To all ex-smokers…

[ButteryNut]

How did you manage to quit?

Tell me your secrets, NRT? Knitting? Drinking water every time you got a craving?

Champix

Following!!!!

Champix

Apparently they’ve recalled champix and it will no longer be available 🫤

I just quit. But I know from experience that I cannot ever have even one in the future as that has started me up again the past few times I gave up.

Oh wow, I didn’t know that…..it was a few years ago m maybe 6-7 years that I used it, only thing that worked for me.

I chewed the nicotine gum for Years and then got pregnant. Very blunt dr told me to stop as it was a poison and I did. Bloody hard though.

I had to give up alcohol and coffee too, because they were part of the link I had with smoking, ie I always had a cigarette while drinking wine or coffee. It is do-able although you have to be determined. I am now able to drink again and not crave a cigarette while I am doing it.

I just decided one day I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was planning on having children so thought I would detox my body.

Champix about 12 years ago.

pregnancy

Patches. You stop getting the hit of nicotine (it’s a steady flow instead) and you can break the mental craving before you tackle the physical one. The mental one is harder.

Vaping and a real desire to be a non smoker. Had smoked 20 a day for about 20 years ans stopping was so so much easier than I thought it would be.

Allan Carr’s (not the Spexy Beast one)How to Stop Smoking book.

DH & I listened to it over night after buying on Audible, next morning woke up, no cravings, no need for nicotine replacement, nothing.

Quite repetitive, a little condescending, but does repeat all the things us smokers tell
ourselves every day, and for some reason, it’s stuck.

Have given up then relapsed many times but this time has been pain free.

Nicorette quickmist.
Now heavily addicted to that
No more coughing in waking though and got to be better than smoking

My best friend died of small cell lung cancer at 49. I just stopped.

I second Allen Carr. I also stopped drinking for a few months, because I knew if I had a couple of drinks I'd want a cigarette.

The Alan Carr book too. 20 years ago.

This. I finally gave up for longer than a few weeks nearly 3 years ago (September 2020). I then a few that NYE. Started to have one with a drink at weekends. After a couple of months of that, stopped completely again. Not touched one since. I found it easier to give up on a two week holiday as I was out of my normal routine. I also kept track of how much money I was saving and bought myself little treats with it, then a big treat (long haul holiday)

I'd been thinking about quitting then got a cold for a week and really didn't fancy one anyway. I thought I'd see if I could do another week, then another week and just kept going. Didn't put any pressure on myself, just thought I'd see and it was quite satisfying to build the weeks up.

It's been almost 20 years now, I think I've had one or two since when drinking but they tasted foul!

I'm very good at giving up. Can stop for months at a time but I enjoy smoking (no Alan Car did not cure me of that notion) and go back. I mostly vape or don't vape/smoke unless I'm going out with smoker friends. I don't think vapes are that much better than smoking I just like that I don't stink of fags.

Found out I was pregnant so no choice.

I also made the decision to quit. I knew that even if I slipped and smoked a cigarette, I wouldn’t be back to being a smoker. I’d have to quit again the next day and go through those first 72 hours all over again.

I had pneumonia, followed immediately by pleurisy, and was in hospital for 3 weeks.
Not a method I’d recommend, but it certainly worked.

I’ve only ever given up once.