Quitting smoking....

[mo_feezy]

Originally Posted by coffiend

Any ex-smokers here? Any people currently in the process of trying to quit?

Tell me how you did it, if you're in the process... How you're doing.

I need to stop, I have come to realize that this is a unbelievably expensive and unhealthy habit and it needs to stop.

Any words of encouragement?

When I finally quit, I realized what worked for me. First, I had to actually want to quit. Before I decided this, I "tried" to quit a bunch of times. What actually worked was that I decided I did not want to smoke anymore, so any time I found myself smoking I realized it wasn't something I wanted to be doing.

The second thing was that I really had to try to figure out what places/people/events/tasks I usually smoked with or during. Once I did that, I tried to minimize those times/places until I had quit for a few weeks.

When I actually quit, I had the most insane withdrawals I've ever had from anything, and once they ended I just told myself that if I smoked again, I would have to go through the withdrawals once more and just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

(1) really want to quit, you can't quit for anyone or any reason other than this.
(2) avoid situations when you smoke a lot (for me it was driving, drinking, hanging with certain people) at least until you are over the withdrawals.
(3) once you are in the process of quitting (i.e. no smoking for 3 or 4 days) and it gets tough, remind yourself that if you smoke, you'll have to go through another 3 or 4 days to get back to where you are now. After a few weeks, you won't even like the smell of cigarettes, let alone want to smoke them.
Since you are in Omaha, these last few days would've been perfect, as it was so disgusting outside you would want to avoid going out to smoke at all. Maybe wait to see if this winter is like last winter and do it then.