It was on the evening of April 8th, 2016 that I suddenly quit smoking cold turkey. No tapering off, just cutting off. I smoked cigarette #40 out of pack #2 for that day and quickly realized that I was fresh out. I just decided not to ride over to the nearby store that sold my favorite brand. And that, as they say, was the end of that.

right on man!

that got me curious tho

"Going cold turkey" means abruptly stopping an addictive habit, a phrase likely derived from the early 20th century, possibly referencing the cold, clammy skin (resembling a refrigerated turkey) experienced during drug withdrawal. It may also have evolved from "talking cold turkey" (1910s), meaning to speak plainly and without preparation.

Key origins and details regarding the phrase include:

• "Talk Turkey" Evolution: The phrase is likely related to the older idiom "talk turkey" (speaking plainly) or "talk cold turkey," meaning to speak directly and bluntly, which evolved into acting abruptly.
• Early Usage: The phrase was used in 1910 to mean doing something, such as losing money, outright (as in "lost $5,000 cold turkey"). Its first recorded use in reference to quitting a drug addiction appeared in a 1921 British Columbia newspaper.
• Literary Reference: It was popularized by the 1947 novel, I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane, where it was described as "drug addict talk for an all-out cure"

• Suddenness: The phrase implies a sudden and complete stop, similar to how a cold meal requires no preparation.
• Withdrawal Symptoms: One popular theory is that drug addicts in withdrawal suffered from chills and goosebumps, making their skin feel and look like a cold, plucked turkey
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I did roughly the same thing about 5 years back after 30 a day for 40 years.

I had tried cutting down in many ways - fix the max number per day etc. But you always end up staring at the closed packet.
I also tried vaping some of the time as an alternative, worked quite well.

One morning I woke up and decided to just not buy any more, that worked fine.
I do vape and I smoke a cigar down the pub about once a week.

My doctor tells me that doesn't count as smoking.
I did get an enhanced pension though.

So my experience is not buying cigarettes (f a g s in English) is much the best way to stop smoking

I quit smoking around 1987. I had a very difficult time with it and no turkeys were involved.

That is tough to do, but so wonderful. Cheers for good health.

I priced cigarettes at the grocery store a few days ago out of curiosity. A carton of Winstons was a staggering $78 per carton!!!

Did the same thing about 30 years ago. Had a couple of cigars still in the pack on New Year's Eve and went to bed early so did not get to smoke 'em before midnight per my plan. Had a decision to make the next morning and made the right one. Not a puff (of tobacco) since.

Congratulations to anyone who's managed to pull off this nearly superhuman feat.

The movie Cold Turkey starring Dick Van **** is worth a watch merely as a cultural reference.

Kudos to anyone that has kicked one of the nastiest habits humans engage in. June 17th, 1984 was the first day of my quiting the cigarettes. It was not easy, especially when I went to work. I was a bartender, ergo, a constant stream of smoke being blown around me. In a short time, I realized how much I stunk of that smoke after getting off work.
When smoking was banned in bars, nightclubs etc., I was very happy about it. I believe that was the early 90's in Maryland.

Good for you!! Most friends & acquaintances I know who've quit smoking did it 'cold turkey'. They just realized what they were doing to themselves, how much it was costing them, or what it was doing to those around them. Having a newborn baby in the house seemed to be the most common event that made a lot of them quit (plurality, not majority).

I smoked from 1983 until 2010 roughly 20-40 cigarettes per day, the last 5 more a pipe. In 2010 I had such a sore throat infection that I couldn't actually smoke for two weeks, the action of smoking was too painful. After two weeks I thought well let's see if I can keep this up, and have never smoked again. It was not will power, it was pain, pure and simple, I was never going to give up until that happened, best thing I have ever done and I felt stupid for starting.

On a side note. I went to see the Doctor when I had this sore throat and when I sat in his office he said to me "I expect you have been on the internet and think you have throat cancer now!" and not in a funny way, a bad bedside manner deserves a retort " Well your the 'kin expert, you tell me!". I moved Doctors after this.

2023 I actually did get throat cancer (I went back a week after being told I didn't have any symptoms before the next Doctor believed me, stage 3 as well, close call...) and after the consultant had removed my tonsils (which I don't advise doing for fun when your older lol) I asked;
"Was it caused by the smoking?" to which he answered;
"No, I can tell by the pattern inside"
I couldn't resist, with a straight face I said "Dam, do you mean I could have kept smoking then all these years!"
The look on his face was priceless, we had a good laugh about that, well at that stage a croak from me....

