Memes

Keep trying though

It’s super hard to quit but I’ll tell you what helped me. I got altoids and every time I wanted a smoke I’d eat a mint. If I still wanted a smoke I’d eat another mint. At break I’d go out with all the smokers and I’d eat a mint. Driving home I’d eat a mint. It took a few containers of mints but I eventually got sick of mints (and cigarettes). After I quit I would still try taking a drag off a random cigarette and I absolutely hated it. Not sure if I rewired my brain or what but I was able to stay off the smokes. Good luck. You got this.

Pro tip: take your smoke money and save it in another account or a piggy bank or whatever. You will be blown away about how much your addiction was costing you.

I smoked for almost 20 years. I lost track of how many times I tried - and failed - to quit. Last December I just felt done. Put it down and haven't gone back to it. I even had a few cigarettes while out with a friend in March and had no desire to go back to it after. I know a few other people who quit like that, but far more who have struggled with it for years and still smoke.

I have no idea what changed for me. Every other attempt failed, even if I felt really ready to quit.

I did. Pack a day since I was ..14?

20 years later, one day I just felt I was done. Threw the rest of my pack out, and didn't go back nor had the urge to after a week.

multiple attempts over the years like everyone else who smokes. smoker for 20years but i wanted to quit. life managed to interrupt my attempts fairly regularly but what got me was nicotine chewing gum. that really helped with the addiction so i could focus on separating the act of smoking from the addiction. this worked on so far as i realised I was addicted to chewing gum and had removed the act of smoking. addicted to chewing gum? what a stupid thing to be addicted to! the absurdity was quite clear and I stopped that day. 13 years ago. dabbled here and there but find it gross and disgusting. have vaped a bit of other people's, and even smoked for a week once. that was disgusting, my body felt awful my lungs hurt and i couldn't taste anything. so i guess this ramble is too say never give up and try to separate the addiction from the act to make it absurd. good luck

Quitting is easy, I've done it hundreds of times!

You kinda do, though. I've been smoking for 13 years. And I've been smoking quite heavily about, 1.5 pack per day on average.

I tried to stop several times and it didn't work out. Then one day 10 years ago, I realized how crazily much money I spend on that "hobby" and how I'll need that money for my wedding a year later. And then I just stopped.

I used nicotine free cigarettes as a crutch for a while, but that was it. It was surprisingly easy, when before I was almost shaking during a 2 hour flight because of nicotine withdrawal...

What this boils down to imo is, when you really want to stop, you can just stop. Try to find out why you want to stop and don't miss the opportunity window. If I hadn't stopped that day, I'd probably still be smoking.

Used to smoke 2 packs a day. Quit 20 years ago. Quit because I figured I always smelled like smoke which greatly diminished the dating pool. I missed it every day until I managed to get hooked on nicotine pouches. Was using 10-15 of the 8mg On every day. Managed to do that in secret for years. Quit those about a year ago after my wife found out. Now I get to miss smoking AND nicotine pouches every single day. I love nicotine. I miss it every single day. I think about it all the time. If I ever found myself single again I would go back in a heartbeat. I am salivating just writing this. It is evil shit.

One day at a time.

Fuck they don't. Stop paying people to destroy your health! I stopped just like that. I take care of my father in laws who smoked until he was 75. Lost his leg due to poor circulation. Lost toes on second leg. Doctor was able to squeeze out circulation in one last hardening artery in his remaining leg. Told him if he didn't quit he would lose that too. He stopped smoking the next day. Still has that leg. We use nitro patches to keep circulation going on his foot. If he gets a sore or cut it takes months to heal.

Fuck smoking! Don't trade your later days for today.

It's hard, but there are more adults in the U.S. alive today who have successfully quit smoking than currently smoke.

Check out SmokeFree.gov for free science-based resources!

Funnily enough, that's exactly how I stopped smoking. I smoked for around 17 years and had been trying to quit for nearly 15 of them. I did everything from pills to nicotine substitutions, hypnosis, and even that laser therapy. It would work for a time, but eventually, within a month or two, I'd be back to smoking.

Then, one day, I was in a really foul mood and just didn't want to deal with people. I ran out of cigarettes right at the end of the evening before bed and figured I'd buy some in the morning. Woke up in a worse mood the next day and decided to just stay home and ride it out. It is best for me to avoid people when I get like that, so that's what I did. The following day, I woke up in a better mood and was about to head to the corner store for a pack when I realized I'd already gone near 36 hours without one, so thought why not wait an hour. An hour passed, and decided to wait another hour, and then another, and another. Before I knew it, I was heading back to bed for my second full day being cigaretteless.

