Were you a smoker? How in hell did you manage to quit? Were you horribly racked with guilt? Have you ever been addicted to anything and managed to quit?

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

Answers

I smoked - I quit cold turkey.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

As a corollary, I'd like to ask how you ever got started smoking in the first place. I've never smoked, but my brothers and sister all did, and my dad used to smoke a pipe. I know and work with lots of people who smoke. It seems the common theme is they started because either it was the popular thing to do among their friends or because their parents or siblings smoked. Why did you start?

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I started because it was cool when I was in high school. Now I obviously know better and feel like a complete chump every time I light up. I'm not a heavy duty smoker, about 6 or 7 a day, but it's still smoking and a gross thing to do. It's an evil substance and an evil industry.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I started in highschool too for the same reason (it was just so cool). I quite twice for 18 months at a time because of pregnancies/nursing. Now I'm back to about 5 a day. It truly is an addiction - I dreamt about smoking while I was pregnant. I quit by cutting a few out a day until I was down to one or two, then stopped. I also restricted places that I could smoke (not in the house or the car)and that seemed to help. I'm in quitting mode again now, but just can't seem to do it.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I started smoking at age 12 or 13 and smoked for the next 38 years. I didn't smoke as a got-to-have-it habit until I was 16 or 17, though. I started smoking because all of my obnoxious little buddies did and all the adults I knew did. About the last 10 years or so I smoked a pipe because it left my hands free to type, etc. and I got tired of paying for cigarettes I would light and then let burn in an ashtray while I wrote. I inhaled the pipe. I smoked a blend I made myself of 1/2 Prince Albert and 1/2 Captain Black. I was diagnosed with emphysema three years ago and quit cold turkey. I still suck on an empty pipe, but the craving is 99% gone. The first three days were jittery hell, but I took a friend's advice and it helped immensely. He said it would be 5 days until I was technically free of the addiction and desperate craving and to speed the process I could drink water constantly, eat a lot of fruit, avoid coffee, and take as many steam baths as I could fit in each day. I started at five a day. The first two days, I sweated nicotine. My friend proved this to me by wiping my skin with a white cloth and showing me the dark yellowish-brown color of my sweat. I smelled it ...it was nicotine. By the end of the third day, it was light yellow. I was feeling better, sleeping better, waking up better and and was feeling a new vigor in my er, uh, libido. The person who said that after you quit smoking, the smell of burning tobacco will make you ill is a filthy liar. When I smell burning tobacco, I want some. I'm glad I quit. When I get tight from alcohol, I will occassionally have a resurgence of the craving. Most of my friends still smoke and I have ashtrays in the office and in my home. Stopping smoking was a personal thing, not a crusade. Mark Twain once remarked that he didn't quit bad habits "because of good sense, good breeding or even common courtesy...it takes an act of providence." Ditto. If I could smoke tomorrow and still breathe freely, I would do it in a heartbeat. I've tried every drug you can name, never injected any, but I didn't do any of them to the point where they became a problem. I always remember an interview with Grace Slick, where she was showing the reporter around her home and he said "Why do you have two medicine cabinets in the bathroom? And she replied, "Well, that one is for when I'm sick...and THAT one...is for recreation. :-}

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I have two medicine cabinets in my bathroom, but that's just how the house was designed. *shrug*

I'm not an addictive personality. I can take or leave alcohol and nicotine and so on. I've gone for years without an alcoholic beverage and I've had a drink or three every weekend for multiple weekends in a row, and I feel the same either way. I've never been drunk--the most I can claim is tipsy--nor have I ever had a hangover.

I have a lot of friends who smoke. Two of my local exes are or were smokers. (One has quit since we went out.) In my purse I have a case with some very old clove cigarettes inside. Occasionally I have a yen for one and smoke it. I probably go through 1-2 packs a YEAR. During the winter, mostly, as they elevate my low blood pressure and raise my usually below-normal body temperature. It gives me something to do with my hands. If I get smoke on my clothes, then I reek of cloves (not so bad) as opposed to someone else's cigarettes (gross). Not one of these things is a good reason to smoke anything, but why bother at all if they aren't the least big pleasurable? I certainly don't get a kick from the cloves themselves, nor the negligible amount of tobacco they are mixed with. I also have smoked most often (if you can call it "often") at Britpop Night, where I'm also dancing for four-six hours without a break. My lungs don't hurt after a cigarette and dance marathon, but my feet sure do. Not that I'm deluding myself--I know that even one cigarette of any description is horribly unhealthy. Just like a hamburger, driving too fast, a shot of bourbon and so on. It's the cumulative effect you have to beware of.

