Can you do it cold turkey?

[NotMushroomInEre]

I love smoking, and I hate it. I've tried to stop with smoking cessation, and I've always failed. I'm thinking cold turkey is the best option right now. I'm worried I will become a vile and horrible person though. Is going cold turkey achievable? I beg you for your advice.

I did it cold turkey but only because I'd tried everything else and failed. I think it finally worked because I was ready - I didn't want to be a smoker anymore. It's hard but definitely possible if you want it enough.

Read the Allen Carr book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.

Yes it is possible - that’s how I did it in the end (had tried everything and numerous times). The first week was a novelty and not too bad, weeks 2-6 were hard. I was very emotional, tired and generally ratty. But that seemed to be a magic turning point and after that I was fine and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done (12 years smoke free now). A friend who quit using vapes at the time as a temporary measure is still on them now and uses them more than they smoked

What really helped me in those early weeks was:

• saving the money and buying something I really wanted at 1 month (in my case a £100 handbag which I would never have afforded otherwise) bought a dishwasher with my savings a few months later - that was a really good incentive. After the dishwasher I stopped saving it but carried on tracking it on an app on my phone, it’s over £10k now 🤣


• making a list of all the benefits eg better health, no stained teeth, more money etc, and reading to it and adding at least one new benefit each day


• avoiding places and situations where I would always smoke - so I didn’t go out drinking for at least the first couple of months as I had zero willpower once I had a drink. But with a couple of months under my belt I was much stronger so once I did have a drink the craving wasn’t there. I did lots of things I couldn’t do whilst smoking eg the cinema, swimming etc instead to take full advantage of it

Good luck!

Yes , I ate quite a lot of biscuits though 😬

Thank you all so much. @Mrsdoubtfireswig that's fantastic. Well done! Yep, I've done the vapes and it is constantly in my hand, and then I smoke when I'm drinking, and then I'm smoking again. I've also done champix. They worked, until I was drinking. Possibly need to think about the drinking too, or at least the relationship between the two.

I tried to stop a few times. I did hypnotherapy stopped for 6m then decided I would be ok to social smoke 🙄 when I turned 30 I decided that was it. I picked a date ran down my cigarettes and stopped. It's been 13 years and I've never had one since. I think it helped I was in quite a good place and my bf didn't smoke.

I did, but only from 8-10 a day.

I just had one of those ‘enough is enough’ moments after a night out where I’d smoked tons and I felt positively toxic the next day.

At first it seemed ok and just a question of will power but I did then have a rough few days where I felt physically quite rough. I just tried to be nice to myself and wrapped myself in a duvet whenever I was at home and comfort ate.

Yeah a little pause won’t do you any harm if you can - i felt it just give me a break to build my willpower. I’ve never ever had cravings or been tempted since though, even when drinking. I’ve just remembered I use to also follow the ‘after 24 hours nicotine has left your body’ / ‘after 48 hours…’ which helped too. NHS website had some good info

That's how I quit.
The catalyst was a surgery - stopped (temporarily in my head) a week before it - just in case for general anaesthesia (who am I kidding it'd help).

Then WFH due to the pandemic didn't trigger me the same way to smoke as commuting and being able to get out of the office for a few mins.

A month after the surgery I found out I was pregnant and haven't smoked since, over 2 years and counting now.

Still love the smell though.