I quit smoking .

[bimbo36]

I switched to cigarettes after one more failed attempt .I have reduced it to 5 cigarette per day now .

Going to throw away the cigarette too , anytime now .

[Phi for All]

"Soon."

"Attempt." 

"Anytime now."

Listen to Yoda. "Do, or do not. There is no try."

Help you, he will.

[tar]

bimbo36,

One of the ways I have been getting dopamine, feeling good about myself and life, over the last several years, is knowing that I stopped smoking.  I am proud of myself, happy for myself. The dopamine flows when I think about it, the same way the dopamine flows when you close your eyes and imagine yourself on a warm water beach, with a fragrant breeze blowing, and beautiful bodies and blue skies and powerful waves nearby.

I am afraid you are getting reward dopamine by saying you are quitting, imagining the success...but you are cheating on yourself, behind your own back.  

I had an insight about smoking just before, and am writing this post to express it, in the hopes that you recognize the complex in yourself, and use the knowledge, to actually quit.

Many times...well lets say a couple dozen times, before this last time, I quit smoking.   The other times, not this time, the other times, it always worked out the same.  I would be quit for a month or so, and be missing that easy pleasure of a drag on a cigarette, and I would give myself the pleasure, of a reward cigarette.  I would tell myself that I had beaten it, and I did not need it, and could refuse it any time, had been quit for a month and deserved a reward.  So I would smoke one, from some old safety pack I remembered hiding somewh ere.  And enjoy it, and go back to not smoking...for about a week.  Then I would think, "well I have not really been quit for a month, I have only been quit for a week, and that reward cigarette was enjoyable, and I am a big boy, in charge of my own life, I could just smoke a reward cigarette every week and there will be no harm to anyone, and enjoyment to me, so its all good,  So I would smoke another.  Then it was one a day, one in the morning one at night, then every couple hours....and then "sh*^" I would realize I was smoking again and just light up every crave.

So here is my insight.  The dopamine you get when you are successful at something, is the exact same dopamine you get when you take a drag.   There is chemically no difference. The only difference is that one way is beneficial to your life in general, and the other way feels the same, feels like you are succeeding, but it isn't true success, it is just the chemical making you feel good, in a non specific general, no reason way.   This is the powerful draw of a cigarette.  It is winning the lottery, finishing the paper, getting the joke, succeeding, living, being victorious, without all the effort it usually takes to win the lottery, finish the paper, solve the problem, succeed, live and win.

So bimbo36 you are using us, to get dopamine, in the following manner.  It is true that people like to make other people happy, and share in other people's happiness and success.  It is part of what makes us human and successful as a group.  We look to each other for support and share with each other our successes.   It is a dopamine swap, to live in society, on many levels in many ways.  You get dopamine, when you tell us you are planning to quit, because we know that is a good move, a success on your part, and we are proud of you, happy for you, and pleasing others, as you do when you succeed in life, gives you dopamine, so you tell us you are going to stop.  Good.  Good for you, good for us.   Except then you cheat on us, you fail, you smoke another one.  And then you say all those things Phi said you said, and he points out, there is no try.   Stop using us to feel good about planning to stop.  You should actually stop.

We are patient, we are kind, we know it is "hard", but some of us, like me for instance, know it is actually easy.  Just don't smoke.  Find your dopamine by actually winning, succeeding, completing something, making someone else proud and happy.  That is hard to do.  Not as easy as a drag on a cigarette, but it is "real" dopamine in the sense that you are getting dopamine for a good reason.

Regards, TAR

[bimbo36]

Thanks for the reply Phi for All ,tar

@tar

Thanks for taking your valuable time to type that long reply .

I am going to quit now , I am also going to see an Ayurveda doctor tomorrow and am going to tell him that i need medicines to clean the smokes from my lungs .

I hope i can stay smoke free from today , this time on wards .

