Well i cant beleive im saying this,but i have been smoke free now for 2 weeks,4 days,so guys,any tips on staying off the dreaded fags,i did it as soon as i got the flu,i felt ill,so stopped smoking,then had brohnchitous,then a cold so so far its been easy,everything does smell and taste better,i can really run well with stan already and even with a cold feel good,i have my inhalator if the cravings do hit me bad,but so far i get about 3 cravings a day,my lungs are really clearing out the tar(another reason to stop as its horrible whats coming out)i just dont want to fail,ok i did enjoy smoking,but i feel so much better now,no more chest pains,or coughing like a 90 year old,hehehehe,i do think waiting till the time was right really worked,
happy new year all
jo

Sorry no tips as I have never smoked, but just wanted to say well done and keep it up.
Jenny

brilliant keep going, cant give you tips because I  have never smoked but so wish my 18year would follow you lead.

Hi Jo you're  doing really brill I will tell you what my Doctor told me if you need to use the help of a patch or an inhaler, or the gum , for the first year of giving up then do so........ She had no problem with me doing that..... much better for me  than a stinky fag  lol
I gave up 4 yrs  ago and the benefits are huge there's just no down side to giving up it's just a win win
Keep up the good work and congratulations
Annie

well done, you'll be a lot wealthier as well as healthier!

WELL DONE :-D

sorry no tips, but what you have written yourself should keep you on track:

> i feel so much better now,no more chest pains,or coughing like a 90 year old

:)
Good on ya.
I'm a smoker and despite a bad case of bronchitis followed by tracheaitis (sp?) I still never found it in myself to give up. I think waiting for the right time is definately a good idea and your post has made me determined to give up one day (got to get in the right frame of mind first & I'm sure my new-years resolution to get fit & toned will be the kick-start I need).

Well Done JO!!!! :-D

I did it back in March, not sure how or why, but went on my lunch break to the supermarket and purchased an inhalator and patches and came out hating the smell of smoke(didn't last that long)
I've not touched a single one, but I have to tell you that there are some small hitches, one being 3 weeks, the next being around 6 months and now where ever I am, I'm gagging for a fag :-(, i'm thinking about it, dreaming about it...ugh!!!

I have no more capsules for the inhalator and you can't buy them on their own, which means another £20...

I got the pack from the NHS and they send a wall chart which I put up at work and there are stickers to help you along the way. I had my colleagues help me, many of which are ex smokers too.

I never really used the patches but the inhalator worked a treat as it allowed me to do something with my hands and I did chew on them a lot.
I don't see the extra money I have a month, nor do I notice anything else different, like smell or taste, but then I was on only 10 a day..
Only tonight was I talking again about starting back on them...?

thankyou everyone,
i really really hope i can keep it up.I gave it up on both pregnancies but started soon after they were born.I was thinking for a while about giving up,i am 29 and i was getting fast heart rate,terrible smokers cough,coughing up black tar in the mucus,chest and rib ache.Being a hyprochondriact as well,i was forever worried about cancer.I do feel better now,everything does smell and taste nicer,i feel healthier and i am alot less stressed,which is hard for me to comprehend and understand.I like the way i am not having any more pains,i like the way my day is not controlled by fags,i used to roll them and smoke roughly 12 to 20 a day.I think the testing time will be when i am completly over this cold,also if i get a really stressfull situation,i hope i dont wilt and give in.I have always stopped smoking when poorly,but always took it straight back up again when better.Its hard,as when you are quiting you tend to see alot of old smokers about and you start thinking,well i could smoke and make it till 80,or why struggle to give up as i could be hit by a bus tomorrow,but i think thats the fags talking lol.
I know that if i have a fag now,it will take me a while to get used to them again and also i wont quit until im ill again.I have not used the inhalator yet,but its in my pocket incase i am desperate,so far though,i have not wanted to use it.My partner smokes,so at the mo its hard as he is around me as he is on hols,i know he smokes outside but i can smell it !!
I know it will be a battle for the rest of my life,my neighbour is in his 80s and recently quit and he still fancies them,my mother in law quit about 10 years ago and still has a sneaky one and fancies them all the time.Maybe some one should invent something that looks,smells and feels like a fag but without the harmfull affects,they would be rich!!!
Anyway,fingers crossed i keep it up,only time will tell
jo

Well done -your dogs will thank you and stay healthier! :)

I knew I had to give up when the guy in the newsagents put 2 packs of 20 on the counter for me every morning. This was about 20 years ago and I'm not sure the craving ever goes entirely. If i started again I'm sure the first one would make me sick but I'd enjoy the 2nd one. It does help to be around other non smokers and you'll probably find a sweetie substitute, mine were aniseed balls & fishermans friends - it was them or chocolate, too fattening!

