopshovel again said:

You guys wouldn’t know a canoe if it swam up and offered you a smoke.

It's a tough subject.

Quitting was easy for me, just stop buying cigarettes.  It is so easy that I would start smoking again just so I could quit again.

Er, I don't think that was how it worked...

Then I got pneumonia and kept smoking.  "Practice makes permanent":  I couldn't sit in a car without smoking.  So there I was, 35F and raining, shivering my ass off, unable to breathe, and I was lighting a cigarette, taking half a drag, feeling intensely awful, then just holding it until it went out.  Then light up another one, take half a drag, feel intensely awful, etc.  Ever since that day, the thought of smoking, even just the "habit", reminds me of that crushing feeling of being unable to breathe.

So I guess it is like anything else, if you want to do something, you have to want to do it harder than you want to not do it...

poopshovel again said:

You guys wouldn’t know a canoe if it swam up and offered you a smoke.

Every once in a while I don't see that the boat is hauling spam.

Definitely a bot.

Original post removed.

Step 1: Get q mass the size of a golf ballin the right lung.

Step 2: get told its probably cancerous 

Step 3: buy a vape

Step 4: still working on that. 

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

Don't give up.  My great uncle quit at 82, having started at 11 (because 1930's).  Aside from the whole "why bother" aspect to it, it always amazed me that it was possible after that long.  

Had a really bad sore throat for 3 days couldn't even consider a smoke. Went back to work left the open pack on the dashboard of my dodge Dart so I would have to think about having a smoke. It sat there untouched for 6 months until I threw it away. Do I still occasionally miss iy? Yes, but I don't use tobacco any more.

In reply to kazoospec :

2.5 packs a day since 17.

Haven't had a cigarette in almost a month. Aint starting back, but they do smell good 

Smoked all my life until 18 years ago.  Decided then that I'd start back when I'm 90.  I borrowed a cigarette & lit it for lighting fireworks last July 4.  It was rather disgusting.  Now I don't think I'll start back when I'm 90.  

I do love the smell of burning tobacco though.

Smoked during the way because, why not, it made us look so cool.  Got back and knew I didn’t want to be a smoker so I bought a new car and quit.  

To be fair, I would bum a smoke from people occasionally if we were at a bar or outside but that would never be more than 2 in a day and would not smoke for days/weeks/months after that.  Lately it’s been about 4 years since my last bummed smoke, i’m Guessing i’m Not addicted.

I shoulda been a canoe salesman.