Quit Tobacco 2014

[Ele'ill]

Not trying to depress those who don't want to quit tobacco but I want to stop. I strongly suggest at the very least switching from tobacco to nicotine gum. No, it's not the same as huge drags off a Palmall menthol/black or using dip or chewing tobacco but it does give a tiny buzz and alleviates the symptoms of withdrawal. You can use it anywhere. I think there are probably long term health risks to using nicotine gum but they don't compare to that of tobacco products. The goal (for me and what i'm suggesting to others here) is to put as much distance between yourself and the negative results of tobacco use as you can. Never go back to it. I remember in high definition thinking to myself when I was thirteen 'hey i'm really young this shit doesn't do damage until you're older' and 1. that isn't necessarily true 2. it doesn't start doing damage when you're older its the damage in its entirety that hits you when you're 'older'.

[Art Vandelay]

This thread is a good idea. I'm not ready to quit, but I have been trying to cut back and was going to maybe post a thread asking for tips. I think it would be a good idea to have a place here that people can share ideas and strategies that have helped in the quitting process. I smoke a Canadian pack (25) about every two days or so, which probably comes close to about 30-40$ a week I spend on cigarettes. I'd like to cut that in half and maybe even get to the point where I only smoke a pack a week. I've been addicted to tobacco products probably since 17 and I'm 21 now. I don't even want to think about the effects its had on my health/mouth.

[Ele'ill]

I have found that focusing on scare tactics makes me want to smoke more so that is not an option for me personally for a couple reasons. Also something I think about is that I have had really fun times with tobacco where there's a great buzz or series of buzzes and great atmosphere hanging out with friends, drugs etc.. smoking on a winter morning after a couple cups of coffee. But there is also the times where irritated despite smoking, not being able to breathe, stale cigarettes, that tired feeling afterwards, shortness of breath sometimes, all the shitty stuff, the smell of cigarette filters in pockets of clothing I cannot stand. I try to remember the worst of it.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I quit about 3 years ago after smoking for 11. I actually quit after reading a self-help book, which is a little embarrassing to explain to people. http://www.amazon.com/Allen-Carrs-Easy-Stop-Smoking/dp/0615482155 is the book, it basically attempts to rationalize the addiction away and for me it worked. I just finished the pack I was working on when I began reading the book and by the time I was done with it, I just stopped. No crippling withdrawal, no irritability I was just ready to be done with it and so I was. This is after easily, 10 or more previous attempts at going cold turkey in which those symptoms always, always made me break down after 3 or 4 weeks.

Like I said it feels weird to push a self help book, but I remember how much difficulty I had before I read it and how hopeless it felt to fall back off the horse and buy a pack after a few weeks, so I always tell anyone who asks anyway. I think the guy eventually made an organization and support network around the books, but those kinds of things always seem like scams so I would avoid them, and I didn't need them anyhow. You could probably find the book for free on the internet, might as well quit for free if you can.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I might possibly switch to smoking tobacco via vaporizer or electronic cigz because my lungs kinda hurt but I'll still smoke weed/k2 but out of a vaporizer as well, so.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I smoked on-and-off from age 17 to age 22. For me, it was a matter of just not getting much out of cigarettes anymore. I always smoked because I liked the "nicotine buzz", and eventually I lost that and noticed that I was simply smoking compulsively, because it was "something to do". Like I'd be outside and just bored, so might as well smoke!

The only time I'd get real serious cravings for nicotine was when I'd be engaged in real strenuous physical activities. I remember getting off work down in Texas, all sweaty and tired and just taking a long drag off a Camel and feeling sooooo satisfied. I swear, I could skip eating lunch during a workday when I got my 45 minute lunch break, but I'd be damned if I would skip smoking at least one cigarette.

I think the way cigarettes are truly insidious is not quitting initially, but staying off them. Most of my friends have quit at least once, often for significant, protracted periods of time, but somehow they always get sucked back into the habit. Personally I don't miss cigarettes and have no desire to start again, ever.

