I quit.....

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Originally Posted by Titanmen

I smoked up to two packs a day for 20 years. I've been smoke free for over a year now. The patch and gum, and the desire not to die did it for me! ;-)

It's the best thing I have ever done for myself! I wish I had done it sooner!

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Good for you, Keith. It's a disgusting, stupid habit that people pick up for no reason. I mean, if you can smoke one cigarette a week or maybe a few a month and not get addicted, that's fine. No problems with that. I myself have been known to inhale some nicotine when I'm out drinking with friends. Just to have something to do. But I suppose my desire not to be sucked into any kind of psychological habits was greater than the nicotine's lure. My mother smoked like a chimney while I was growing up, and my brother and I both thought it was repulsive, so we never picked it up. I think b/cuz we recognized that it showed a sign of weakness in my mother, we never found it attractive. That's essentially what it is: a crutch for those who don't have the strength to make it through a day without some kind of false help.

No offense to those who smoke. But you know it's gross. You don't need anyone else to tell you that. :)

Wow Ken, when did you become an armchair psychiatrist?

"That's essentially what it is: a crutch for those who don't have the strength to make it through a day without some kind of false help."

Postive re-enforcement is probably a better way to go then to tell smokers they are weak and don't have any strength! As you know I am a pretty strong and forcefull person, so it was not a "strength" issue, it was an addiction issue. ;-)

Think positive re-enforcement, it is usually more effective! ;-)

I think that most people who have never smoked don't seem to have any concept of what the addiction to nicotine is like. I've never smoked, but for some reason, I seem to have a pretty good understanding of the process, at least intellectually.

Keep in mind the tobacco companies spent MILLIONS of dollars over 20-30 years designing cigarettes to be as addictive as it was possible to make them.

An alarming 15 year study published a few years ago in Nature, one of the most respected medical journal, looked at 1000 high school kids who smoked "very occasionally" (once a month or less.) Only 5% said they intended to continue smoking, but 5 years later, of the remaining group, 70% were pack-a-day smokers or more. Most of those said they planned to quit within months, but 5 years later, more than half were still pack-a-day smokers.

Yes, there are a very few people that don't seem to be subject to addiction, but that's very much the exception. The way the nicotine receptors work, for many people, even a single cigarette after a 20 year lapse will return them to their previous addiction. The product is evil.

If people had it drilled into them before they started that the chances of not getting addicted were very close to zero, and that quitting would not be easy, perhaps more people would not start in the first place.

I have enormous admiration for those who have successfully quit and for those of you who are working up to it or trying. It's you against some of the best scientific minds in the business trying to ensure that you continue to smoke.

And you know what's sad.

The companies now spend millions saying its bad for your health. You TRY to quit and fail (only 1 and 5 make it), then you just realize one thing. It's dman near impossible. And then go buy a carton.

And a week after i sent in for info on how to quit. Guess what came in the mail? Coupons!

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Originally Posted by abostonboy

And a week after i sent in for info on how to quit. Guess what came in the mail? Coupons!

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That is INSANE. Of course, we shouldn't be surprised from an industry that knew it was selling sickness, death and a difficult-to-overcome addiction for 50+ years and lied and covered it up.

I'll often gently offer info to our models when they're around if they seem interested. I'm not preachy about it, but just give the facts... like the data from that study... I've had a lot of them come back and thank me for giving them enough info to not even try the "one with a drink" plan, and others for helping them quit. It's just a tiny effort, but hey, if each one that quits educates another two or three, then the word can spread pretty fast.

i don't believe physical addiction is the hard part to kick. it's not the nicotine, it's the habit. cigarettes are what you do with your hands when you are talking or doing business. iighting one, opening a pack - these things give you time to think and keep you from feeling awkward.

i never felt any particular physical withdrawl symtoms - the hard part is that if each cigarette takes 5 minutes to smoke, i used over 200 minutes per day every day on cigarettes. think about it - over 3 hours a day doing the same thing every single day. it was involving and it was part of almost everything i did - reading, working, talking, cuddling, waking up in the morning. now imagine stopping anything you do EVERY day for 3 hours during almost every activity you do.

is there even anything like that besides working? i can't imagine anything else being as thoroughly enmeshed in EVERY part of my life as cigarettes were. it makes it part of everything you do. now, that's hard to quit!

That's where the Quests (nicotine free, but real tobacco) can come in very handy, at least so my ex-smoker friends have said. Other things I've heard are helpful to deal with the physical biorhythm of what to do with your hands and such are licorice sticks, toothpicks, and the like.

But I agree the psychological issue and the other activities that are so enmeshed with smoking make it doubly hard... and I can't think of anything remotely similar to smoking in terms of the time taken up over the course of a day or month or year.

Boy funk,

Man I tried those tobacoo free. just to inhale is hard. its like smoking marawannna (cant spell at 5am).

Bass you are right its physical.

Every morning I walk the dog. that's cig one. getting mail is cig two.

And reading a post from MAX finishes off the pack.

Hey,

There's a big difference between the "tobacco free" cigs which one of my friends said was rather like smoking newspaper, and the Quest 3, which is 100% real tobacco that's been genetically altered to have no nicotine. You can order the Quests online, or if you live in the northeast, you can find them locall.

I can get them. I tried the American tobacco I think w/ no nicotine. It was a bitch just inhaling.

But to quit I need to stop posting trying to help Max.