I need your help to stop smoking. Tell me the horror stories!

[Rhony]

I've stopped smoking. As of right now. I know it will be hard, but I have to do this for my son, and for myself.

I am hoping to have a bank of aversions to help me when I have a craving. Can you help me? What are your horror stories?

My brother in law died in his early 40s due to damage caused by smoking, he went downhill so quickly he went from not being ill enough for a transplant to being too ill for one.

This thread has made me want to give up! Think I will try vaping though as no way I can go cold turkey. Tried numerous times before!

You can do it! How about a support forum? I found it helped me to go cold turkey from at least 20 fags a day. You can do it! X

My BIL died of lung cancer in February. It wasn't a pleasant death. He'd smoked all his adult life.

My lord / you asked and your truly got OP

To justilou your story really broke my heart especially . Thanks Mum indeed

DP smokes and can’t quit . I can see this coming I really can . He coughs , he is always sick . His recent health check blood tests meant he has got to go back in again (mine were clear) . It’s not IF it’s WHEN

OP, 5 weeks ago (well will be tomorrow) I went and bought a vape. It was £20 and £10 for 4 bottles of liquid. I just thought I'd try. So far my last cigarette was during my walk to the vape shop!
I know it's only been 5 weeks, but I can honestly say I've only had one actual craving for a cigarette in that time. DP and I have done it together so that's helped.
It's been so easy, and if you look at vapes on the nhs website, they're much safer. Although I don't intend to use it long term but equally not putting pressure on to stop just yet.
Most of my friends and family smoke - and they stink. The vape helps when I see my smoker friends. My DSD5's mum and step dad smoke (not in the house) yet I can still smell it on her when she comes here
When I walk and the wind blows I get whiffs of the shampoo I've used, that's never happened to me before.
My clothes all smell lovely and clean.
It's saved us money (not as much as going cold turkey mind) and I'm feeling really positive about it.
I've also been to the dentist for the first time in 3 years, and I need a filling and an extraction. Plus my existing white filling on my front tooth replaced because it's so discoloured.
For the first time ever I genuinely don't want to smoke. I'm looking forward to a new, healthier, richer and less smelly me!

I work in respiratory research mainly on COPD. Almost all our patients are, or were, smokers. I get samples of lungs from surgeries and even on ex smokers who have quit for 10+ years you can still see black deposits of tar all over their lungs. It’s disgusting, pictures on google do not do it justice.

My mum died in horrible pain and unable to walk because the arteries in her legs had been damaged from smoking. Even lying down hurt horribly.

I also had to ban my DS, her grandchild, from helping take Granny's slippers off, because she had gangrene in her toes and there was a very real risk that one of her toes would come off with the slipper.

...is that horrific enough?

(Well done, OP, for taking this step. I know it's not easy.)

My dad died a slow, undignified, painful death with COPD following a lifetime of smoking.

Good luck with quitting.

My df died in March of small cell lung cancer caused by smoking. I was 28 weeks pregnant at the time with my second child, a grandchild that he absolutely wanted to hang on to see but couldn't. My son is 3 and having to explain to him why he can't see his granddad any more almost broke my heart. He can't understand why granddad didn't want to see the baby and it doesn't matter how we try and explain that he did desperately want to see the baby but that he didn't have a choice he still doesn't get it.

I'm due in roughly 3 weeks and the thought that my dad won't see him or her makes me cry every time I think about it. He was so sure it's a girl and so happy when I told them I was pregnant again. Then a week later, we found out his cancer had come back.

He got the nurses to phone my mum at 1am in the morning, saying he knew he was dying. They said he kept looking at the clock until she got there around 2.30 am, like he knew time was running out. He lost consciousness around 6 am but his time of death of 4.30 pm because his heart just kept going even though he couldn't breathe on his own. My mum is broken, this year would have been their 48th wedding anniversary. His mum, my grandmother is broken, she never thought she'd out live him.

He was a marathon runner, sports obsessed and he ended up spending the last 3 weeks of his life stuck in a hospital bed with a catheter in, unable to get up, barely able to stay awake, coughing up bloody black gunk. That's not what he wanted. He wanted to watch my son play football and to see the new baby grow up but cigarettes took all that away from him.

(On the positive side, typing this has been the first time I've actually managed to cry since he died).

Lots of luck op. You can do it!

Last week I stood with my siblings and our children as we scattered my mums ashes is a spot she took us all to many times as children.

Lung cancer is an awful way to die.

We sat holding her hand for 2 days as her breathing got more and more shallow. Eventually she took her last breath at age 65.

It had spread to her liver and bones and she missed the signs as a heavy smoker with the 'usual' smokers cough.

At noon one Tuesday I was feeding her ice cream and laughing over her jokes - blissfully unaware of the cancer inching through her body. 6 hours later the doctors were telling me to call the family immediately. She never regained any level of conciousness after a nap. She never knew she had cancer let alone that she was going to die so we never got to hear her make her peace or tell us she loved us one more time. We never got to tell her how loved she was.

I had to sit my young son down and tell him he would never see his beloved nanny again.

I had to explain to him that yes, nanny did know that smoking was bad but she was never strong enough to even start to kick the habit - "but why? why didn't nanny just throw them in the bin? why did nanny do it when she knew it was bad for her? " At 9 he knew the health risks even before this.

I have had to promise him a million times since that his mummy will never ever smoke. I have watched him hold his breath until he was almost purple, wide eyed and motioning for me to do the same, because someone walked past us smoking and he didn't want us to get it in our healthy lungs.