[tallguy]

Not trying to depress those who don't want to quit tobacco but I want to stop. I strongly suggest at the very least switching from tobacco to nicotine gum. No, it's not the same as huge drags off a Palmall menthol/black or using dip or chewing tobacco but it does give a tiny buzz and alleviates the symptoms of withdrawal. You can use it anywhere. I think there are probably long term health risks to using nicotine gum but they don't compare to that of tobacco products. The goal (for me and what i'm suggesting to others here) is to put as much distance between yourself and the negative results of tobacco use as you can. Never go back to it. I remember in high definition thinking to myself when I was thirteen 'hey i'm really young this shit doesn't do damage until you're older' and 1. that isn't necessarily true 2. it doesn't start doing damage when you're older its the damage in its entirety that hits you when you're 'older'.
Make your own home-made snus. It's just about the safest delivery system for nicotine there is. Let me know on here if you want to know how to make it and I will post the recipe and instructions up on this thread. All you need is an electric crock-pot (known as a slow-cooker in the UK), some tobacco leaves, some sodium bicarbonate, some salt and a little vegetable glycerol. You can buy the tobacco leave online entirely legally and they don't attract any tax as they are not processed for smoking. The other stuff can be bought from a supermarket and pharmacy or online. Again, entirely legally. In the UK, the authorities have made it illegal to buy and sell snus because it doesn't generate tax revenue. In other words, they would rather we die of cancer and pay our taxes than not die of cancer and not pay those taxes. What they are doing is evil, plain and simple. However, here in the uk and, as far as I am aware, in the USA it is not illegal to actually posses snus or make it for yourself. Like I said, let me know.

I smoked over 40 cigarettes a day for years. I got a bad case of flu last year and developed pnumonia. It scared the shiot out of me and i went for a full medical after I recovered, with particular emphasis on my cardiovascular system. Miraculously, I had not yet developed any serious problems. At that point, I went straight onto e-cigarettes. They kind of worked, but I researched further and found out the Swedes have been using snus for decades and now have the lowest rate of tobacco related cardiovascular disease in the western world, despite a significant number of their people using snus. That sold it for me and i startedf buying it online direct from Sweden and getting it shipped over to the UK. However, the UK government made that all but impossible to continue with about six months ago.

At which point I contacted a Swedish manufacture directly and got to speak to one of the guys in the factory where it is made. He explained the process of tobacco pasteurisation in snus manufacture which basically kills all of the nasty bacteria that live of the starch in tobacco and excrete sugar and something called nitrosamines. It is these nitrosamines that cause cancer. The pasteurisation of the tobacco kills about 97% of these nitrosamines. This is why snus is so safe and why it should never be confused with the nasty stuff called dipping tobacco used in the USA.

I've been stopped smoking for nearly a year now and been on the snus for about 6 months. Never felt fitter.

Anyway, let me know if you want the recipe.

[Ele'ill]

looking to say away from tobacco all together, no compromise


what would happen if I briefly chewed a piece of nicotine gum and then put it up my nose?

[Leftsolidarity]

I don't feel like I'm ready to quit but I really want to cut back. I've been smoking about 2 packs a day for awhile now and I can feel the effects and they worry me. I want to get myself down to around a pack a day within the coming months. I don't really have a plan for doing that, though, and haven't really cut down at all.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I've quit for like the fourth time this year and maybe the tenth time or something in 9 years. As of ... a week ago.

[Comrades Unite!]

I too am trying to quit smoking, for my health's sake and the mere fact I am sick of it!
Lately it has taken its toll on my health with the shortness of breath and all ... yet I am still struggling to kick the habit.

It is going to be a long arduous road and I may not succeed but oh well, Each failure provides for yer next attempt to quit I suppose.

[Slavic]

I've smoked about a pack a day for 3 years.