10/26/2017 9:53 PM Indian time

[tar]

bimbo36,'

Everybody is different, and what works for one may not suit another's body chemistry, character, personality and so on, but let me try and quickly state how I did it.  I know it is 100% effective because it worked in the 1 case it was tried.    Teach yourself to live without nicotine, don't even try to quit, "til you know you can do it.  This is the plan.  Don't smoke for the first hour, after you wake up, on your next day off.  You will have not smoked for 6 hrs or so already, so your nicotine levels will be low.   Your body will ask for a cigarette, you might find one in your mouth, or even lit in your mouth, but if you do, put it down, if it is lit, put it in the ashtray and let it burn, if its in your mouth, don't inhale, take it out and put it in the ashtray and let it burn. 

I didn't smoke 3 cigarettes that day, that way, and I only lasted 56 minutes 'til I finally just smoked one, but I taught myself that I wouldn't die, if I didn't smoke.   The next day I went all morning without smoking, then most of the day and so on.  No rules, no success, no failure, just teaching myself to live without nicotine and seeing what it was like.  After a week or so, I just didn't buy any more cigarettes.  Found a safety pack and smoked that up, and then just stopped.  Stopped for good.  That was 3 or 4 years ago.  Cigarettes are now just not an option.  I don't smoke.  I am not quit, I just don't smoke.  The hardest part is thinking you will never feel good again if you deny yourself a smoke.  What you learn is that you absolutely can feel good in all the normal ways a person feels good, you just don't look for THAT way of feeling good.

Regards, TAR

My three substitutes when I was feeling deprived were drinking something, like water or iced tea, sleeping, and chocolate chips and peanut butter mixed.   Gained a few pounds at first but actually weigh less now than I did when I quit.

[bimbo36]

@tar

Thanks again for the reply .

The problem is i come back from work and starts studying for a commerce degree , distance education .Somehow smoking a cigarette or two in the evening has become a part of the flow .

It is a way to escape the usual dull routine of work and a way to relax before i start studying , right now also studying the subject called financial accounting .

I really should change this habit and find a different flow ,one without cigarettes .

Tomorrow is Sunday ,If i can get a whole Sunday without smoking  that would be kind of cool .

One last try to quit .

10/28/2017 11:49

[tar]

bimbo36,

One last try to quit?

I don't think that is the way to look at it.

You are allowed to not smoke for another Sunday next week,   or mentally log that you went without smoking for 12 hrs and go for another 8 starting right now.  It is important to remember, that what makes you feel good is not automatically what would make another feel good.

Two things. 

One, I recognized about a dozen things that I "missed" when not smoking.  Like lighting up a cigarette when you finished something as a little reward, or lighting up as a punctuation mark during the day. Here I looked at each thing and found a substitute.  For instance, at work, I would go outside and smoke a cigarette when I finished a stage in a project...well once I made smoking not an option, I went outside anyway and talked with my smoking buddies, and the pretty coworker and such and got the break and got the reward and then went back in and started the next stage (just got some dopamine without nicotine required). 

Two, have a reason.   My reason was I was 60 or so, had been smoking since I was 13 and was finding it was not always easy to take a deep, full breath, in fact I could not take a deep full breath.  This scared me, and I am a little claustrophobic, and the idea of being on a lung machine when I was 70, and knowing I had done that to myself...gave me a reason to quit.   Not try to quit.  Quit.    There are plenty of easy reasons, the stink, the expense, the inability to go certain places that disallow smoking, the health risk, the annoying of others, etc.  But  you can rationalize all those away.   Heck, a drug addict will steal money from their Mom's purse to get high.  The draw of the drug is powerful.   However, it will not kill you, if you don't smoke, and you will still get dopamine naturally, even without it.   So make a list.  All the pros and cons.  The draw of the drug will make the pro list longer.   So you will always end up lighting up, unless you have a reason to not.  Once you have the reason though, you will find it easy to enjoy life, without a smoke.  Think how easy it was to have fun when you were 12... or before you took that first drag.  You didn't have to find life at the cigarette counter, or go to the vaping bar...it was right there in front of you, free and always available

Still is.  

