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No. You will have to quit . It will be the hardest thing you ever do. You may have to quit drinking for a while to be able to do it. They begin to control your life. They own you. I talked myself into resenting their control over me and after several attempts I quit.
We just had a patient, early 40’s admitted for chest pains. He received two stents and got the lecture. No more smoking and back off of the fast food diet.
My best friends do and they’ve tried to quit of course, but they just can’t. It really impacts how they travel, where they can stay, they are really tied to it. In a stranglehold, really. I worry for them, but they’re in their 60"s and still ok. For now.
I started smoking at 15, tried to give up a few times, and managed 2 years before relapsing. I got a rare cancer at 56 and have given up for 3 years now..
My dear aunt’s last words to me were "give up the fags". Her sister (another aunt) died waiting for a double lung transplant. I’m going to need to lose a lung before I quit. Too stupid for words!
I smoked for almost 40 years. Hand rolled, no filter. I tried to quit a number of times and was successful once for about 2 years. I still had a lot of cravings though. My wife quit with me but started smoking again which led to me starting up again.
Then in 2020 I got a green light to get a badly needed back surgery where they needed to do a bunch of bone grafts. The surgeon said that Nicotine eats the bone grafts and I needed to quit and take a blood test showing my system clear of Nicotine two weeks prior.
That was the one that stuck for me. I have not had a smoke in 4 1/2 years and don’t have any cravings either. My wife again quit with me but started again not long after.
When my adult kids ask me, what is my biggest regret, I would say "starting smoking". So unnesseraryI! I don’t regret anaything else in my live. I loved to be clever, but I was irresponsisple…
.. and unresponsible, as i am, I keep on going with the bad and old oddities.
I quit approximately 14 years ago after a week in ICU with lung problems. I smoked for about 42 years.
My husband quit for a few years and started back 4 years ago . Both he and my cousin are long-term smokers with no desire to quit. It’s worrisome, but there’s nothing I can do .
At some points, yes. I’ve been completely tobacco free for around a year and a half now though. I smoked my first cigarette at 11 years old and my last at 51. I feel far better having quit, but I do still get a craving from time to time. A lot of my friends and family smoke, and I have felt like asking for a puff occasionally, but that’s how I restarted last time. With COPD, it’s not worth it for me whatsoever. I have a wee joint, dab or dry herb vape roughly once a month, but never with tobacco and I mostly take edibles now.
Knew someone who was an inveterate smoker who went through hell to quit. She was successful until her older, much adored brother entered hospice where he died of lung cancer. The stress of his death caused her to, you guessed it, take up smoking again.
Wasn’t that much longer that she was diagnosed with emphysema, COPD, and then lung cancer. After the relapse into smoking, she just gave up trying to quit and kept puffing away, gasping for air but still smoking even while on oxygen. Chemo made her so sick that she just gave up and got hospice in to make her last few weeks ‘comfortable’. I think she was about 71 y/o.
I quit June 2002 after 20 years of smoking and several attempts to quit. 3 different times I had quit for over a year and started again. I’m glad I kept trying.
I am resigned to knowing it will always be a struggle inside me, to smoke or not to smoke . I have gone years and it feels like I am still grieving it.
I thought I was. But then I decided I wanted to get used to replacing an occasional cig with nicotine gum, as it took forever to get to the smoking area at work. It was just going to be at work.
But I did it so slowly it didn’t bother me then suddenly I realized if I gave up my morning cig and evening cig I’d be a total non-smoker. That was kind of difficult but I did it. That was 2019.
Quit cold turkey in 1991. Wife did too. Made a difference for the kids, neither of whom smoke. It was very hard, you go from getting through the next minute, to 5 min, to 15 min, etc. Took me 3 years to stop dreaming of smoking. My mother quit around 1995. She is still living at age 87, but has lung cancer that so far has been treated with radiation. I think she saw at least another decade by quitting.
I started smoking at eight and quit at forty. Many, many failed attempts over the years, but when we bought our first home I toughed it out. I was not smoking in my new home; I did not want to be a smoker anymore. I guess my reason for quitting finally outweighed my reasons for smoking.
The cost alone gave me motivation to quit. I gave tens of thousands of dollars to big tobacco. I’ll never line their pockets again. You get to decide
If you want to quit. Choose wisely.
I have smoked for 61 years. Started when I was 11.
I won’t say I have quit, but have not had 1 since February 2nd of this year.
I won’t say I have quit because that is bad JU JU.
I am tearing the hell out of nicotine gum.
The damage is done. No changing that. But I am not coughing up my lungs every 30 seconds.
