How to help DP quit smoking completely?

[Trex100]

Hi all,
DP is brilliant in so many ways and we've been together a year.. One of the few issues I have with him is smoking. I'm completely an anti-smoker and find it disgusting. He told me right from the start that he is a smoker but really really wants to quit (and had been trying for years to quit). Due to this and us getting along extremely well in so many ways, I decided to give him a chance with the caveat that smoking would be a relationship-ender at some point.

Yet, a year in, he's still struggling. Most of the year, he would chew nicotine gum at high doses nearly all day, yet if he went to his friend's place, he'd get tempted and start smoking. In the last few weeks, he has successfully weaned of nioctine gum and has been nicotine free for most of the day. Some parts of the day he will hold a bit of a ciggie in his mouth without smoking it but no nicotine gum. In the last 2 weeks, he's had about 3 days when he's slipped up and searched for a ciggie and got it. At most he had either one or half and then chucked it.

I don't know what to do :( I don't want to discipline him but at least:

1. He desperately wants to quit too (he isn't just doing it for me) - he even finds the smell gross sometimes
2. He's had family members die of related illnesses
3. He's always dated non-smokers out of choice as he wants to end up quitting.
4. He's totally honest when he's had a slip-up without me even asking and looks ashamed of it.

He seems open to trying most things to quit now - I just don't know what way to go with it and feel disappointed every time he tells me he craves it (not really angry at him of course as addictions are horrible but worried about the future of the relationship).

Also worried that once lockdown ends, it'll be even harder as he'll be able to acquire cigarettes much more easily (though he could still get them now if he wanted to I suppose).

I've heard that physical withdrawal symptoms can last a few months for nicotine rather than a few days or weeks so I fear every time he has a slip-up, he's going 10 steps back.

Using stuff like nicotine gum, e-cig etc. is substituting one addiction for another so I'm glad he's come off the gum at least..

Any advice from those who have quit successfully and been "clean" for years? Thank you

My experience. Started smoking when I was 7, stopped and started several times up to the age of 30, then stopped...for 30 years! I only have 1 or 2 occasionally, because I'm not really addicted ( unlike alcohol that needs replenishing every 2-3 days) and I don't suffer withdrawal symptoms.

All I can offer is that my willpower needed a boost for me to stop and that boost was a week in hospital. Before then I would only smoke when I went to the pub, once I had a reason to miss the pub visit , the reason to smoke vanished.

I'm not suggesting you hospitalise him, just take him away to a non smoking hotel for a week or so. ( I accept this might not be an option for you currently , or ever, but it was my solution.)

I smoked heavily for 20+ years, gave up and have been free of nicotine for 17 years now, so I guess I can speak with some experience.

To be brutally honest there is nothing you can to to help him give up. The idea that you should be doing things to make him give up is unrealistic. And when you say " you don't want to discipline him" I cringe at the thought. Your post reads like a parent trying to get their child to stop.

He sounds like many smokers - he thinks he should give up , but at the end of the day he doesn't really want to. If he did want to, he would. Simple as that. People give up when they are ready and he isn't.

You can waste your time doing all these things which you think will "help" him.....or you can face reality , which is that you hate smoking and your partner is a smoker . Either put up with the smoking or move on. As you said, this was always going to be a deal breaker if he couldn't / wouldn't stop. And he won't, until he is ready, which might be never.

From what I’ve seen, giving up only works if you’re truly ready. A friend of mine gave up for nearly a year and said the cravings got worse as the months went on until he couldn’t take it anymore. Others have managed to give up reasonably easily. So I don’t think you can really set a time on how long cravings will last. I’m a smoker myself so I get it. I have dabbled with the idea of giving up but the honest truth is I don’t want to. I suspect your DP isn’t really being honest with himself. I don’t think he set out to deceive you, he probably does want to stop on many levels. But there’s a part of him that still wants to smoke. You have to decide whether you can live with that.

I smoked since 11 and gave up at 27, the second I found out I was pregnant (strong incentive!). It wasn’t until DC was 2.5ish that I started getting the occasional craving again - they still hit me every month or so but I have so far resisted. DH is not a smoker and I honestly believe he would leave if I started smoking again and I love him more than the fags!

There is a MN board for people looking to quit so you and he can take advice from there too

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/stop_smoking

Having seen my parents smoke for all of my life I would say that only quitting because you want to not because someone else wants you to is the only way to success.

Honestly I think your hatred of smoking is making you quite unsympathetic and unrealistic with your expectations. If it's a long term habit, one year is really not a very long time in which to expect to get to the point where you don't ever struggle at all and feel nothing when you are around friends doing it. A couple of (half) slip ups that he didn't even finish is nothing, I think it sounds like he is doing really well.

"I don't want to discipline him" sounds very controlling, OP, he is a grown man doing a good job at kicking an addiction. I think you need to consider whether responding by being judgemental and disgusted by him for even having a thought about smoking is really reasonable.

Nothing you do will make him quit until he is 100% behind it himself. He may want to quit but not really want to quit if YKWIM?

I have known DH for 18 years. He has always wanted to quit and has been trying almost the entire time I've known him. He has tried everything. Gum, patches, those plastic fags, e-cigs, cold turkey, hypnotherapy, Alan Carr's easy way (they refunded him as guaranteed if it doesn't work), and more recently round after round of Champix. He has managed it a couple of times (cold turkey and Champix are the only ones to work), but has then either gone through a period of high stress and returned to it, or had 'just one' on a night out and has slippery sloped from there back to it.

I would love him to quit. He's already 11 years older than me, we have 2 young DCs, and I want him around for as long as possible. I have tried the telling him off road (after talking and him saying it might help if he was being checked up on). All it does is create stress for everyone and makes no difference. I have accepted it. He was a smoker long before I met him and it is supposedly more addictive than heroin.
I have successfully moved him to roll ups, which is better for us as cheaper, fewer additional chemicals, and he smokes less overall on them (hassle factor of rolling, and finished product is shorter and thinner).

A final note would be to avoid Champix at all costs. It has been the most successful, but it comes at a huge price on the taker's mental health. DH has a complete personality change when he takes it. And not for the better. I've actually told him now that if he wants to quit he will have to do it without Champix or without me, as I can't cope with another several week period of mood swings and explosive anger (which is totally out of character) only to be back on the fags a few months later.

I should add, now is probably not the time to be quitting smoking either unless the smoker themselves is very determined. DH hasn't even entertained the idea in the last month, and isn't even doing his usual lip service to cutting back. Life is too stressful already with the work/lockdown/corona combo.

Break up with up. You said you would, so do it. See if that does it.

I assume he already read Alan Carr's book?
My dad gave up with patches but there was a real mental shift where he just didn't see himself as a smoker anymore. It was like a switch in his brain. Caused by a serious health scare.

If he hasn't yet read Allen Carr then he needs to. He's not in the mental place to quit smoking yet if he's doing things like holding unlit cigarettes in his mouth!

Champix cured me of even wanting one. For me it was a miracle drug.

You're being unfair. If it was that easy to quit smoking then nobody would smoke. When I used to smoke, I really wanted to quit and I couldn't do it. One day it just clicked and I was able to do it, but it had to come from me. You can't make someone quit smoking - they have to be ready. If it's a deal breaker then leave.