Forget all the reasons to smoke.  One by one come up with a better way.   When your hand reaches for the cigarette, say " not now". "later".   It might turn out that you will never need that way of feeling good again. Then you are a non-smoker.

Regards, TAR

I can take a deep full breath now, (well I just took one, and coughed, but I took another, and did not cough.)  I could not do that just before I quit.

oh, I had another reason

That pretty girl coworker I was talking about said she would quit, if I did.  So her kids were always asking her to stop, and she did not, right away, but several months later I was pleased to hear she did.  So there is a reason for you.  Anybody you love that would be inconvenienced by you lighting up, or having a health problem?  A week after I quit, my wife came back from a trip and it was her birthday, and I gave her a card with a significant amount of 20 dollar bills in it, saying  "here is some money, for you to burn, because I did not"

[bimbo36]

@tar

Thanks a lot for the reply .

I do not want to ruin my lungs like this either.

I am going to quit cigarettes before my 300th post .That is my next goal .

 

[Lord Antares]

14 hours ago, tar said:

bimbo36,

One last try to quit?

I don't think that is the way to look at it.

You are allowed to not smoke for another Sunday next week,   or mentally log that you went without smoking for 12 hrs and go for another 8 starting right now.  It is important to remember, that what makes you feel good is not automatically what would make another feel good.

Two things. 

One, I recognized about a dozen things that I "missed" when not smoking.  Like lighting up a cigarette when you finished something as a little reward, or lighting up as a punctuation mark during the day. Here I looked at each thing and found a substitute.  For instance, at work, I would go outside and smoke a cigarette when I finished a stage in a project...well once I made smoking not an option, I went outside anyway and talked with my smoking buddies, and the pretty coworker and such and got the break and got the reward and then went back in and started the next stage (just got some dopamine without nicotine required). 

Two, have a reason.   My reason was I was 60 or so, had been smoking since I was 13 and was finding it was not always easy to take a deep, full breath, in fact I could not take a deep full breath.  This scared me, and I am a little claustrophobic, and the idea of being on a lung machine when I was 70, and knowing I had done that to myself...gave me a reason to quit.   Not try to quit.  Quit.    There are plenty of easy reasons, the stink, the expense, the inability to go certain places that disallow smoking, the health risk, the annoying of others, etc.  But  you can rationalize all those away.   Heck, a drug addict will steal money from their Mom's purse to get high.  The draw of the drug is powerful.   However, it will not kill you, if you don't smoke, and you will still get dopamine naturally, even without it.   So make a list.  All the pros and cons.  The draw of the drug will make the pro list longer.   So you will always end up lighting up, unless you have a reason to not.  Once you have the reason though, you will find it easy to enjoy life, without a smoke.  Think how easy it was to have fun when you were 12... or before you took that first drag.  You didn't have to find life at the cigarette counter, or go to the vaping bar...it was right there in front of you, free and always available

Still is.  

Forget all the reasons to smoke.  One by one come up with a better way.   When your hand reaches for the cigarette, say " not now". "later".   It might turn out that you will never need that way of feeling good again. Then you are a non-smoker.

Regards, TAR

I can take a deep full breath now, (well I just took one, and coughed, but I took another, and did not cough.)  I could not do that just before I quit.

oh, I had another reason

That pretty girl coworker I was talking about said she would quit, if I did.  So her kids were always asking her to stop, and she did not, right away, but several months later I was pleased to hear she did.  So there is a reason for you.  Anybody you love that would be inconvenienced by you lighting up, or having a health problem?  A week after I quit, my wife came back from a trip and it was her birthday, and I gave her a card with a significant amount of 20 dollar bills in it, saying  "here is some money, for you to burn, because I did not"

Thanks for this. To know that you quit so (relatively) easily after so many years is encouraging to me. I agree that by far the most important thing is wanting to quit. If you really don't want to smoke anymore, you won't.