Smoked cigarettes from 1997 until 2023. I loved being around a woman who didn’t like smoking. So I just stopped buying cigarettes and refused to bum any.
I think about cigarettes all the time.
I just don’t.
I do regularly take big fatty dabs and will smoke cannabis socially.
I am now supremely aware of all the smells.
Cigarette smokers:
ya’ll fuckin REEK.
I don’t care what kind of ritual you perform, it does fuck all.
Nah. I (M69) quit smoking in my late 50’s and went to vaping. In the last couple of months I quit that. Took me long enough, but the nicotine addiction is something that is a bitch to contend with.
After 30 years,I managed to quit 10 years ago. I quit smoking at least 10 times and relapsed every time. I finally quit forever when my daughter had a meltdown when she caught me smoking. I haven’t thought about it for years and have no desire for them anymore.
I quit smoking probably 6 years ago after smoking for 40+ years. It became such a hassle and so expensive. I also don’t want emphysema. I am however still a nicotine addict. I suck on lozenges throughout the day. I need to wean myself off those too.
I absolutely loved smoking cigarettes. I never attempted quitting. Then I went to NYC in February 2020 and got stuck there for 3 years. I knew I couldn’t smoke in my mom’s house, and going outside would have involved getting dressed, getting on the elevator, going outside, and crossing the street. I determined I had to quit smoking.
I told myself that it was a breakup. I told cigarettes that I loved them, but they were not good for me. I would fake smoke with my fingers when the cravings became hard. About a month later, I was over it, and no more cravings! I’m lucky I know.
All of you trying to quit or stay that way my heart goes out to you but also my admiration! Just keep it up as it is the single most impactful action you can take for your health. If you don’t succeed, don’t give up! Try try again. Studies show it often takes multiple attempts to finally kick it. And it gets a little easier each time. Just try a new approach and something will work eventually. It’s so worth it!
Signed: Ex-smoker who quit in her 30’s and who lost 2 best friends-one to lung cancer and the other to COPD. Both regretted smoking.
Am 71. I quit cold turkey in 2012. Now I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes or that pissy skunk smell of marijuana. Now, alcohol is a different story.
I used to tell people I’d quit smoking about "three days before my funeral". I smoked for 35 years before finally quitting about 8 years ago.
Why’d I quit? I was tired of it. How’d I quit? I may be the only person in the world who actually quit smoking by tapering off. It took me two years, but eventually I was smoking so little I was no longer physically addicted by the time I quit.
I’ve quit twice, once for 6 months, once for 8 years. My husband was more of a social smoker, smoked at home with my cigs, didn’t carry a pack. During my 8-year quit, yes, my lungs felt better, but had insomnia like crazy and had crazy anxiety about it. I finally gave up and started again. 43 years of smoking.
My primary asked if I wanted to be part of a lung cancer screening program for people who have smoked 40 or more years. I get an annual CT scan, which might give me a better heads-up if something’s wrong. So far, just some wear-and-tear, see ya next year.
Not sure if I’m technically old enough to be posting but I quit in 2016 after smoking over half my life, nearly 20 years. And I was a heavy smoker for about a decade, at least a pack a day more like pack and a half most days.
Anyhow, I came across the book by Allen Carr, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking or something to that effect. I read it and it truly helped. I haven’t had so much as a puff since the day I quit and I haven’t wanted to. I suggest this book to anyone who so much as hints at wanting to quit smoking and I know at least three people personally who have successfully quit after reading it.
We quit at 45 and 50 years old. Just had enough and too expensive. We didn’t want to end our days attached to an oxygen tank. Weirdly, if I pretend to hold a cigarette and take a puff it feels really good.
I found great success switching it out for less harmful alternatives so I don’t feel as much pressure to give that up. Swedish snus is effective for many and from the research I’m aware of it’s a lot less dangerous.
Not me. I had to have hip surgery twice in 2 months. I coded when they were sewing me up after the second one. No evidence of heart or lung disease, they concluded it was the stress of smoking. I haven’t smoked in 20 years and 3 weeks and have lived to see 2 precious grandsons come into the world.
Yes. But I have less desire than ever to smoke. Other things get my attention and I forget about smoking.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But I fully expected to lose the desire at some point in a pretty organic and natural way. I’m not sure why. It just seems like what happens with me.
The love of my life quit smoking at the age of 21, he died at 55 after we were only together two and a half years. He asked me to quit smoking before I moved in with him, I did. After he died I realized it doesn’t matter what you do so I started smoking again. I turn 65 next month and I know I will smoke until I die.