I had my last cigarette at 5pm on Monday 28th July 2008.  I still really, really want one.  It is only the money stopping me.  I am now not nearly so much in debt as I was.

I had tried 18 months previously to give up, and got free patches if I went to weekly meetings at my docs and saw a nurse.  There is nothing worse than a none smoker asking you how you feel.  And, when you say that you really want a fag, to be told in a silly girlish voice "oh no you don't".  After 5 months I stopped going because I would have killed her in the end.

Went out and bought 200 fags and smoked 3 on the trot.  I felt really, really good.  All my tension flew out of the window.  So it took me 18 months to have another shot at it, and I did it by myself.  After all the burns I had from patches, I tried nicotine gum.  It didn't taste anything like a cigarette, but I stuck a piece in my mouth every time I wanted a smoke.  I spent a lot of money on gum, and chewed it for 2 years before I had the nerve to go without.  I still feel the need to chew, as I would have a smoke otherwise, but at least it is ordinary spearmint chewing gum.

I have never had a smokers cough, and I have never brought up black tar, so have no idea what folk are talking about.  I had never had a chest infection either.  Had 3 since I packed up.  I do not feel healthier, and I can taste my food just the same as I always did.  My biggest problem is folk at work saying how much better I must feel.  And quite obviously don't believe me when I say that I don't.  In fact I feel loads worse from putting on so much weight.  Smoking 60 a day I felt much better than I do now.

Well done!!

My belief (and I must have tried to give up smoking twice to three times a year for the last t 10 years so I'm not trying to make out it was easy for me it wasn't) is if you go into it thinking you are missing out on some thing or telling yourself I CAN'T HAVE then I think you start to lose the battle
This thing about people living till their late 70s 80s who have smoked all their lives and have nothing wrong with them must be in the minority.... the Cancer wards are full of a lot younger people.... and I must be in the minority  for giving up smoking and not wanting a cig after the first 6 Months    I can honestly tell you I have never wanted one since, so don't be disheartened by the people who tell you that you will always  want a cig it doesn't have to be that way and every one as a different experience of their quit no two people are the same
Wishing you all the best on your quit

Joanne. Well done and keep up the good work. I'm going to try again as my New Years resolution, it will not be the first attempt but I'm hoping it will be the last. Best wishes.

Anyone who quits must want to do it rather than feel they must.

I'm very much like JeanSW in her outlook and also want to quote her but can't from an iPhone.

I've been through a huge amount of stress this year and even through that I've not had one, I'm stubborn which is the only thing stopping me going back as I hate letting myself down

well done you! Thinking back to when I gave up, take it one day at a time, see if you can 'fix' a different habit (e.g. when you would reach for your lighter, is there something else that you can do that takes its place), and be aware that the mind can play weird tricks on you--I woke up in a cold sweat about 6 months after giving up, thinking I could smell cigarette smoke in the room (not possible) and all I could think was how stupid to throw away 6 months' hard work...felt good when I realised it was just a bad dream though.

Not sure about patches--the reason being that if you smoke x amount per day normally, how sure are you that the patch isn't releasing x times 5 into your system--or whatever, but you see my point: are you replacing a level of addiction with something greater that will be harder to shake off.

all the best for a smoke free future :)

Well done Jo!

I gave up for 8 years while I had the kids and they were growing up, then when my first marriage ended I started again.  Stopped again 4 years ago (after trying about a million times!). I tried patches which helped, didn't fancy the gum, but one tip that really helped, which just sounded like a patronizingly simple thing to be told was when you had a craving for a cig was to just take a long slow breath in then out like you were inhaling your first drag.  Then go and do something else.

I know it sounds far too simple but it just did it for me.

This year is for getting the weight off - anyone any ideas for a cheese addiction????

