Any advice to stay away from my pack a day habit?

Have you read The Easy Way To Stop Smoking yet? I hear it is a quitters Bible for tips.

Don’t go out drinking- for at least a month. That’s the hardest part and where I’ve failed before. I only waited two weeks.

chantix! I quit over 2 years ago….it’s a wonder drug I tell you!

Avoid as many of the circumstances in which you used to smoke as possible. Make sure friends know what you are up to and don’t offer you cigarettes. Avoid drinking (between the usual association of drinking and smoking and the reduction of inhibitions, a trip to the bar has foiled many attempts to quit). If you have a moment of weakness and smoke a bit, don’t think of that as the end or as a failure, you haven’t failed until you give up. Start again.

Finally, follow the advice of Yoda:
“Do or do not, there is no try”. Don’t think of yourself as “trying to quit”. Trying leaves room for failure. Don’t tell people you are “trying to quit”, that leaves room for them to offer you a smoke. Tell them and think to your self: “I am quitting”. This psychological edge is bigger than you might think.

Why is there a pizza tag?

I tried chantix. It worked, it was pretty good. But relapsed after a month.

I hate having to spend money for a cure.

And, since I cant smoke. I want to eat! I do love pizza!

@gemiwing I didn’t fully quit smoking until I gave up drinking altogether. I didn’t start drinking again until I reached the point where the thought of smoking made me ill.

@ChazMaz Feel free to eat pizza. Don’t worry about weight gain, you can get back to where you were when you are completely off the smokes. You might try gum instead, or pretzel sticks, or lollipops.

I actually quit by smoking expensive cigars. Once I got fully used to the taste of an Arturo Fuente, I couldn’t stand the taste of cigarettes any more. But at six bucks a pop I couldn’t afford the cigars. Helped ween me until I could go cold turkey. But probably not a good approach for most people.

I stopped drinking too because a drink always made me want a smoke.

Don’t drink/go to the bar. My Dad quit cold-turkey on his 40th Birthday (he’s 48 now) and started chewing gum and sucking on Jolly Rancher candies. Man did he chew a lot of gum! Will-power and a technique that fits you will equal a great road to success and being smoke-free!! – LB

Man, I remember me and my sister always wanting a Jolly Rancher when we we’re out and about with him. He’d always eat the lemon ones for us :D But we gave him dibs on the grape ones, they are his favorite <3

P.S. (Insert a little dance here for breaking 1000!!)

One good thing is I never liked to drink and smoke.

@ChazMaz What did you do when you smoked? Whatever that was…don’t do it. ;)

Please do not make me take my coffee away! :-)

@ChazMaz Can you put something else in your hand with that coffee? (For my dad it was an oreo)

Yessss, Oreo cookies! I do like how you think!

@ChazMaz I am a non-smoker, but my dad and sis “did” smoke a lot. My dad never quit, but did cut down. My sis quit once cold-turkey and stayed off ‘em for two years, then went back w/a vengeance. Her SO quit cold turkey when he had a benign lump removed…she finally went to patches and drugs to assist her.

Both found replacing the habit to work best. If you go look at that book at the library you might get a few good ideas.

Lollipops, gum and toothpicks. A lot of it is an oral fixation. Stick things that aren’t cigs in your mouth when you crave.

Raisins, chewed slowly. They are boring but better than biting your nails. A glass of ice water w. lemon and fresh mint. Hot tea and honey.

Have you tried these? They are supposed to be helpful for some.

Learn a quick trick to mentally calm yourself, like meditation breathing. (In-2–3-4, Hold-2–3-4–5-6–7, Out-2–3-4–5-6–7-8, repeat) Practice it until you can get the same relaxing feeling in a few minutes’ time that you used to get from cigarettes. This might help the psychological dependence a bit.

All good stuff! Thank you, and keep them coming.

I agree with @buster. I quit cold turkey over 6 years ago and I found the oral fixation was what I missed the most. I buy packs of tic-tacs now instead of cigarettes.

I’m still a smoker, but i do want to quit. there are 3 things that i see have not worked for me:
1. i’ve said many times to people okay here we go i’m quitting today. i felt more pressured to quit like if it was set on stone that december 31st of whatever year i had my last cigarette. so don’t set a date, but do it on ur own undetermined terms.
2. when i took my advice from number 1, i wouldn’t tell people i was quitting so my parents and siblings would still talk about how i smoked and make sarcastic jokes so i got pissed and went back. my advice is don’t be around non smokers, they don’t understand.
3 As a smoker we know smoking is bad for us yet we have not quit so i always get pissed when people say to me u should stop cause it is bad. i’m not gonna stop because someone else tells me to. i want to stop on my own term. my advice is surround urself with people who don’t give a fuck about ur habit.

i guess what i’m saying is that it depends on the circumstances of ur surrounding (which u don’t control that much), combined with a way that does not put extra pressure on you. do it on ur own terms not on the way other people tell you to.

i have yet to do it, so my advice is not that valuable, but i do think that everyone is different and has their own way of quitting, there is no single answer. just look at urself and learn from the times you failed, try and see what works and does not.