1 hour ago, bimbo36 said:

@tar

Thanks a lot for the reply .

I do not want to ruin my lungs like this either.

I am going to quit cigarettes before my 300th post .That is my next goal .

 

Inb4 you never post again.

[tar]

Lord Antares, 

It makes me feel good to share an insight that I see as valuable and have someone else see it.  It gives me dopamine.  Better than a drag.  Same dopamine. Just getting it for a real reason gives me a second dose.  So plus one on that. Thanks for the dopamine.    I used to tell that pretty woman,  I did not smoke with, that she was my fix.  

That was before I knew that the nicotine receptors in your brain release dopamine.  So I knew, without knowing, that looking at a pretty girl was pleasurable.

So over the years that I have been quit, I have built on that thesis, that pleasure is whenever we experience something good.

And now, it is easy to not smoke, because smoking is just one way to feel good, and there is still the whole rest of the world to enjoy, with no chain around your neck required.

So helpful to me was Phi for all's idea to just board up that way of feeling good, feeling alive, getting a reward, and never use the way again.  

The realization came to me, that not smoking did not mean, as I feared, that I was giving up ever feeling good again.  It just meant I was not going to use that way.  It is not an option.

Besides, if you only have one way of feeling good, you probably have a problem.   (Smoking, gambling, winning,  drugs, alcohol, domination, overeating, can all cause an unhealthy addiction to dopamine.)

My further insight, that I am trying to bring to the professionals dealing with the opioid crisis, through my involvement with municipal and county alliances,  is that we are all addicted to dopamine.  We all want to feel good.  It is not a crime.  Bad though when your addiction hurts people, or damages your own self, or makes it so you can not fulfill your responsibilities. 

So perhaps bimbo36 is in no danger of substance abuse, and does not want to give up feeling good, for no reason.  That is OK.  Smoking is not bad, it actually makes you feel good. Better perhaps than if pulling wings off of flies was the only thing that brought her/him joy.

And better if she/he just continues to lengthen the time between cigarettes until the time period is long enough (4 or 5 months) to get over the actual physical addiction.  Then the choice is not whether to continue to deny yourself the pleasure of a cigarette.  The choice becomes what other enjoyable ways are there I can spend that 8 bucks.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited October 29, 2017 by tar

[bimbo36]

I should stay like my new avatar from this time on wards  . I like this avatar , it gives me strength to hold on in these times of dullness .I have been staying away from smoke for the past 4 hours .

Maybe this is already working .Maybe i was looking for that perfect avatar , This avatar makes me happy .

Sometimes i think we have to accept the fact that life cant be always interesting , Nor smoking a cigarette can make it interesting.

@tar

You are right , there is happiness and dopamine in little things

Sometimes a smile from a girl can make you quit cigarette .

 

I have become happy when i changed my avatar to this one .

Maybe i can really stop this time , The last cigarette was 4 hours ago .

 

 

[bimbo36]

Another reason not to smoke .

How Smoking 30 packs Wrecks Your Lungs

 

I have been giving good gaps between smoke for the last few days .

Tomorrow  the month of November starts .

And its going to be a smoke free month for me .

That is all .

 

 

Edited October 31, 2017 by bimbo36

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, bimbo36 said:

And its going to be a smoke free month for me .

That is all .

These words have some strength, finally. No maybe, no soon, no try. Just a firm resolution, no more, not ever, that is all.

This is the attitude you'll be successful with. This is different, and I think you can feel it too. All strength to you, my friend.

[Raider5678]

This is probably a no-brainer and might have already been said.

But if you keep smoking, it means you have access to cigarettes quickly and easily. 

 

So, do two things right now.

1. Get rid of any cigarettes you currently have. Soak them in water. Then throw them away. If you just throw them away you might be tempted to get them again. If soaking them doesn't do it enough alone, then do anything you can to make them absolutely not smokeable. 

