Lung cancer is a horrible disease. I'm a pathologist and look for it everyday. Trust me, emphysema can be even worse.

I'm on day 8. I quit smoking after breaking up with my girlfriend. After I'd found out she'd been cheating on me. Doesn't sound like the best time to decide to quit, but nicotine patches work ****ing miracles.

Figured I'd need stamina for all the lovely women who will be keeping me exhausted. mwa ha ha.. ha.. yeah.. right.

if you can handle it now you can handle any complication that comes along.

I posted here a while ago (5/23) when I quit for two weeks, I feel like it's been ages...but still haven't slipped, best thing I've ever done.

This thread makes me happy. Thanks to everyone for their encouraging words and good luck to all the new non-smokers.

6 months and change here.

i'm gonna make it! 4 weeks without a cig today

congrats, keep it up!

fwiw (i've probably posted this almost verbatim in this thread before, but whatever - who's gonna go back and read each page and post), something that was really helpful to me was that i quit smoking right before moving to a new city, new housemates, new job. so for my year there, i had absolutely no association with smoking in my life there. never smoked on the back porch of my house. never left the dinner table for an after dinner cigarette. never smoked on my way to work, never took smoke breaks while at work. never ever ever. had no routine, no memories of smoking in my routine. it was a great help to breaking the habit.

I smoked about a pack a day for 17 years, and quit right after my 30th birthday. That was almost 3 years ago now! I fall off the wagon periodically--like now, when I've been smoking 1 cigarette a day for the past 3 months. I hope to wean myself off that one cig a day, but just remember: anything step you take towards being a non-smoker is a positive step. If you hit a glitch in your quitting process, just pick yourself up and keep on trying. There are very few of us who can conquer the beast our first time.

And Zyban really really really works. I can't recommend it highly enough. Much more so than the nicotine replacements.

Personal update: After ~ ten years of half-a-pack-a-day, I'll be at nine months tobacco free tomorrow. I feel great and I can't imagine ever smoking again. I can tell you the rewards of quitting are totally worth all the anguish of the process. If you ever need motivation, just reread this thread.

ok f.uk it im trying again . im gonna do it this time . must think of monstertrack as my goal .

I quit smoking on Labour Day, 2000. I smoked for ten years, a pack a day since I was fifteen. I quit because it was no fun to be coughing up bloody bits of your lung when you are twenty five years old. That was right about the time I started riding again, so it helped me quit.

That was the last time I quit. I had quit before but fell off the wagon after about six months. People are right, it has to be the right time to quit for you and if you can do it cold turkey, great. If not, use what you can to help quit. For me, weed and gum and toothpicks did the trick. Funny thing, this summer almost six years after I quit I had a massive nic fit. It came on out of the blue and I was like WTF?. I didn't give in, but it was weird. Before that one I couldn't remeber the last time I had one. Cigarettes kinda gross me out now, strange.

The best thing to do is when you feel that need coming on, you gotta say "FU@K IT!" to yourself really hard and just get past that initial craving. My dad taught me that and he smoked for 25 years more than two packs a day. He's beenn done for about 18 years now.

YOU CAN DO IT!

since I've quit smoking, I've done better and better at each successive alleycat I raced (except the ones where I crashed ). I was in the top half of bronx rumble, the top third of the july fourth race, the top quarter pretty much all summer after that, and I hit top 10 yesterday. I'm sure its other things besides quitting, but I'm just going to go ahead and keep telling myself that the quitting did it for me.

I still want cigarettes, especially after races and other accomplishments. But the key to not smoking is to just not ****ing smoke. It is accomplished the same way that you keep yourself from kicking annoying little yip dogs.

i quit about 2 months ago. ive only smoked one cigarette, and it was a few days ago when i was drunk and my friend kept bugging me to smoke one. he left right after i lit it, i took a few puffs, then put it out cause i felt really gross. i feel a lot better, it saves tons of money, saves going outside when its freezing just to smoke and i dont smell like **** all the time.

Keep it up everyone. I just passed 3 years at the end of October. If I was more disciplined, the savings would have added up to a very nice bike by now.

it had been about a month and a half for me. i wasn't that heavy of a smoker (worked my way to about half a pack a day over 2.5 years) but i feel so much better now. unfortunately i fell off the wagon this weekend after getting mugged on friday. never had a gun pulled on me before and shook me up a bit so i've had 3 or 4 smokes over the past 2 days. but now that i've more or less got my nerves in check again, it's back to my attempts for a smoke free life

I'm on day 6.

It sucks ****ing ****.

Coming up on four months without a smoke next week. Smoked a pack a day for 5 years, tried several times to quit, but never made it this long, and never without having at least a few. I honestly don't even think about them much anymore, save for a rare random craving here and there. Riding was a big part of it for me, and for my effort I've got a sick new bike and I feel 1000 percent better (no more being out-of-breath after climbing stairs, etc.). Not to mention its a whole lot easier to pay my bills now. Next week will be my first family holiday since high school that I don't have to invent excuses to go outside or sneak out at night to get my nic fix, cologne bottle in hand. It'll be nice not having to worry about the youngins getting into my bag and finding cigs, or Grandma smelling smoke on me, or my uncle asking why my pointer & middle finger knuckles are darker than the others...

congrats you all who´v managed to kick the habit... It was positively the hardest thing I ever did. I could not have managed it if I had not stopped drinking at the same time

I'm on Day 2. Using Zyban and Patches. So far so good. Try to keep this post going. It helps alot.

Bikkhu: I've been thinking that myself... I'm cutting back, now down to a half-pack from a full pack a day a couple of months ago. I'm worried about quitting when my girlfriend still smokes, but I have to just give it a shot.

I figure cutting out alcohol might help offset the weight gain that might otherwise come from this. I'm planning on starting to bike commute, and quit drinking while I go about quitting smoking. Might just do the trick.

ha - gurgus - the nic fits that come out of the blue are the weirdest thing. i had lots of them in the beginning of summer, after ten months without any sort of craving.

two months after i quit i had a few drags of a smoke while drunk and stressed out and whatnot, and it felt and tasted like ****. seriously. my body wasn't accustomed to it, so it didn't take out of it what i remembered from my addiction. if/when i hvae nic fits now, i'm calmed by knowing that smoking a cigarette won't really help. only an addiction would help, and, well, addictions aren't really satisfying. that's why they're addictions.

Dont cut down, quit

I just did! And it is super gnar!

Or as they say out there, it is hella gnar-gnar, bra. Like totally.

No seriously, congrats.

4 days.