I’m over five years clean after forty five plus years of nicotine addiction. I honestly don’t miss it anymore I am in a much better place physically and mentally but I know I will always be an addict, and one smoke will be my downfall.
I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, and never will after watch my mother lose a leg to a blood clot caused by her smoking and unmanaged diabetes. For the last 15 years I have been forced by default to take care of her as she smoked herself into severe COPD and now metastatic lung cancer. If she ends up blowing up her oxygen tank by smoking next to it, then that’s on her.
Yes! I gave hypnotism a try, thought it was BS and haven’t had a cigarette or craving since that appointment 5.5 years ago. I honestly still can’t believe it.
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Yeah no those people are dead. The ones of us left most likely quit.
My ex’s mom is in her 90s and has been smoking for like 70 years. His family has mad genes.
No. You will have to quit . It will be the hardest thing you ever do. You may have to quit drinking for a while to be able to do it. They begin to control your life. They own you. I talked myself into resenting their control over me and after several attempts I quit.
A cigar a week. Wife looks ar me, as I leave the apartment, loke I am going to kill someone. But its an hour to myself.
Ugh, no.
Never smoked, ever. I was born in the 1960’s and everyone around me, it felt like, was smoking.
Parent’s, grandparents, aunts and uncles, coaches, the priest at my church, teachers.
Parent’s of my friends.
Hell, my sister began smoking when she was 12 and I was 14.
Many of my high school teachers smoked in class at their desks (high school 1981 to 1985).
Never smoked got cancer in my lungs.
I had resigned myself. 45 years at three packs a day, I thought I was hopeless.
But somehow I managed to quit last January. It’s been over a year now. I still crave the damn things, but I’m stronger than the craving.
I know very few old people who smoke cigarettes. Cannabis is a whole other story.
We just had a patient, early 40’s admitted for chest pains. He received two stents and got the lecture. No more smoking and back off of the fast food diet.
My best friends do and they’ve tried to quit of course, but they just can’t. It really impacts how they travel, where they can stay, they are really tied to it. In a stranglehold, really. I worry for them, but they’re in their 60"s and still ok. For now.
Yup. I love smoking.
I started smoking at 15, tried to give up a few times, and managed 2 years before relapsing. I got a rare cancer at 56 and have given up for 3 years now..
Naw! I woke up after smoking a pack a day for 10 years. Started coughing when I lit one up . Gave the pack away and haven’t smoked since 1987.
My dear aunt’s last words to me were "give up the fags". Her sister (another aunt) died waiting for a double lung transplant. I’m going to need to lose a lung before I quit. Too stupid for words!
nope. Best thing I ever did was quitting smoking – also the hardest thing.
Yup
I quit 3 years ago after 25 years. I just got to the point they don’t smell good if I am around someone that is smoking.
I was, until I switched to vaping a few years ago.
I smoked for almost 40 years. Hand rolled, no filter. I tried to quit a number of times and was successful once for about 2 years. I still had a lot of cravings though. My wife quit with me but started smoking again which led to me starting up again.
Then in 2020 I got a green light to get a badly needed back surgery where they needed to do a bunch of bone grafts. The surgeon said that Nicotine eats the bone grafts and I needed to quit and take a blood test showing my system clear of Nicotine two weeks prior.
That was the one that stuck for me. I have not had a smoke in 4 1/2 years and don’t have any cravings either. My wife again quit with me but started again not long after.
I’ve been smoking for 41 years, I’ve tried to quit with no success.
I stopped smoking 10 years ago. But, I won’t say that I’ve quit.
When my adult kids ask me, what is my biggest regret, I would say "starting smoking". So unnesseraryI! I don’t regret anaything else in my live. I loved to be clever, but I was irresponsisple…
.. and unresponsible, as i am, I keep on going with the bad and old oddities.
I quit approximately 14 years ago after a week in ICU with lung problems. I smoked for about 42 years.
My husband quit for a few years and started back 4 years ago . Both he and my cousin are long-term smokers with no desire to quit. It’s worrisome, but there’s nothing I can do .
no, I quit
I have quit 3x’s since 1982. I tell everyone we have three major vices. Smoking, drinking, and fucking.
I would gladly give up 2 forever if I could smoke with no side effects, this is how addictive smoking is and how much I love it.
Smoke free since 7/24 but I would trade for the other two in a heartbeat.
At some points, yes. I’ve been completely tobacco free for around a year and a half now though. I smoked my first cigarette at 11 years old and my last at 51. I feel far better having quit, but I do still get a craving from time to time. A lot of my friends and family smoke, and I have felt like asking for a puff occasionally, but that’s how I restarted last time. With COPD, it’s not worth it for me whatsoever. I have a wee joint, dab or dry herb vape roughly once a month, but never with tobacco and I mostly take edibles now.