I don't consider myself 'a smoker' and would be annoyed if someone else put me in that category. Even so, I don't berate smokers, though. I know things like sugary foods are bad for me, and it is hard to totally eliminate them from my diet. I guess this is where I fail to understand it: unlike sugary foods, you can avoid going into places that sell cigarettes and alcohol. It seems like you really have to make a special effort to acquire the stuff for home use, you know? (I know that if I want a new pack of cloves, I might be out of luck if the one place I go to is out of "my brand". Or if they are closed, which they frequently are, since they are sold in a mini-tobacco shop located in the back part of a clothing store. At that point, I put off buying fresh cloves until I think about it again, which might be months later...)

I think the most comparable experience I have had is not with drinking or smoking but with being a carnivore. I gave that up for a while (before I got sick) and that involved a lot of guilt (when I slipped) and difficulty. And it had to be cold turkey. There is no "Meat Patch" or "Carnivorete" gum. If I got some microscopic amounts of meat in a sauce or by accident, I didn't flail or anything, but it also didn't trigger me into backsliding. When I *deliberately* ate something with meat, though, that was my undoing. I guess the equivalent would be to find a substitute for the cigs (gum) like I used tofu to substitute for meat. Hang with understanding friends (vegetarians or non-smokers). Avoid places that are bad for your resolve (McDonald's or smoky clubs). Other than that, I don't know what to tell you. I know a lot of people successfully quit, though, and if you really want to, you will. Good luck!

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

"Meat patch"...heehee. good one.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

Thanks. *grin*

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I started smoking when I was 14/15 because I wanted to cover up the pot smell on my breath. Better to be thought smoking cigs than dope first thing in the morning before first period. I wasn't addicted to them at first, could take them or leave them for quite some time, but it caught up to me. I smoked for about 16 years after that. I tried to quit when I was leaving my first husband but couldn't do it until I was a whole country apart from him. I stopped smoking for four years. But then we moved back to the same side of the world as my ex and I started up again. Went deep into the bowels of depression and smoked for a couple of years until I got pregnant. When I learned I was pregnant I simply stopped. I guess mother love did it. What was different about this time is that I haven't even wanted to smoke...whoops, I take that back...I will occasionally smoke if I'm drinking to the point of a buzz, but since I don't drink much that's not an issue for me. But other than that, I just don't want it anymore. Which is cool, because I hated wanting it and depriving myself. Cig smoke doesn't make me exactly "ill," but I don't take a deep breath when I pass by a smoker anymore either. It's just kinda stinky to me now.

I've never been addicted to anything else. I've done lots of different kinds of drugs, even freebased cocaine, but nothing ever stayed with me. Thank God. I have friends who have served jail time and must go to N.A. just to live their lives. I don't indulge in anything stronger than Nyquil anymore and even that's not recreational! (Except for my husband who thinks I'm funny on Nyquil)

I'm not sure why the nicotine addiction dissipated, it just did. When my life started making more sense and I had healed from being abused and when I was safe and things were good, I just didn't need them anymore. I enjoyed smoking, though, and sometimes I still would like to...but then I smell it and think, "Ew."

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

I started at 11 and He helped me quit when I was 41. I used the patch for about 5 days. I didn't kill anyone either so I guess the patch helps. All the other couple of hundred times I tried to quit, I could kill after 30 minutes. What was hard were the other drugs I had to quit. james

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

My brother (who lurks on this forum-keep reading little brother) and I both have addictive personalities. He has smoked forever, is very overweight and is starting to have heart problems. This is not good. He is 39 and we are both clones of our father, who didn't smoke and died horribly from complications from his second heart surgery. I don't say a thing. Both my brother and his wife are RNs. Oh yeah, they have three kids under the age of 8. I don't know how I managed, but I only became addicted to a prescribed drug. I take a super low dose of a benzodiazepine (Valium class) every night. I quit once, it wasn't 'posed to be a big deal, but I felt like crap, then my Dr. put me back on it again. Maybe it is just super hard for us to go through withdrawal. Good thing my brother and I never got addicted to anything else. But, I do wish he'd STOP SMOKING ERIC. About once every six months I'll smoke half a cigarette to get a buzz, anymore than that and I feel like throwing up. I quit doing anything 70's 'cause they gave me severe anxiety attacks (ha, maybe now I could load up on my benzo. and try again). And I can't drink a lot after I had mono. I think my liver quit making enough alcohol dehydrogenase to metabolize it. But I can have a glass or two of wine or beer. Just as well I suppose.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2000

I started smoking when I was 16 to lose weight(yeah I actually thought that if I smoked that I would become slim).But of course now I weigh alot more and I am afraid to quit.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2000

