I’ve been smoking for 10 years, since I was 14. I’ve improved every aspect of my life. Lost 170lbs, I workout daily with cardio. Quit using recreational drugs and only drink a couple times a year. But I CAN’T for the life of me quit smoking. And it’s starting to have a negative effect on me climbing up stairs at work. I am 24 and I find it nuts that I should be wheezing after 8 or 12 flights.
If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it.
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If you have decent health insurance, I highly recommend Champix by Pfizer. I quit in 2019 after over 25 years of smoking, and it was surprising how easy it was to quit cold turkey. In fact, as you take the medication, they tell you to keep smoking, and you do, until you just don’t want to. Champix is known to have some side effects for certain people, I think the biggest thing is nightmares, and indigestion, but if you don’t get any side effects, then it is quite easy to quit.
I don’t know how much it would cost in the US. Here in Korea, our national health insurance covers it, so you get it for free, and in fact, if you are able to quit, they even give you a little stipend of like 20 bucks.
I quit in 2019 and have not picked up a smoke since.
I have a few friends who quit after learning meditation (TM).
One friend said he’d tried for years to give up, but in the end – after doing TM twice a day for some months – the cigarettes ‘gave him up’ (meaning: he felt he no longer had to struggle to try to quit, it happened naturally).
Sample research study here…
“The role of the TM technique in promoting smoking cessation:
-A longitudinal study’
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-14962-001
I managed to quit in December after 20 years. I don’t have any good advice though because the first two weeks or so I was sick as hell and nothing helped. I literally felt like I had the flu and couldn’t sleep for days. Tried to substitute with a vape and tbh it didn’t help much at all. Finally got through it and now it’s been a little over 3 months. Still crave them every single day.
Its best to switch to something like nicotine pouches. It eliminates the need to go outside and light a cigarette. Which is the best way of brakin the habbit imo. Smoked since i was 14-15 and stopped at 22. Did a 1 year transition from smoking to both smoking and pouches, to only pouches, to completely stopping everything.
Smoker for 24 years. Bupoprione helped me reduce, but I just went back to the usual amount after a while. Tried to quit cold turkey too, lasted eleven days that were pure torture. Vapes only gave me the illusion that I could smoke anywhere, and I still had to have a regular cig after meals. Basically… I gave up. This shit will get the best of me.
Start smoking crack
I had smoked since 15, cut down from pack a day to half and then less by my late 30s but NEEDED those 3-4 smokes a day and had a lot of trouble staying quit (other than switching to vaping which of course has its own issues).
Buproprion combined with the patch knocked the addiction right out of me so shockingly fast, I almost wasn’t ready for it. During the course of this combined treatment, I went from a once daily to weekly to every now and then to never. And at some point just took myself off the Buproprion when I sensed “it was time”.
I think in the last 3 months, I bummed 1 or 2 and found them absolutely nauseating. So even when I have the urge now, I retch a bit and move on.
Highly recommended if your doctor agrees.
Bupropion/Wellbutrin. I smoked a pack a day for over a decade and now I’m down to 3 cigarettes a day with quitting completely soon in my future. It’s absolutely cut my cravings for nicotine and I now do it mostly by habit.
There’s some medications that can block withdrawal, I quit when I was your age and replaced cigarettes with Swedish Snus. I know it’s been popular with some Americans, you can look it into it, it seems to be slightly more effective than some other OTC nicotine replacements. It’s not harmless, but it’s less harmful by a pretty substantial margin. It may then be easier to lay off the Snus eventually, but in the meantime you’ll have less impact on your lungs, cardio and sense of smell etc. Do not get it confused with chewing tobacco and snuff, those are fermented differently and have been shown to be more likely to cause cancer than the Swedish variety.
If you try it, get the ones in little pouches and get the ones labeled “white”.
As for the transition, which I imagine applies to quitting any other way, I made a schedule of when to smoke basically. Starting with 1 per hour, which should be doable for most people, then 1 every 1.5 hours, then every 2 hours etc until I was down to 4 cigarettes per day, then I switched fully.
I was smoking about one packet per day (20) and sometimes more before then, started around age of 13-14, am 38 now and haven’t smoked since I was 24-25.
Allen Carr clinics hypnotherapy worked for me – 3 times!!! The final one stuck and the previous 2 relapses were completely down to my self-sabotage!
Hardest thing I ever done.
If you can make three days It gets easier. After two weeks, you’re pretty much there.
Good luck
Honestly, you simply Have Not decided to quit yet. To change Anything in your life, first you must change your mind. It’s a simple decision, quit or not.