I get it
 

I read Allen Carr's book on quitting smoking and I get it now.
Now I understand why you can quit forever.

Everything I thought smoking was doing for me was a lie. I am addicted to nicotine. Plain and simple. I don't smoke for any other reason.

I'd imagine it's the same with other addictions. It's a simple hunger for the drug we are addicted to. It sure makes that beast look a lot smaller.

I haven't set a quit date yet, but my outlook is so much brighter. Allen Carr refers to "the beast" as "the little hungry monster". It seems to me that the only thing it can say now is "I want nicotine" and "you can't make it through the withdrawal".

Now I also know that any kind of moderation is just torture and off the table.

:tyou

Wishing you the best MG.
Not smoking anymore is the second best thing I did for myself :)

D

You can do it MG!!! :hug:
Look up in apps, there are a couple which can keep track of how much money you save each day by not smoking. It's really mind blowing at 10 bucks a pack in Washington.

yay! I quit smoking in 1994.

No regrets! Like any addiction, the AV yelled for a couple weeks, then fell silent. Just a whimper every now and then for a while. Nothing from it for a very long time.

And don't forget , whether you quit or not, smoking sucks.

You can do this, MG! I've heard many good things about Allan Carr's book. :)

Best of luck, MG. :)

I know that one thing my dad did to help him quit was to keep track of the money he would have spent on tobacco and put it in a "fun fund" Of course this was when cigs were like a dollar a pack and he only did it for a few years. Just an idea.

I quit smoking 3 years ago, but remain addicted to nicotine from nicotine lozenges. You're right, it's really just about the nicotine, and swapping smoking for lozenges made that abundantly clear - no withdrawals or cravings or little zings, it was actually fairly easy. One of these days I'll quit the lozenges too, but I haven't felt motivated enough to do it yet, which is ironic since I've quit smoking cold-turkey before and I know it's not nearly as bad as quitting alcohol can be (and was for me). I guess part of me worries it'll stir up the reptile, so I just keep it fed with lozenges (that don't have the dire health consequences that smoking has). In hindsight I probably should have quit everything else when quit drinking, but I didn't and it is what it is.

You can do it! :)

The second post in this thread -->https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...g-smoking.html
says about every helpful thing about the subject I'm able to say.
GL MG

Very interesting. The Beast says 'I want nicotine', but yet, it does not accordingly say 'I can't make it through the withdrawal', as would be the case. Instead, it changes from the first person singular ("I") to the second person singular ("you").

Sneaky...

I haven't read Allen Carr in a while, but I do still remember this little gem:

I didn't even catch that.

Do you all recognize that the Beast lies with AV.
Once I saw all the lies it was easy to dismiss it. Before that I couldn't do it.

It also helped me to separate it like Allen Carr did. He calls one the Big Brain Monster and the other The Little Hungry Monster.

That helped me so much. The Big Brain Beast screams out all these lies and I couldn't get to "never" because of all the lies. I was trying to think my way through it and figure out how to conquer the lies instead of just seeing it all as a lie. It was all an illusion and none of it was true. When I saw it all as lies I was able to just recognize I had a nicotine addiction. The little Beast is the physical withdrawal and the desire to end the withdrawal by wanting a nicotine fix.

It also made the willpower issue clear to me. There is no willpower involved when seeing the truth and dismissing all the lies.

I'm going to quit cold turkey on Saturday so I'm not sure what I'll be up against. I do believe the withdrawal will be easier without believing all the lies.

I've withdrawn from nicotine several times and it's a b*tch, but it's temporary. I found staying busy really helped. I taught myself to knit while withdrawing off tobacco, anything to keep my hands and mind busy. Exercise can help clear the mind and help with detoxing, I've even heard of people using a sauna to help sweat out the chemicals. The worst of the physical part should be over in a few days and then it's all mental. Back when I quit I used AVRT without knowing I was using it, I hadn't heard of it yet. When those thoughts would start kicking in or I was around others smoking, I would shut them down before they got overwhelming, just NO. I also reminded myself of how badly I wanted to be a non smoker, that I was doing it for me, for my health and the money that I might as well have been setting on fire. I never allowed myself to feel jealous of someone else smoking. I also refused to shelter myself from being around it - I told myself that this was my choice and that I was quitting of my own free will and that it didn't matter if I was exposed to it, or if I was stressed out, or if I gained weight, or I thought I was going to cry from wanting one - I was done with it. It's all mental. And the truth is if you can not smoke for one day you can not smoke for every day afterwards.

The key to quitting is to never have the "one". Not one puff. At one point I had not smoked for over a year and I had one cigarette and within a month I was smoking a pack a day again. The quit has to be absolute. Same with drinking and drugs or whatever - it's the first one that gets you.

You are going to feel so much better after the first few weeks! Within a month you'll be able to breath again in a way you forgot you could. You'll smell better. You'll be richer. You'll be so proud of yourself.

Your AV will be very active at first - but you will be armed with AVRT and it should be easy to recognize since it's only ever after one thing.

How are things MG? I'm gonna make another go of quitting cold turkey.. I've been doing this too long and it's just time.

We're with you, MG.

Please keep us posted with your efforts.

We wish you 100% success.

