Support from ex smokers please.

[PABLOP]

I used to be a heavy smoker 10 to 20 a day, tried to give up on many occasions, i stopped in March last year when I suspected I was pregnant, all the way through my pregnancy I dreamt I would have a fag and would be really relieved when I woke up to realise it was just a dream.

I went out a few weeks ago for the first time and had quite a few glasses of wine, I ended up smoking!! The next day I was so upset that I'd done it, I was looking forward to being able to say in March I haven't smoked for over a year.

I went out a couple of weeks later and I drove so I wouldn't get tempted to smoke because I wasn't drinking.

Will I ever be able to drink without wanting to smoke??

It's very very hard to drink without wanting to smoke. i get my fix by hanging my nose over other people's cigarettes, but I have not actually handled a lit cigarette since I quit. It's not just the one you have when you have one, it's all the others that will follow it.

Hmm, hello, fellow x addict here I stopped nearly 3 years ago. Took at least a couple of years to actually STOP and not keep stop starting.
Erm, when im drinking I still have the fear of nicotine...I KNOW I will wake up wanting a fag. And so i CANT have one. Cant. I may sniff the air with pleasure and say MMMMMMMMM fancy a fag. Which maybe I do. But I still wouldnt have one.
I have a its not for me mindset.

I never want to smoke again, I just want reassurance from ex smokers that it can be done and I can occasionally get merry without falling off the wagon
I know it is a dangerous, horrrible, smelly habit and do not let anybody smoke in the vicinity of my ds.

Well thats the right mind set, maybe on the day you need to keep repeating yourself I will NOT smoke later.
Also, get some sympathy for the poor fecker that is smoking, they will wake up and want to do it again and again, you have broken the cycle, you have got free and need to stay free

i managed that side of it ok, actually the whole thing was less painless than i'd imagined, was very determined to preserve drinking as my one vice!

suggest you practice at home, have a drink and make sure there are no cigs available. i didn't go out and drink till was very confident that i wouldn't give in.

Agree with the 'not for me' mentality. Getting your head around the idea that you can never smoke again is tricky, but then it's such a relief.
I've read that nicotine switches on receptors in the brain which stay on even when you've given up, but remember that the craving is momentary. If you can distract yourself for 30 secs it goes away again.

iv'e been an ex smoker for 6 months and dont even think about smoking when ive had a drink....i suppose it affects people differantly,my DP on the other hand smokes when he's had a beer, so do a few people i know.....i think you will be able to have a beer and not smoke eventually

Thanks I will try to keep the right mind set Charliecat.
Fishie, I have had an odd drink at home so I suppose thats practice, I have to say I don't miss hangovers so maybe not a bad idea to stay sober when out for a while
colditz I know what you mean although I haven't had one since the night out but I have "given up" enough times in the past to know what "just one" can do.

in answer to the OP, I don't know, as I gave up drinking before I gave up smoking!

I think it is classic to get pissed and have a fag, yes

I haven't had a cigarette since new year's eve. Stopped drinking coffee and alcohol at the same time, and only just now started enjoying a bit of both (without cigarettes).

So - It can be done. Try to go out with people who don't smoke, to non-smoking places.

Hang in there!

I stopped about four years ago, can I did have those guilt dreams you talk about for about a year or so afterwards, plus the odd craving. However, now I don't fancy fags at all. If you stick with it for long enough, you might well find that you don't have any cravings.

You can't change what you've done now, so no point beating yourself up about it. Look at it this way - this year, you've had five fags (or however many you smoked that night). That's a pretty enormous improvement on the previous year. Next year, you'll have none.

Don't, don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can be a social smoker, or just have the odd one. You can't. You smoked heavily for a long time; you're very unlikely ever to be able to just have the odd one without desperately wanting to have more.

I gave up 7 yrs ago.
It helps not going out with people who smoke,snacking on something like nuts or doing something with my hands like ripping apart a beer mat all help.

I no longer even think about smoking so for me it is easy now.The smoking ban helps a lot as well.

thanks policywonk thats really good advice

ggirl I snack too much but I would rather be overweight than a smoker.

Its really encouraging to know you've all stuck with it.

Hi FrannyandZooey, how long have you stopped smoking?