Decided one day that I did not like wheezing when I woke up each morning and the persistent coughs. I went cold turkey and in the past 2 years I have only smoked one cigarette. I allowed myself that one cigarette because my wife almost died and had surgery that day but that's a long story.

Going cold turkey is hard but I think it is worth it. The hardest parts is mentally preparing yourself for triggers that make you want to smoke. Mine was always drinking coffee in the morning, driving in my car, and being around other smokers. If you are actively conscious about your smoking, and if you can recognize if you are going to experience triggers, then you can mentally plow through the cravings. It isn't fun, and you feel like shit, but I can attest that the cravings go away.

I've been clean 2 years, and I rarely ever get triggers and cravings, most of the time I get sick from the smell of cigarette smoke.

[tallguy]

The thing people must rememberer is that for some people, who have been smoking regularly and/or heavily for a significant number of years, stopping smoking is very nearly impossible. Experiments conducted in the eighties showed that stopping smoking for such users is at least as hard as stopping using heroin. Nicotine is one of the fastest acting drugs known to man. it takes 7 seconds for the nicotine to go from your lungs to your brain.

Secondly, there are three things that are bad for you in tobacco. They are nicotine, tar and nitrosamines. Of these, niccotine is actually the least hazardous by quite a large margin. If you smoke, you get to damage yourself with all three of the above.

The problem with the various nicotine replacement therapies is that they do not take into account the various other substances in tobacco that, whilst not harmful in themselves, are nevertheless addictive. Because they are not included in such therapies, the failure rate on those therapies is barely lower than for stopping smoking by simply going cold turkey. The main thing that these other substances do is to raise serotonin levels. In other words, smoking literally chemically alters your happiness levels. I'm not shitting you. The failure rate for stopping smoking, by the way, with or without such therapies, is around 85%. It's about 60% for people trying to stop using heroin. In short, it's easier to stop using heroin.

Even more sinister is the fact of the the regulations surrounding such official therapies. The highest nicotine level (the least harmful of all the substances in tobacco) allowed in them is such that, for long term smokers, the levels are always too low. In turn, increasing the likelihood of failure. Indeed, I would argue that this is no accident. Many people do not actually realise the extent to which the tax from tobacco contributes to the whole tax pot. What I am suggesting is that such officially sanctioned "therapies" are there to provide a sop to the health lobbies, whilst simultaneously being designed such that they are highly likely to fail for the vast majority of users.

I cannot speak for the USA, but I have done extensive research on the UK and smoking tax. In the UK, smoking, at the wilder-eyed estimates, costs the national health service around 4 billion per year. It's probably closer to around 2 billion, but hey, lets go with 4 just for the sake of argument. At the last official report in 2009, smoking contributed over 12 billion pounds per year in tax revenue. That's a surplus of 8 billion per year. All of which is not to mention the massive saved revenue to the exchequer in the form of state pensions they do not have to pay to smokers for an average of 10 years compared to non smokers because smokers die, on average, 10 years before their no smoking fellow citizens. And all of which is not to include the saved healthcare costs that will be incurred into old age by non smokers because they live longer. So, that net gain to the exchequer is almost certainly many billions more than even 8 billion per annum. And yet, smokers are regularly socially inconvenienced and stigmatised, medically disadvantaged and fiscally extorted via punitive taxes. And to add insult to injury, they are obstructed in seeking out less dangerous delivery systems for the drug which they are addicted to. Hell, if it wasn't for smokers sacrificially laying down their lives for their fellow citizens, at least here in the UK, we wouldn't be able to afford a national health service!. Fuck it, smokers should go to the top of treatment waiting lists, never mind being put at the bottom of them!

All of which is why I use snus. The only harmful substance I am consuming from snus is nicotine. However, because snus is tobacco based, I am also consuming those other naturally occurring substances that give all of the other effects of tobacco I am addicted to. Finally, I am able to control my own nicotine levels in the snus, thus ensuring a proper dose commensurate with my needs.