I packed up the fags some 5 years ago now. At first i used the nicotine spray whenever i wanted a cigarette and over 6 months i used it less and less until i found it at the bottom of my bag one day and realised i hadnt used it for ages. Every now and again in the next 6 months i would get a moment were i thought bloody hell a fag would be nice but i never had one. I think for me to get to the point where i didnt ever even think about cigarettes at all was about 2 years after quitting. Cant imagine smoking now. You need to starve it and then it goes away. Like a tapeworm!

I am completely off the nicotine, but wasn't strong enough to fight or dismiss the craving to smoke. I caved on the 6th day and have been smoking nicotine free green tea cigarettes. I thought the craving was from nicotine withdrawal but it's not. I'm fine without the nicotine now. Cold turkey was the right way to go for that. I just have to figure out the rest.

Breathing the particulates that result from combustion is one if not the largest health risk.
I’m a dedicated vaper for at least five years now and have not stopped using nicotine. Anecdotally I can attest to improved breathing health, I can participate in physical activity without getting “winded” as I did while being a combustible tobacco user, cigarettes and premium cigars.
Nicotine use safety aside, the harm reduction from vaping comes from the water solubility of the particulates.
The ‘hand to mouth’ , tactile aspects are satisfied with the mechanics of vaping also. Not recommending vaping for vaping sake , but health wise it is less harmful.
Check out the Sober Vapers threads here on SR for some really good links and info on the science behind the harm reduction.

As a non smoker and non vaper, I'm going to say, "Why pick up another silly habit?"

Vaping is one of those things I don't understand, though. I wouldn't want to go from one bondage to another. It's an expense, you have to keep track of that thing, it looks silly. Is it allowed in buildings? I'll give you that it is maybe more healthy to the lungs (though I don't know that as a fact) but it is AV to believe it is something you need - and nicotine is still a drug and possible to be addicted.

One risk that vaping carries is the risk to oral health. Gum recession in particular. And receding gums lead to other potential oral health issues. It's not much better than smoking in that respect. I've read that people who switch from smoking to vaping wind up vaping more nicotine than they smoked.

Reduction is the operative word, but vaping is not harmless.

In some respects no thing is harmless, and I stress the reduction aspect. The 'best' or only 'candidates' for vaping are current smokers. I use/enjoy nicotine not against my better judgement, some would call that denial , lol.

I'm on day 4 of no cigarettes/nicotine or substitutes. It's going to stick this time I'm making sure of that. And I feel more calm about it than I did on my first attempt.. it just feels right, like the last thorn of addiction is being removed.

There are of course other addictive behaviors I must be careful about.. mainly eating too much sugar at this point. Weight loss was my favorite part of quitting drinking and I'm not willing to gain it back.

Anyway in all honesty the thing I don't like about vaping or other substitutes is that to me I feel like it would be easier to justify having a real cigarette at some point.. like "I'm already doing this what's the harm in just one". Of course I know that's not the case for many many people though.

I really tried with no substitutes. I think that's the best way to go. It got me off the nicotine. I can't vape. It gives me horrid anxiety. I must be allergic to it or something. Even zero nicotine caused anxiety. I'm going to try to reduce these green tea cigarettes in a couple of weeks when I know all the nicotine is out of my system. I'm smoking about half of what I was smoking. It would be so nice to be free from all of it.

Quitting smoking was the best decision I ever made. It wasn't easy but keeping busy and yelling at myself "NOT AN OPTION" each time I craved, got me through it.

I am cheering you on, MG, and promise you that in time, you won't want a cigarette and the urges will disappear. Cross my heart. For me it took about 6 months, cold turkey and not so much as a puff.

Go MG! :c014:

Pick something you would like to treat yourself to but won't because you think it's a bit too expensive then for every time you don't buy a pack of smokes put the money in a jar.... watch it grow and before you know it, you ll have the money for that new tablet or that fabulous (and expensive) jacket.

https://s31.postimg.cc/fi4ifai2z/money.jpg

I knocked off the cigarettes about 15 years ago. The whole idea, like with booze, was to give up for good.

The withdrawals/cravings were really bad but died down over the course of a few weeks. Then something began happening which I didn’t connect to the smoking until several years later. I became angry, short tempered, irritable. It was serious enough for me to talk to the doc about it. He diagnosed clinical depression, and offered what doctors offer. No use to me.

It cleared up after about three years then one day a friend told me of a similar experience. She quit smoking and went through three years of hell too.

So what was really going on? Once the physical addiction was dealt with I was left with the reason I smoked. It was to deal with stress, like a safety valve, if I felt pressurized, a cigarette would relieve the pressure.

When there was no safety valve, the pressure built until I exploded, figuratively speaking. Much like alcohol had been my solution to life, cigarettes had been my solution to anger, and when I stopped, it all came out.

Coincidentally, relief from the diagnosed depression came at about the same time I became more active in AA. I had been having a little holiday there too.

This is the method my father used to quit smoking almost 40 years ago. One day he got sick (flu or something) and just didn't feel like smoking. He was a 3+ pack a day smoker (Benson and Hedges) at the time. After that he just socked away the money he would have spent on smokes and it was a little "mad money" for him. He continued doing this for probably 10 years. Eventually he was in a financial position that it wasn't that big of a deal to have the extra cigarette money, but by then it was a pretty ingrained habit, He hasn't picked up a smoke since that day

MG,

I’m glad you found Allen Carr’s book helpful. His alcohol book is what gave me the kick to finally put that poison down. Once I made the connection that alcohol did nothing positive for me, I was done.