Welldone CoteDAzur, most of my friends don't smoke we go out in a big group so there is just a couple of smokers.

The smoking ban should help loads apart from sitting outside pubs in the summer

erm over 5 years now
fantastic thing to do, keep with it

PABLOP - I know it will be harder in the summer, sitting outside and watching everyone smoke. That is why I quit on New Year's Eve. I will (hopefully) be an established non-smoker until summer

It does get much much easier. Do stick with it. It's so worth it. (One less thing to beat yourself up about!!)

Haven't smoked for nearly 3 years - I have often regretted starting to smoke but NEVER regretted quitting. It does get easier.

pablop

i used to be a heavy smoker too. used to give up every now and then ansd always start again. esp when out drinking.

have given up for 5 yrs now, mostly without wanting to go near them at all... so it can happen, if you really want it to.

i will admit to having one a few weeks ago when drinking. but after all this time, it really was only the one as it made me feel odd and tasted vile.

i have found the fact that i live with a vehement anti smoker (never smoked) to be a strong influence in keeping me on the straight and narrow! almost everyone i ever knew, pre dp/dc, were or are smokers. its v hard to suppress cravings and habits when your guard is down, youre unwinding at the pub and everyone around you is on the fags.

good luck!

and dont beat yoursefl up for slip-ups. just put yourself back on wagon and take it from there.

I gave up about a year and a half ago, and last summer I got into the habit of just having the odd cigarette when I went out for a drink, but it crept up and I found myself buying the odd pack of ten and smoking them in the house, during the day...

So I had to go through the whole giving up thing again, which was tough - perhaps even tougher than the first time, but I managed it.

I haven't been out for a proper drink since then, but I meet dp in the pub a couple of evenings a week just for one pint and I have not been tempted yet.

I think that being a smoker/ex-smoker is very much like being an alocholic - you can never have just one cigarette, or just one night where you are smoking.

Don't beat yourself up about your lapse, as long as it was the one night and you don't do what I did and start smoking during the day again then it needn't spoil all the hard work that you have done in giving up.

You deserve a major pat on the back

i read allen carrs 'easy way...' and i actually felt sorry for random people smoking on the street... was an entirely new way of thinking about it all.

I gave up about 10 years ago but confess I've never lost the urge to have a quick puff - & probably never will :-(

But I do know myself pretty well now - I will not allow myself even one drag cos that I know it would be the slippery slope to 20 a day - & that's just not an option.

I still have a drink but if I really fancy a cigarette, I always kid myself that I've just put one out ;-)

HI there - I gave up 5 years ago. The dreams are completely normal and occasionally have a dream like that now. Luckily - we wake up and so dont have to feel guilty! Just relieved!

I read a brilliant book - not the alan one but a lesser known female writer gillian stoppard/or feilding i think it was. It broke down the physcolgy of smoking which basically dealt with every way in which people give up and fail.

A) regression - which is just pretending that you dont want to smoke and pushing it to the back of the mind. Only to have it resurface - maybe a week,month, year, decade later because it hasnt been dealt with properly.

B) Replacement - eating, chewing, drinking water, even exercize - replacing smoking with something else.

There might have been another one - i cant remember - i borrowed the book to someone at my old work place and never saw it again!

Anyway - as well as telling you what not to do - it told you what to do. And breaking associations with smoking was another one - and the only way to do this - is to actually carry on doing what you always did but without smoking. Which is hard at first because you've re-enforced this habit over and over hundreds of times. (Drinking alcohol, coffee or just break time at work etc...) And the first time you do it without smoking is hard but the more and more you re-inforce not smoking with these things - the less you will associate it. Which is the only way to completely break the cycle!

The main thing in this method is reminding yourself that you are quitting because you want and chose to and not because you HAVE to. if you think you HAVE to - you will begin thinking that you are being deprived which makes you want to do it even more. This is just in a nutshell - the book itself is much more detailed but really feel that it dealt with all aspects of quitting - and as i say its kept meoff the cigs for 5 years and i cant see that i will ever smoke again - although you can only chose NOT to smoke in the moment and because you dont want to smoke in the moment....

good luck

Best advice I got was to read WhyQuit over and over again until I could recite it backwards. Also go to StopSmokingCenter and read through the program.

Yep whyquit is the dogs bollocks of not smoking mentality.