brickthrowing

I quit seven years ago. It was my third and final successful try. Every moment of it sucked.

I used the gum. Problem is, is that stuff gets addicting too. I still keep a few cards around and chew it periodically.

I talked to my doc about it and asked what was up with continuing to chew the gum long after the "program" was up. She said its pretty common but the good thing is that I wasn't smoking.

I think quitting smoking one of the best things I have done and it wasn't easy. 50x harder than giving up drinking IMHO.

Im rooting for you!

Notmyrealname

I'm back on the patch after slipping back to the pack for a week or two, so I'm right there with ya. I always found running to help with the nicotine withdrawals. Come to think of it, I need to start running again. Maybe this will all work out well in the end.

hell of a way to run a railroad though

Straightshoot

MIRecovery
Quitting is harder for me that anything I have ever done. I have tried so many times. and do good for awhile. Lasted a whole four days last time, and then lit up. Doing the E-cigarette, and if I didn't I would smoke more than I do now. Just have to keep trying. Good luck to you.

MIRecovery

Another day without nicotine and I'm still alive.

MIRecovery

Ain't that the truth. Hell of a way to run a railroad. My train is barely on the tracks

Nuudawn

Nice work MIR...
I'm FINALLY ..and I mean FINALLY weaned myself down to 14 mg's not quite two weeks ago. I have been off and on the 21 mg patch for over 4 freaking years (with intermittent bouts of smoking).

I had successfully weaned myself off before that...for quite some times.

I'm stepping down to 7 mg's in a couple days.

So hey...I'll be where you are soon.

MIRecovery

At least for me the physical withdrawal is worse than alcohol. The mental is a lot easier than alcohol

Another day and the craving is not quite as bad at least so far

MIRecovery

Great job so far. This no nicotine is proving harder than I thought but so far so good.

razor15

This was exactly true for me, so I want to clarify my earlier post...quitting smoking was harder in terms of the physical symptoms, the worst lasted a couple of weeks as I recall. Drinking is tougher psychologically.

Awesome job so far. I'm really pulling for you. Cravings go away and there will be a point not too far off where you just can't imagine yourself lighting up ever again. Sweet.

MIRecovery

I sure as hell hope so because life is pretty miserable at the moment

anattaboy

MI, I'm rootin' for ya! I'm down to 13 mg. juice for my vape pen and holding. I feel much better but want to be nic-free.

MIRecovery

Today has been pretty horrible. The withdrawal is really quite amazing. I feel like I need to get out of my skin. I almost cracked but I didn't. Depressed, anxious, irritable, shakey, nausea you name it I got it

Lord I hope tomorrow is a little easier than today

MIRecovery

Well the Lord answered my prayers. Today was a little bit easier. Still was tough but I made it

Straightshoot

Congrats!!! Have my e-cig in my mouth as I type. Down to the lowest strength nicotine.

heartcore

Yesterday I stood in a hot shower & sobbed for a long, long time. Luckily, I have hot water on demand, so it is unlimited. A non-smoking friend came over to cheer me up & I went and stayed over at his house.

Cigarette smoking addiction has to do with sadness for me. Not smoking makes me feel vulnerable & small. Smoking makes me feel brave and untouchable. Much like Alcohol.

The crying yesterday was all about "I can't do this. It is just Too Much. I can't drop all my armor & shield at the same time."

But I did & I am & I'm alive. I spent today curled up watching old movies. I even feel too raw to go to meetings today. I decided that's ok.

I am tired of needing all these frigging substances just to navigate my life! Today I am alcohol free, drug free & cigarette free. I am weepy & cannot keep my guard up, & I am angry that my life feels like I need to have that shield raised in the first place. What would it mean to just admit that I'm unsure & not that strong? What happens when you do that? I guess I'm about to find out..

MIRecovery

Another day and still bouncing off the walls. Man oh man this is getting old

MIRecovery

Think I will bring up early sobriety as a topic at our meeting tonight. I am ashamed to say it but I forgot how hard it is to stay off your DOC

heartcore

Yes, I agree. While I had powerful difficulties related to alcohol, it was not my DOC (drug of choice). When I read about or hear other alcoholic's challenges with picking up a drink, over and over, unable to commit to sobriety even though they are in despair, part of me doesn't fully understand. I've relapsed in the past, and it has been scary and not the life I wanted, but once I truly quit again, I wasn't dealing with constant craving, just the once in a while wishing I could turn off my brain, or the visual-connection-with-a-glass-of-wine observed, or the feeling-left-out of a summer afternoon in the sun with friends... My struggles with alcohol do not veer into the compulsion category, although they do bear deep roots of emotional entanglement and escape.

My original DOC relationship with cocaine did have that element of inexplicable and unreasonable compulsion/obsession, and my relationship with cigarettes is an even more crazy tangle of compulsion/obsession.

I still have not smoked. But last night, for example, I paced, ate food I wasn't hungry for, couldn't sleep, wept, considered driving an icy road to the store late at night for a pack. My battle with this compulsion took all my energy last night - I could actually feel the empty hole in my being that I wanted to fill, and knew that there was nothing else in the universe capable of filling it.

A wise shaman once explained to me that traditional peoples used tobacco as power source, rarely and ceremonially, and that my desperate craving for that energetic force was dysfunctional because I felt that I needed it all the time, and that I would never be able to address it until I developed alternate sources of power energy inside myself.

Interesting, because when I use an alternate source of nicotine - a patch or an e-cig - I've found that it doesn't fill that place. It seems it is tobacco which does - in its full expression, not the distilled drug/toxin of nicotine removed from it.

I feel like I am an empty husk.

I heard somewhere that the difficulty in discarding toxic substances which we have used to cope is in inverse order to the sequence in which they entered our lives. If I move backward in time, through all the drugs and toxins, tobacco was my original vice. According to this theory, it would then be the most difficult to release.

foolsgold66

Scary thing is, people actually made manufactured cigarettes as addictive as they are on purpose, and every government on earth was and still is complicit. It isn't just nicotine at all. I'm not inclined to elaborate, that's a bit far afield really, all the details, but a few google searches away lie the mountains of evidence.

I haven't been to an AA meeting in years, but I imagine they are still filled with folks with 20 or 30 years of sobriety sucking on the things like their lives depended on them.

MIRecovery

All AA meetings i go to are smoke free.

Another day nicotine free going to bed