Milla, I've never been drunk, either. I didn't even taste an alcoholic beverage until I was 24, when I got engaged. I've never smoked anything, not even once, and I've never done any other kinds of drugs. Either I don't have an addictive personality (I don't think I do), or I'm scared that I do and so I don't want to tempt it and get started down some slippery slope. I was the youngest of several siblings and step-siblings, and I watched every single one of them do dumb things to varying degrees because of drugs or alcohol or whatever, then I watched every one of my friends do the same dumb things, and I guess I just figured I didn't want any part of it. Now, I drink until I'm silghtly dizzy, but then I stop. And that happens maybe once a month.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2000

LiBra, don't be afraid to quit. If we lived close I'd help you all I could. You don't get fat because you quit smoking. You get fat because you don't do anything to the oral part of the habit and eat everything in sight. Excersize will help get rid of the eating urge and take off any extra weight. And get the patch. James

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000

Honest to God, I haven't had a cigarette since I saw that 'Truth' ad in which fat is squished out of the aeorta of a dead smoker. It's been just a few days and I'm sure I'll cave again soon (who said, 'Quitting is easy. Not starting again is the hard part'?) but that...ick...is in my head, now, and it scared me. I am so easily led.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000

Artery. I meant artery, not aeorta. Loser.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000

I'm an on and off smoker. I can quit for months, even years and start right back up again. I haven't smoke for the last couple of months but I had one yesterday and today. I don't think that urge ever goes away.

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2000

I was a smoker. I was wracked with guilt - my mother is a palleative care nurse. I spent a lot of money on cigarettes, and it was truly giving me wrinkes on my face too. I kept getting bronchitis. My boyfriend nagged me to stop. I'd do anything to get more kisses!(I am a SOP!!!) and I am CHEAP! and I hate multi-nationals, and I hate being tricked and manipulated into being addicted and spending money. I decided Peter Stuyvesant could GET STUFFED, Benson & Hedges could PISS OFF, Marlboro could RACK OFF, and none of these bastards were going to kill me, and I would not ever be lying in a hospital bed with my family all around, on a respirator with 1/2 a lung thinking, "Oh gee.....maybe I should have quit smoking...oops."

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

My husband & I were both chain smokers for YEARS. We used to smoke Raleighs - they came with a coupon on each pack that you could mail in for merchandise. We got tons of stuff, including a vacuum cleaner! You can imagine how many coupons that took - thousands! It was disgusting! We burned holes in our car upholstery, our sheets, our sofa, our clothes, a tablecloth at a friend's house, sister-in- law's dress at a wedding, the list is endless. We were totally out of control. One day we realized that we had actually smoked an entire carton between us in one 24-hour period. What a jolt that was! We quit cold turkey right then. It was easy for some reason & we haven't gone back to it in more than 15 yrs. Now I can't stand being anywhere near smoke. It is so rude, gross & annoying, and stinks up your breath, hair & clothes in seconds!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

My boyfriend and I are going to get hypnotized on Tuesday night to quit smoking. I'm going to see if I can get a little "stop eating and exercise" hypnosis thrown in while we're at it. I'm really trying to stay positive and believe that this is going to work, but I admit I can't really imagine life without my beloved little buddies beside me every day. Maybe I need a pet. Are there any pets that you can smoke?

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2000

ewww in ever smoked!!! its gorss but brett did and it was lick kissing a ash tray yuk! i all ways mad him chew gum b4 we made out!!!

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

Robyn,

How about a Chia Pet with a certain variety of hemp? Just try not to "scalp" it too soon. :o)

-- Anonymous, December 06, 2000

For the record, I am still a smoker. I went for 21 hours without a cigarette. The heavens opened and shit poured down on me all day: computer problems, work problems, flat tire and no spare in downtown, and a LONG walk in the very cold back to my office. And I didn't smoke. Then I was in my office with the door closed sobbing and my boss walked in...poor guy looked like a deer caught in headlights. The humiliation on top of the stress on top of finding my "quitting partner" reeking of beer and cigarettes after an afternoon at the bar while I was having the worst day of my life-it was too many straws for this camel, so I smoked. And the smoke was good.

I decided to wait until after the holidays to quit smoking. I was absolutely disfunctional all day, and I can't understand how people get through that part. I was totally unsuitable for public consumption, it was a day-long panic attack. I've now been told that the herb lobelia helps, and I bought some herbal cigarettes (unfortunately the smell EXACTLY like pot, so I don't feel comforatable smoking them in the public eye). But quitting is weeks away and right now I have all my little friends back in my pocket where they belong.

And I'm going to look into that Chia thing-I remember a friend who had a Chia Jerry Garcia (who looked amazingly like a Chia David Crosby) and I always thought it would be so beautiful to grow your herb right there in Jerry's head.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2000