At that point, I decided to continue my smoke-free streak and just quit. It's been nearly 6 years since my last cigarette, and it was one of the best decisions I've made in my life.

Context: I'm a disabled veteran with severe PTSD, anxiety, depression, and mood disorders caused by TBI's. I have days where everything seems to act up all at once, and I'll self isolate because it's just safer for everyone if I'm alone during those times. Furthermore, I started smoking while in combat to help take the "edge" off, and as such, the nicotine addiction was extremely difficult for me to get beyond because it got wrapped up in my PTSD and anxiety issues.

Basically, what I learned from my many years of trying to quit is no matter how you "try" if you don't truly want to quit, you won't succeed. You have to want to quit more than you want that next cigarette.

Good luck to anyone out there still struggling to break a nicotine addiction. Stay strong. You can do it.

It's quite easy to stop smoking. I've done it several times already

It is for certain people, but not typically. I know two people who quit cold turkey and my fiancee knows another one. Everyone else has fought and struggled, relapsed, or shifted to e-cigs.

Strangely this can be true for hard drugs too. As I understand it, biology is a big part of it, but psychological, social, and circumstantial factors are pretty important too.

About 12 years now

Stopping smoking is easy, i used to do it every time my cigarette went out, quitting on the other hand is a lifelong task, but it is worth the struggle. I still crave cigarettes to this day, but dont miss being a slave to that addiction. I would literally collect cigarette butts off the ground and reroll them. If i can quit so can you.

I was very very lucky.

I turned 26 when I heard myself coughing like a 66 year old chainsmoker with cancerous lungs, found I was unable to run up stairs and out of breath after carrying groceries inside. I had to have a cig every morning so I would be able to have a shit at all, but if I did... that first drag sent me rushing to the bathroom, it got so bad, I had to light the first one while sitting on the loo, or i'd shit my pants.

That's when I found myself disgusted with myself. I stopped, I simply stopped. From 38 cigarettes per day to 0. I am so happy it worked, because I am a very easily tempted personality and tend towards addiction in anything that gives my brain pleasure.

It took a year before I completely stopped coughing and two years before I could run up those stairs again, but one day I simply realized "Oh my! I'm not out of breath. What... what happened? Oh, yeah I quit smoking! Damn this feels nice!"

I got a Juul and quit cigs surprisingly easily. Then the Juul was pretty easy to quit a little while later. I was ashamed at how easy it was.

Nonsense. You got this. I believe in you.

Anecdotally, I found that ease of quitting was inversely related to the amount of pressure I put on myself to quit. I smoked for 15 years and always vowed I would never be a self-loathing smoker. I think so little of my attempt to quitting successfully that every time someone brings up quitting cold-turkey I need to remind myself that I attempted to quit on multiple occasions. - I simply didn't feel bad when a strategy didn't work out.

Ultimately I weened myself off of nicotine by vaping and stepping down the concentration of nicotine over a long period of time. I quit vaping in early 2020.

It’s simple, but it ain’t easy.

im trying very hard to quit smoking weed... i know it's not the same as nicotine addiction but it's still a struggle. I smoked weed almost every day for like 6 years or something.

its annoying cus like i will be reminded of it constantly, weed culture is everywhere, memes and shows and movies and books. I get reminded and i want it, I get the urge and its hard not to smoke a little. i will go days or weeks without any but then I will fuck up and smoke again and suddenly i will be smoking every day again for a few weeks.

edit: i wasn't asking for advice, i have a therapist I am working with please stop trying to give me advice its not what I want or need and I don't like it, it makes me super incredibly uncomfortable. Its not helping. Thank you

I did exactly that.

The traumatic brain injury may have had something to do with that, though.

"Gondor has smo king, Gondor needs smo king?"

I'm doing it for the bit, a week ago i got high and thought how funny it'd be to stop smoking because drugs told me to. So i did lmao

I don't smoke and I never will and I'm just here to emphasize how disgusting smoking is for non smokers. I literally can hardly breath when someone smokes next to me. Sadly, my nearby city has a lot of smokers.

Whenever I need to pass by someone that smokes, I hold my breath for as long as possible. I understand you're addicted, but come on, stop using that poison. If not for yourself then for others at least, or maybe at least while in public.