People, do whatever you have to do but stop the smoking. You wont be any richer but you will have more tools and bikes!

Congrats. I went a somewhat different route. In August of 2012 I finished my last cigarette. But, from then until July of 2013 (almost 11 months) I vaped. My plan was to slowly reduce the amount of nicotine I was putting into the propylene glycol base (this was back when e-cigs were more of a DIY thing than they seem to be now), thus to slowly wean myself from the addiction. I guess it was a factor, but honestly when I actually quit I think it was more of a "I'm tired of futzing with these e-cigs" type thing. The first 48 hours or so I could barely sleep, then it was over.

Well done!

I never saw my father smoke, ever. So I was quite surprised to hear him mention to someone else in my teens, that he did long ago; Then one day, he said he reached for a cigarette not long after finishing one, and he said, that's too much, and quit on the spot. That was evidently early to mid 20s for him. I think that was right about the time of the USA surgeon general's warning about cigarettes. About ten years later for him, mid-30s, and he got winded just pulling a deer up a hill when hunting, and he took up jogging, during lunch at work. He got pretty fit until hip problems in his 50s. I should have gotten him started on biking, but I was too focused on getting through college and then my own career.

I was lucky I never smoked. Dad never gave me or my brothers a talk about it. And smoking was common among folks in my high school. Just dodged a bullet I guess. That and drugs.

If there is a devil in this world - its name is nicotine.

I smoked cigarettes in high school - couldn't get enough of them, always more, then more, then more. Quit cold turkey.

Picked up a cigar in my 30's - didn't inhale, what's the big deal right - bang. Full blown addiction.

Quit cigars cold turkey... then a fishing trip would come along, meh, have a cigar -what could go wrong... bang.

Quit using nicotine gum... what could go wrong... can't stop the gum.

Rinse and repeat, over and over and over.

That substance has it's hooks in me - and did from day one.

Stopped smoking when a carton of Marlboros were $10/carton. Beside the health benefits, I must have saved a bundle, tho finances weren't the main reason. One trip to the emergency room for a breathing treatment provided the inspiration. But with 2 packs costing as much or more than a carton used to, the bonus savings has been well worth it. Noticing less and less people smoke now, at least tobacco products.

On April 1st, it was 49 years since I quit cold turkey. I had tried to quit countless times before, but on this occasion, something just clicked, and I never touched another cigarette.
That morning, I got up and gave two unopened packs to the first person I saw and never looked back.
The best ever April fool prank I played on myself.

I don't remember the exact day I quit, but I had returned from HI more than a half century ago. My Pulmonologist says even that wasn't enough to stop me from having mild COPD (I smoked a pack a day --- more when I drank heavily - for about five years). Both seem so stupid now. I thank God for the fact that I quit both even when I didn't know him.

on BF quitting is irrelevant and unnecessary UNLESS you spend that $100/wk on bicycle stuff ......in 10 yrs you you've saved enough $$$ to buy one of those carbon bikes and a kit to match

Between cord-cutting and quitting smoking (which I did at similar times) it was like I got a huge raise.

Kudos to the OP for quitting.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1960's a pack of cigarettes was ~0.35 cents in 1965 (as I recall) and a carton was around $3.50 - even adjusted for inflation cigarettes are expensive now. They were cheap back then for a reason - the tobacco companies wanted everybody hooked on them.

i was paying almost $13.00/pk for Camels in NYC in the late 90s ...........you could hang out around Washington Square and buy all kinds of stuff to smoke for 5 bucks,,, the tobacco Cos are still printing money

Everyone in my family, mother, father, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, all of them smoked. I grew up around the constant smell of tobacco, and the constant sound of coughing. And it always disgusted me. Addiction, in all its forms, is a terrible thing. Thankfully, times have changed, and cigarettes are no longer fashionable. Between state and federal taxes, the government can collect more revenue from a pack of cigarettes than the tobacco companies, netting more than $10 billion in tax revenue per year. But I've been disappointed to see states, which have seen tobacco tax revenues fall, legalize cannabis in an effort to recoup some of the loss. Cannabis taxes are now netting government some $5 billion per year. It's bad enough when corporations profit from vice and addiction without the state getting a cut.

A rare example of NOT riding your bike for health!

Congratulations on your ten years of being smoke-free. Keep it up.

Dan

Congratulations!

That is a really big deal. Other than the quasi-social acceptance of tobacco use (less and less all the time of course), the physical addiction is very hard to get over for most people. My mother in law quit cold turkey after a good 40 years of smoking; she was a very strong willed (stubborn? blunt?) old gal which served her well in more than once, certainly in quitting smoking.