Knew someone who was an inveterate smoker who went through hell to quit. She was successful until her older, much adored brother entered hospice where he died of lung cancer. The stress of his death caused her to, you guessed it, take up smoking again.
Wasn’t that much longer that she was diagnosed with emphysema, COPD, and then lung cancer. After the relapse into smoking, she just gave up trying to quit and kept puffing away, gasping for air but still smoking even while on oxygen. Chemo made her so sick that she just gave up and got hospice in to make her last few weeks ‘comfortable’. I think she was about 71 y/o.
"They" say that quitting smoking is harder than quitting heroin. I quit one, no need to quit the other.
Quitting was the best thing I did.
Switched to vaping. Now only hit it about 4 times a day.
I quit June 2002 after 20 years of smoking and several attempts to quit. 3 different times I had quit for over a year and started again. I’m glad I kept trying.
I am resigned to knowing it will always be a struggle inside me, to smoke or not to smoke . I have gone years and it feels like I am still grieving it.
I thought I was. But then I decided I wanted to get used to replacing an occasional cig with nicotine gum, as it took forever to get to the smoking area at work. It was just going to be at work.
But I did it so slowly it didn’t bother me then suddenly I realized if I gave up my morning cig and evening cig I’d be a total non-smoker. That was kind of difficult but I did it. That was 2019.
Quit cold turkey in 1991. Wife did too. Made a difference for the kids, neither of whom smoke. It was very hard, you go from getting through the next minute, to 5 min, to 15 min, etc. Took me 3 years to stop dreaming of smoking. My mother quit around 1995. She is still living at age 87, but has lung cancer that so far has been treated with radiation. I think she saw at least another decade by quitting.
I started smoking at eight and quit at forty. Many, many failed attempts over the years, but when we bought our first home I toughed it out. I was not smoking in my new home; I did not want to be a smoker anymore. I guess my reason for quitting finally outweighed my reasons for smoking.
The cost alone gave me motivation to quit. I gave tens of thousands of dollars to big tobacco. I’ll never line their pockets again. You get to decide
If you want to quit. Choose wisely.
I have smoked for 61 years. Started when I was 11.
I won’t say I have quit, but have not had 1 since February 2nd of this year.
I won’t say I have quit because that is bad JU JU.
I am tearing the hell out of nicotine gum.
The damage is done. No changing that. But I am not coughing up my lungs every 30 seconds.
Surrounded by smokers growing up in 80s Oklahoma.
Smoked cigarettes from 1997 until 2023. I loved being around a woman who didn’t like smoking. So I just stopped buying cigarettes and refused to bum any.
I think about cigarettes all the time.
I just don’t.
I do regularly take big fatty dabs and will smoke cannabis socially.
I am now supremely aware of all the smells.
Cigarette smokers:
ya’ll fuckin REEK.
I don’t care what kind of ritual you perform, it does fuck all.
Your hair. Your hands. Your clothes.
I can’t believe people even start smoking.
I am 63 and have never smoked anything legal or illegal.
Have never even tried coffee.
I’m so proud to say I’m 70 and never smoked a day in my life!
I haven’t smoked all day. Maybe today is the day I quit. Did anyone else just not smoke?
Nah. I (M69) quit smoking in my late 50’s and went to vaping. In the last couple of months I quit that. Took me long enough, but the nicotine addiction is something that is a bitch to contend with.
Quit a year ago after 45 years. I’m doing well most of the time, but dream of cigarettes. Almost every night.
I quit 25 years ago, but I recognise that I will be a smoker for the rest of my life. Every day I choose not to indulge.
Resigned? Saying it like I don’t enjoy my cigars
60 years now. I’ve quit probably 100 times and I’m really good at it. My problem is, I always start again.
I am smoking right now
I’d be dead by now if I kept on
After 30 years,I managed to quit 10 years ago. I quit smoking at least 10 times and relapsed every time. I finally quit forever when my daughter had a meltdown when she caught me smoking. I haven’t thought about it for years and have no desire for them anymore.
I quit smoking probably 6 years ago after smoking for 40+ years. It became such a hassle and so expensive. I also don’t want emphysema. I am however still a nicotine addict. I suck on lozenges throughout the day. I need to wean myself off those too.
I quit after after 45 years and one heart attack it’s tough
Yes, but I still have hope
I absolutely loved smoking cigarettes. I never attempted quitting. Then I went to NYC in February 2020 and got stuck there for 3 years. I knew I couldn’t smoke in my mom’s house, and going outside would have involved getting dressed, getting on the elevator, going outside, and crossing the street. I determined I had to quit smoking.