> Not sure about patches--the reason being that if you smoke x amount per day normally, how sure are you that the patch isn't releasing x times 5 into your system--or whatever, but you see my point: are you replacing a level of addiction with something greater that will be harder to shake off.>
>

Most definitely not.  Even the highest level gum or patches is nowhere near the nicotine content that any smoker had been used to.  If I chewed a whole box of 96 gums it couldn't touch my 60 a day habit.

And the same goes for people who were only on 20 a day.  The release of nicotine from any help method used, is nothing in comparison to the cigarette.

And it's important to remember that, whatever method is chosen, you don't get the same ingredients as you would from your ciggie.  The chemicals are missing.

> the Cancer wards are full of a lot younger people....

We have to be fair here and say that lots of people, both young and old are in Cancer wards.  Many have never smoked.  Someone at work had advanced lung cancer, and died in her 40's.  She had never smoked in her life. I won't go on and mention everone I knew that died from cancer, but just feel that it's not fair to hide fact.

Hey well done you - I'm hoping to take the plunge soon not yet but soon.

Thankyou all so much for replying,i still dont want a fag,i agree,its when you say i dont want,not,i cant have,if i think i cant have one i do start wanting one lol.I am still coughing it up,i did look on a site about stop smoking and its beneifts and apparaently i can be lung clearing for 9 months!!!The other bit of info i was not too keen on was that it said it will take 25 years for me to have the same chance as a non smoker getting lung cancer etc,surely that cant be right,so i will check some other sites as well.I found it was always the thought of giving up thats hard,i also think waiting till i was ill was the best method
Thanks again
jo

Jo, get yourself a quit kit from the NHS, they are adding in free patches as from 1st Jan
http://smokefree.nhs.uk/quit-tools/quit-kit/
Its really worth having and get your family involved to with the planner.

You're doing really well, especially if your OH still smokes too :-)

If you have an iphone then download the NHS smokefree app too. I've been off them for 303 days and saved £929.50(I don't know where that money has gone??)

Stressful situations don't help so try and avoid them, also I avoided alcohol for a long time as they tend to go hand in hand. Thankfully you can't smoke inside pub's these days so when I did go into them it wasn't so hard as now you have to stand outside - I used to say its ok, they have heat lamps and oh to be social outside, lol.. Madness the things we come up with to have a smoke.. I smoked a lot when driving and also in the morning with my coffee, so I avoided the coffee for a while and made sure I had an inhalator attached to me lips during any car journey. :-D

Well i still have not smoked,BUT its getting blinken hard now that i am well and my girls are back to school,gosh i feel like im going through a beareavement,i dont miss the nicotine too bad(the cravings dont feel the same as when i smoked and was chucking for my next one)but i do feel anxious alot of the time.I am using gum and inhalator,but my gosh its getting tough,i have dreamt a few times about them,i could even smell them in my dreams,and i am also craving sweet stuff!!!Its the habbit i am missing now,i am distracting myself but its still there niggling at the back of my mind all the time,the fag i would have after a meal or a bath,or the fag i would have when the kids are killing each other,that two minutes of me time lol,i do feel at a loss,sad aint it,when i smoked i dreamt of quitting,it was so easy when i was pregnant,i never had these feelings,now i am getting them all the time,and now i have quit,i am dreaming of smoking
never mind,keep at it,
jo

Oh you are so good!

Now it is the habit you have to get out of.....craving something to do with the hand to mouth action.

My suggestions include, brushing your teeth lots of extra times, chewing gum, and a constant supply of water to sip.

My strategy after almost 13 years now is to say I am a smoker on a break, I am going to start again when I am a contrary old lady of 75 or 80.
I probably will, as even now after so long, if I drink to much in company of smokers (yes even strangers). I acquire a cig, smoke it and LOVE it.
But I am over the need to draw hard.............
Therefore feel very pleased with myself to no longer NEED one.
So stay strong, it is a doable thing.

KAren  :) :)

> Its the habbit i am missing now,i am distracting myself but its still there niggling at the back of my mind all the time

Im a smoker, but when I know I will be going for a long-time witout a fag (eg. at friends house, don't like to keep nipping out for a fag - even though I only smoke outside at home), I'll have a lolly-pop. It gives the mouth & hands something to do, the taste of the lolly helps get rid of the taste in your mouth you get when craveing a fag and the stick acts a bit like a fag-substitute.