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Anonymous
Has anyone here quit smoking or helped a friend quit? I'm going to be 22 in June and I've been smoking since I was 18 (started around the end of high school, so it's my four year mark right about now).

Things I know:

It was my fault that I started. I was curious and at first I liked the buzz and calming effects, but now it's a full blown physical addiction and it's annoying.

Bad for my hair, skin, teeth, fingernails, and lungs.

Next to impossible to quit cold turkey. It's said to be on par with heroine addiction and alcoholism (the bad kind where people end up chugging mouthwash just for a buzz).

Expensive.

Generally annoys other people. Even in a smoking section, the smoke carries all over the restaurant and a lot of servers who don't smoke are forced to wait on people in smoking sections, which makes me feel guilty.

I've tried cold turkey. I went like a week before the withdrawals got too hard to deal with. It literally feels like your body needs the smoke as bad as fresh air. When I don't smoke for even a few hours, I get moody and can't focus on anything. I've been poor at times and always chose cigarettes over food. I can't afford patches or gum and I read that they fail 90% of the time anyway, because the addiction isn't just to the nicotine, it's to the method you get the nicotine into your body, which is burning tobacco leaves and inhaling the smoke. The only thing I've tried besides cold turkey was a plastic nicotine inhaler and it didn't satisfy at all.
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>> Anonymous
If you can blow smoke rings, keep smoking. If you can't - stop kidding yourself, lose the ADD and quit.
>> Anonymous
Well, while I can't say I've dealt with nicotine addiction, I have dealt with a couple addictive substances. The easiest way for me is quota-based tapering.

By that I mean, say week 1 you're at 75% of your daily average, 50% the week after that, etc etc. Set a maximum, and try your damnest not to exceed it, this really helps to minimize withdrawal symptoms, but there's a definite progress being made.

Most of the stuff I've dealt with leave your system pretty quickly (within a couple weeks), so I don't know what the ideal tapering scheme for cigs is.
>> Anonymous
I quit 3 months ago. Its mainly due to the fact that my parents are highly against me smoking and i didnt tell them i was doing it but they knew. I mainly hang around the house working out every day so its easy not to smoke. Also i dont have a job, so i dont have money to buy cigarettes with. 3 months in and i dont even want to take up smoking again. I dont want to be out of breath in the army all the time and im trying to get in a very good physical condition so i have higher priorities than smoking that shit again.

I dont know how you can quit, it was just easier for me in my situation. Re-evaluate your priorities in life, that might put it in perspective.
>> Anonymous
What sort of backwards country do you live in where it's legal to smoke in restaurants?

Also cold turkey is the answer. Chemicals are overpriced and marketed towards weak stupid faggots with no self control. Be a man.
>> Anonymous
You can still smoke in restaurants? where do you live, KY?

Anyways, I wouldn't exactly say I've fully quit smoking, since I still smoke when I go out drinking, but my habits switched from a pack a day to a pack a month or so. I'll go a week+ without a smoke, but then get drunk at the bar and go through half a pack.

For me, all I did was just avoid other smokers and spend they day inside my house going online and playing games. No withdrawal problems or anything. Now my apartment smells better, theres more cash in the wallet and I don't find myself fiending for a smoke.

BTW nicotine addiction is a fucking joke compared to booze and H
>> Anonymous
Glad i quit to be honest. Was getting tired of waking up in a friends shithole of a house after a night of drinking warm lager, smoking dope and cigarettes. His life is going to be fucked if he continues that path, i feel great for climbing my way out the bottom of the barrel.
>> Anonymous
there are gov't programs that offer free or discounted anti-smoking things (like the patch in NYC,i believe).

personally, i smoked for about 5 years, started to realize I no longer enjoyed it, and quit cold turkey. To be fair, I spent the first 7 days furiously drunk, but it has been over a year and a half now.
>> Anonymous
>>146265

are you in the army now, or are you about to enlist?
>> Anonymous
>>146259
i tried to quit once, didnt smoke for three weeks then depression hit me, what they say about nicotine addiction is true, havent tried to quit since then cause im afraid about not being able to handle life if i do. if id try again i'd begin with slowly cutting down on cigarettes and then use patches or whatever - quitting cold turkey messes with your head
>> Anonymous
there is no proven detrimental health effect of smoking so long as you quit before you're forty years old, so just ease out of it real slow and you'll be cool