OP - this is my horror story. It is not unique. It happens every single day. If you can't do it out of respect for your own life do it out of love for those who love you.

Good luck

I've now done 4 months smoke free, I use a vape and next step is lower nicotine until zero then ditch the vape. It is tough but you can do it. Even if you slip and have one don't give up you can stop x

all of you who've lost someone, and who support those made frail by COPD etc.
My dad developed COPD 9 years after stopping. He stopped smoking when he survived cancer. He's now imagining a life that has only a decade or less left in it, instead of thinking of possibilities and holidays and time with grandchildren etc.
He's so weak now when he's such a do-er and it frustrates him.

Good luck to everyone who's stopping or planning to stop - just take it one cigarette-you-don't-smoke at a time and see how you get on. Everyone has a different style of quitting.

I’m 27, had been smoking since 11.. have multiple pulmonary emboli in both lungs, constant lung / chest infections, emphysema, I cannot even breathe without it hurting , blood flow to my legs is shit my toes are blue, you can do don’t be like me. All of a sudden I’m not thirty yet but feel like I should be in a home.

My. tother died from lung cancer, a lifelong smoker. He was only 59 a giant of a man 6ft 4 and big broad shoulders weighed 16 stone. A true gentle giant, l had a BFG wreath made for his coffin, he'd died in my arms after gruelling surgery chemo and radiotherapy all in vain.
I will never forget our frail elderly bewildered parents with dad pushing mum in her wheelchair onto the ward and l can still hear my mother wailing 'No no no' and dad trying desperately to comfort her.

'brother' .... and meant to say less than 9 stone when he died. He looked like a concentration camp survivor you see on the pictures.

OP - Have you read the Allen Carr book? I would highly recommend it even though you’ve already stopped. Reinforcing the negatives of smoking may help but it’s unlikely because our brains just trick us into ignoring it. But as an erstwhile smoker I can promise you reading the book will free you to just not want a cigarette anymore. Not because you’re scared of cancers and disease but just by taking away the craving. I don’t think about cigarettes anymore - I don’t need to think about not smoking or keep exercising willpower to not smoke. It’s inmensely freeing - I hope you give it a go!

I've never smoked but have terminal lung cancer. If you can do anything to reduce your risk of getting this awful disease, then please do.

I had smoked for 23 years without any attempt to stop until 11 days ago and haven't had a cigarette since so it's still early days. The reason I stopped was because I had become resentful of feeling trapped by it and felt that my life was being ruled by smoking. After reading some truly horrifying experiences on this thread, I think it's now a given that I will never touch a cigarette ever again!

My grandad died on Sunday night. He was admitted to hospital almost 2 weeks before that with stomach problems. After 5 days was told he was riddled with cancer, lungs, liver, muscles, skin possibly brain. They stopped looking for it and stopped testing they think primary was his lungs but it wasn't proven. He died 9 days after diagnosis.
He smoked until I was a teenager but quit more than 15 years ago. He already had a diagnosis of COPD. It was devastating to watch.
My gran on the other side of my family used to smoke too, she also has lung cancer. They found that after it spread to her lymph nodes. She's had chemo and radiotherapy and it has shrunk. She's healthy for now but she'll never be cured.

I just wanted to add that while I am certainly very, very angry at my mother for not trying to give up smoking and the health problems my kids and I have been left with as a result (and who knows how many generations to follow...?), all you parents who try and quit because you want to be around for your kids - and keep trying if you slip up (because life is hard!)

YOU ARE ALL MY HEROES!!!!

I really do recognize how hard it is to kick this filthy, disgusting, dangerous and costly addiction, but it’s always worth it.

My mum smoked 20 a day from 14 years old.

I was that kid who went to school stinking of smoke.

My mum had thrombosis at 50. A heart attack at 62 and bladder cancer at 66 which has left her with life-changing after-effects. She has a bag to collect her pee and she is a very bitter woman who I've lost a relationship with because she refuses -still - to acknowledge that any of this is smoking related despite being told by various oncologists and cardiologists.

Oh, and I could have bought my house for cash for what she spent on cigarettes in her lifetime.

Give yourself a healthy future. Give your child a better 'present' and a future with less worry about your health.

My godmother died from lung cancer in July last year. It was horrendous to watch. What others have said about a painful, undignified death is true. There was no peace for her, and there was certainly no peace for those who stood by watching helplessly as she literally drowned in the fluid in her own lungs.

Cigarettes are foul. I cannot say I respect anyone who, in 2018, knowing what we know about them, continues to smoke, and I certainly do not respect them if they continue to do so when they have children.

Don't subject your son to that. You will not be the exception; you will be the rule.

@Rhony, thank you for this thread.

I haven't smoked in nearly 3 years and have a 7 month old DS. I have been feeling down and anxious for the past few months and the thought of going back to smoking to help myself 'feel better' has been on my mind a lot. I haven't cracked and do not intend to but I hate hankering after it. Reading this thread has shown me so clearly that 10 mins of feeling a bit better is not worth being hooked again for months/years (I know what I'm like and that's what would happen) and these awful health risks so many people have posted about. Both my DS and me deserve so much more than that. As do you and your DS.

MIL has smoked for 50 years. She has a mass on her lung that she's getting a biopsy for soon but she's so frightened that she's smoking more. She has to deal with the fear of this biopsy plus the guilt of still smoking and how angry this makes her children. She is trapped. I love her to bits and pray it's not what it looks like.

Fuck smoking, fuck lining the pockets of the tobacco companies.