If you are not going to go with something like snus, then I would definitely recommend the use of e-cigarettes. But, buy your own concentrated e liquid online and then dilute it yourself to the dose that best suits your needs. There will always be time to lower that dose over time in a manner that is entirely under your control.

Currently, e-cigarettes are not taxed and are unlikely to be so in the foreseeable future. The reason being that since they are demonstrably better for you than cigarettes, governments would be seen to be irrational and immoral to tax them the same as a cigarettes. Nevertheless, people are turning to these alternative where available. Partly for financial reasons because they are vastly cheaper and partly for the known health benefits. Which probably goes a long way towards explaining why the European Union, the UK and the USA authorities are all desperately trying to "medicalise" e-cigarettes and have their maximum dose reduced to about 11mg per dose (the equivalent of about 10 cigarettes per day and to put all production in the hands of big-pharma; all of whom contribute mightily to major mainstream party campaign coffers. All of which will massively reduce the likelihood of people successfully quitting smoking and thus reducing the harm to themselves. Hey, but that's okay because big pharma will get their profits, government will get their taxes and, since it's mostly poor people who smoke as a form of stress-relieving self-medication (as with so many other substance abuses common among the poor) and poor people tend not to vote because of utter despondency, who needs to give a flying fuck about them right?

It's a sick fucking joke.

[Kush Brannigan]

Quitting tobacco is always a good idea. Unfortunately, tobacco is somewhat of an evil mastermind. It creates a small problem that is very easily solvable. And when we "solve" that problem by getting that tobacco buzz, the reward significantly outweighs the downside of being addicted.

Now this might sound a bit arrogant but cigarettes have hardly ever affected me, really. I tried my first cigarettes five years ago, and I have been smoking them on and off. However, recently for some reason I actually feel physically uncomfortable when I smoke. I have no idea what changed because I used to not feel that way, but now whenever I smoke a cig, if I don't drink water while doing it I just feel dehydrated and light headed.

So I think the key to stopping is really to make cigarettes seem gross and disgusting, because I think I subconsciously did that and it has worked quite well. Although as I said, I was never really much of a nicotine addict anyway. I hope that helps somewhat, my post was kind of erratic.

[Ele'ill]

I think cigarette smoking can cause health issues other than what is usually on the usual list. I think feeling tired/light headed/skin break-outs, infections and such even aches and pains are caused by your body being over taxed while processing all the toxins.

Still haven't smoked, am chewing lots of gum though, probably too much now but I've still spent less money than I normally would have while smoking and i'm not smoking all the toxic garbage.

[Art Vandelay]

I think I'm going to try and stop smoking while I'm driving. They always say not to use a substance in conjunction with a specific activity and I know how addicting it can be. Like I got addicted to tobacco through chew (yeah gross, but whatever) and I always used to have a pinch whenever I finished playing hockey and was in the dressing room. Eventually I couldn't relax after a game/practice without a dip. Same thing with smoking and driving, anytime I hop in my truck, I instinctively light up. I think I'd probably cut my intake down in half if I could just stop smoking while I drive. At the same time I don't know how feasible this is. Its so cold out and I don't have command start. A smoke is the one thing I look forward to whenever I get up for work and have to go out into the cold.

[Ele'ill]

I used to use dip after hockey too, beer and dip post game. Then recently I went from cigarettes to dip to gum and it seemed to work. As therapy I'd sometimes just go to the rink to watch the various HS kids practice or play and use dip. *sigh*

Still just using gum.

[Quail]

Good luck guys. I drunkenly bought cigarettes over Christmas, but I'm hoping to avoid doing that in future. What really made me not want to smoke was tripping on acid, smoking a cigarette and kind of examining it and thinking, "This is poison, I am literally poisoning myself, etc." and suddenly felt really grossed out by the idea of smoking tobacco. Despite not really smoking that often (maybe every other day or so, but much more with alcohol) I still find it hard not to give in. I have become a bit of a health nut now though so it makes me feel guilty.