I told myself that it was a breakup. I told cigarettes that I loved them, but they were not good for me. I would fake smoke with my fingers when the cravings became hard. About a month later, I was over it, and no more cravings! I’m lucky I know.
All of you trying to quit or stay that way my heart goes out to you but also my admiration! Just keep it up as it is the single most impactful action you can take for your health. If you don’t succeed, don’t give up! Try try again. Studies show it often takes multiple attempts to finally kick it. And it gets a little easier each time. Just try a new approach and something will work eventually. It’s so worth it!
Signed: Ex-smoker who quit in her 30’s and who lost 2 best friends-one to lung cancer and the other to COPD. Both regretted smoking.
Am 71. I quit cold turkey in 2012. Now I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes or that pissy skunk smell of marijuana. Now, alcohol is a different story.
I used to tell people I’d quit smoking about "three days before my funeral". I smoked for 35 years before finally quitting about 8 years ago.
Why’d I quit? I was tired of it. How’d I quit? I may be the only person in the world who actually quit smoking by tapering off. It took me two years, but eventually I was smoking so little I was no longer physically addicted by the time I quit.
I’ve quit twice, once for 6 months, once for 8 years. My husband was more of a social smoker, smoked at home with my cigs, didn’t carry a pack. During my 8-year quit, yes, my lungs felt better, but had insomnia like crazy and had crazy anxiety about it. I finally gave up and started again. 43 years of smoking.
My primary asked if I wanted to be part of a lung cancer screening program for people who have smoked 40 or more years. I get an annual CT scan, which might give me a better heads-up if something’s wrong. So far, just some wear-and-tear, see ya next year.
I quit in 2002. I started in 1972. Where there’s a will there’s a way. I used self-hypnosis. Cold turkey.
Heck no. That is nasty. Just stop it.
Smoked for 32 years. I was really good at it. Quit September 2015, just stopped, I’d had my share of cigarettes.
Not sure if I’m technically old enough to be posting but I quit in 2016 after smoking over half my life, nearly 20 years. And I was a heavy smoker for about a decade, at least a pack a day more like pack and a half most days.
Anyhow, I came across the book by Allen Carr, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking or something to that effect. I read it and it truly helped. I haven’t had so much as a puff since the day I quit and I haven’t wanted to. I suggest this book to anyone who so much as hints at wanting to quit smoking and I know at least three people personally who have successfully quit after reading it.
I quit 30+ years ago. I haven’t craved one in a long time, maybe 20 years, but once in a while I still dream I’m smoking one.
Weed, yes
Giving up tobacco was transformative but even now I have about a cigarette a week
We quit at 45 and 50 years old. Just had enough and too expensive. We didn’t want to end our days attached to an oxygen tank. Weirdly, if I pretend to hold a cigarette and take a puff it feels really good.
I found great success switching it out for less harmful alternatives so I don’t feel as much pressure to give that up. Swedish snus is effective for many and from the research I’m aware of it’s a lot less dangerous.
Just cannabis.
Not me. I had to have hip surgery twice in 2 months. I coded when they were sewing me up after the second one. No evidence of heart or lung disease, they concluded it was the stress of smoking. I haven’t smoked in 20 years and 3 weeks and have lived to see 2 precious grandsons come into the world.
My late mom did exactly that 🙁
Yes. But I have less desire than ever to smoke. Other things get my attention and I forget about smoking.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But I fully expected to lose the desire at some point in a pretty organic and natural way. I’m not sure why. It just seems like what happens with me.
The love of my life quit smoking at the age of 21, he died at 55 after we were only together two and a half years. He asked me to quit smoking before I moved in with him, I did. After he died I realized it doesn’t matter what you do so I started smoking again. I turn 65 next month and I know I will smoke until I die.
I’m over five years clean after forty five plus years of nicotine addiction. I honestly don’t miss it anymore I am in a much better place physically and mentally but I know I will always be an addict, and one smoke will be my downfall.
I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, and never will after watch my mother lose a leg to a blood clot caused by her smoking and unmanaged diabetes. For the last 15 years I have been forced by default to take care of her as she smoked herself into severe COPD and now metastatic lung cancer. If she ends up blowing up her oxygen tank by smoking next to it, then that’s on her.
Yes….still smoke. Always knew the risk but really liked the idea of the Karens of this world staying VERY far away from me.
Yes! I gave hypnotism a try, thought it was BS and haven’t had a cigarette or craving since that appointment 5.5 years ago. I honestly still can’t believe it.