2. Get rid of your access to cigarettes. If you live with someone, have them hold all of your money so that you have no chance to get cigarettes without going out of your way. Often, with the addiction, it's easier to resist if you have to go out of your way to do it then when it's easy to do. If you don't have anyone to hold your money, make a budget. Allocate all your money so that at the end of the day you have no money floating around to buy a cigarette. Heck, spend it on going to the movies or something. Maybe it's wasting some money, but it's better than spending it on cigarettes. 

3. Print a no smoking sign and hang it where ever you smoke if it's on your property.

4. Get real. Stop smoking now, and really mean it. If you really mean it, you'll have no problem completely destroying your access to cigarettes, getting rid of any current ones, and having someone else help you stop smoking by holding you accountable.

 

Also, weaning yourself off of cigarettes does not work. Don't bother trying. All or nothing. The reason is that when you say "I'll go for 1 whole day today, then two whole days after, etc." the cigarette becomes a reward. Not the enemy. You don't indulge yourself with the enemy, you stop all contact with them.

 

The cigarette is the enemy. It is the enemy. It is working to destroy you. You're letting it control your life.

Write stuff down. Again and again and again. Force feed your brain that cigarettes are the enemy.

 

 

First three days are the hardest. 

Get past them, and never ever ever ever give in again.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Raider5678

[bimbo36]

Phi for All , Raider5678

Thanks a lot for the reply

I haven't smoked anything after that last post of that video .

I even bought one of these and have been chewing this ever since .

I already feel 10 times fresher .

The craving is there and is very strong .

I am a second year commerce student and i used to smoke between my studies , but right now i am not doing it , which is a good thing .

[tar]

Bimbo36,

Good that you quit smoking.

Now you have a new habit to break.  nicotex

While I would agree you did a good thing and stopped smoking, you still get the craving for nicotine, because you are still hooked on nicotine.

From personal experience, I tell you, you have not yet done what you need to do.  Nicotine still owns you.  

Regards, TAR

you still have to learn to live without nicotine

it is very easy actually, especially as you put the days and weeks and months behind you,  but you should try a few hours without the nicotex and see what it is like to live without nicotine

[RichVeall]

Hey @bimbo36,
I was just scrolling through the threads, that how I came to see your thread. Something I can relate to. So, I wanted to help you...
I don’t know, how effective the gum is going to be for you, but I am pretty sure vaping can be more effective than the gums. I’ve seen many people who has successfully quit smoking after vaping. My father is one among them. He used to be a heavy smoker for more than 10 years. He wanted to quit smoking when he started experiencing health issues. He tried all he could, gums, cold turkey and all the other, but was only successful with the help of vaping. Maybe you could also try that. These days vape juices are easily available. My father mostly buy ejuice online- link to commercial site removed - rule 2.7 . You can start with higher Nicotine content and then reduce it accordingly, that’s how my father did it.

Hope this small experience helped you decide… 
 

Edited April 19, 2018 by Phi for All
no advertising, please

[YaDinghus]

I quit smoking 14 years ago after nearly dying of a pulmonary embolism.

The hardest part about quitting and keeping away from cigarettes was that they're practically ubiquitous. There's always someone with smokes, and it's not easy to say no because smokers are often so damned polite, offering a cigaret if you don't have any. And when smoking was banned by law in pubs and bars people would interrupt an interesting conversation to go outside and smoke, and if you're anything like me you don't want to interrupt a stimulating conversation, so naturally you follow them outside. Being buzzed or even drunk in that situation makes it even more difficult to say no to a cigaret. So for a while after 'quitting' I regularly caved and smoked a cigaret here or there. Good thing I was really poor and couldn't afford to buy cigarets so at most I would smoke 3 or 4 or maybe 5 in an evening out with friends, but that got less time by time and by 2006 I was completely nicotene free.