[99XJ]Brian

Anyone have any good methods? With starting up on recreational riding again and getting a gym membership, I would like to kick it sooner than later LOL

BenRidin

Welp,

Six years ago I just made a choice that I wasn't going to continue my pack a day habit. My neighbor had just gone to the hospital to die of brain cancer and left behind a wife and four boys. I used the image of him laying there with tubes and thingies sticking out of him while he lay in his hospital bed. That was my motivation. Everytime I felt the urge or need, I just thought of him.

I was on the road to ruin and felt I would be like him if I continued. I went out and bought myself a nice mountain bike and took up riding again. It hurt like hell and my three brothers all laughed at me. But I kept it up and became serious about riding. Three nice bikes and a cajillion miles later, I shake my head and wonder why did I ever do that to my body.

The other day, I was getting a snack at 7-11 during a ride. The person in fron of me bought a pack of Marlboro Lites at $5.25! If that person has a pack a day habit like I did, then that's $165 per month or $1,980 a year!! I can't believe anyone would pay someone almost $2,000 to kill themselves.

Just my $.02 Good Luck,

BR

PatrickMcCabe

I quit 3 years ago on April Fools Day, I found that quite witty. They just raised the taxes back then and brought the price up to $6 a pack. Now they are $9 downtown!!!! My reason for quitting was not really the money, I wasn't feeling so hot and really wanted to quit. That is the key is to truly want to stop. Either way, Like Ben, I began riding, today I am a daily commuter and feel great. I know why I smoked, but I am glad I stopped....mabye I will pick it back up when I am 75 or something......Good Luck!!!

babydee

Do not underestimate how hard it is! Use nicotine patches, visualization, avoid triggers to smoking, every tool you can use to beat it.

One important thing, if you like beer/wine/booze, is learning how to drink without smoking. Do it on your own (with your Old Granddad and your Buddy Weiser, haha) if you're used to smokin' and drinkin' with the friends before you try it around other smokers. It's actually kind of cool to throw back a few while watching a ball game by yourself and being able to tell yourself "I'm doing this for my future."

Exercising, which is already part of your plan, helps lots.

alanfleisig

Buy a box of Nicorette.

Go for the longest ride you can.

Get home and have Nicorette. Do NOT smoke again. Reduce Nicorette usage as close to the rate provided in the instructions as you can, but without driving yourself crazy. Better more gum than to cheat with a smoke.

Good luck.

Groundhawg

Here is a couple of message boards that can really help you a lot. Whyquit.com has hundreds of articles on stop smoking. They tell you exactly what smoking is. It's an addiction. They also have a forum. Whyquit users use the cold turkey method only. Although this may not be the path you choose to take. The articles are worth everything.

Go to their site and read, read, and read some more. Here's a link to Whyquit

Another good site is stopsmokingcenter.net. They have a good forum with lots of support. You choose the way you want to quit with them. Nicotine patches, gums, Zyban, welbutrin, buprophin. The one method that is working for most smokers on this paticular forum is Chantix

Lots of smokers who have tried and failed to stop smoking over the years are having success with Chantix. I would recommend Chantix over anything other than cold turkey, as it has the highest success rate. Stopsmokingcenter. net has a lot of good articles to read also.

Here's a link to the Stop Smoking Center

Good luck.

ericvic

I think the biggest thing is that you have to be ready to quit. I smoked for 20+ years and tried to quit a few times but finally one day I woke up and said to myself "I'm done" and that was that. I know it is not that easy for many but even if you use the patch or the gum you still have to be ready to quit or none of them will work.

dahoss2002

You definitely have to get your mind right. I smoked 26 years from age 15 - 41 and have been quit for 4 years now. Use whatever aides available but dont light another cig once u make up your mind. Trying to cut back dont work real well. "I only had 2 cigarettes today" is not progress.

Jarery

It takes 3 days to work all the nicotine out of your body. As long as there is a trace of nicotine in your system, your body will demand it gets its normal level of nicotine, which is the cravings you feel.

Using any system of patches, nicorete gum, etc, anything that puts trace amounts of nicotine back into your system, just prolongs the pain of trying to break the habit. Once the nicotine is gone, your chemical addiction is broken, the rest is habit and mental.

An interesting stat was 90% of the people who try to quit smoking use aids (gum/patches/etc), and 90% of the people who successfully quit did it cold turkey. (probably a false stat but i dont doubt the point its trying to support)

I quit coldturkey after 30 years of a pack a day

Pwnt

One other thing that helped me was to change up my routine. If you notice you have a smoking routine. You always have one five minutes before you get to work or right after you eat or while reading the paper....so on and so on. Change your routine.
Also, if I absolutely had to have one I would set a small goal for myself. For example let's say it 9:00 I would tell myself "wait 5 minutes, if you still need it then you can have it". At 9:05 if I still needed/wanted to have a smoke I would have it. But most of the time I wouldn't and move on until the next craving.

You gotta want to stop more than anything. Then you just walk away. Best of luck to you.

Kyle in Maine

I am in day 4 of being smoke free. I'm 26 and started smoking when I was 13. I've been looking for a thread like this for about a week now, thanks for starting it Brian.

I am going cold turkey, but to do that I've decided I need to stop drinking for a week or so. The drinking has been my downfall in the past. The hardest part is I have 3 roommates who are buddies from school who all smoke and have no intentions of stopping. I started running recently and they seemed sorta perplexed as to why I would do this. None of them bike either. What I am trying to say is I don't have the most supportive base.

This weekend will be the first true challenge, but I figure as long as I stay on the more sober side of drunk I will have the willpower to not have a cigarette.

Brian, I guess I have no real "advice" for you, but I wish you the best of luck and keep us posted.

- Kyle

MTLGreg

Well done! Keep it up!

NickDavid

check this out

https://www.healthbolt.net/wp-content..._2070x1530.gif

Nicodemus

1. change your habits
2. have some dramatic life-impacting experience (I won't wish this on you but it is a very significant factor in people who have successfully stopped)
3. remind yourself that every time you've resisted a craving that YOU are now in control.
4. most cravings last only a few minutes

I stop end of June. I'll miss it.

Nick386i

I quit 2 or 3 years ago, twenty+ a day. I went to sleep everytime I got a craving, went cold turkey on the Friday so that I had a weekend to get over the worst, told wife to keep herself and children away from me for those 3 days unless I came searching for them this was to ensure I was not angry with them due to my cravings. Get a hobby, everytime you get craving do that hobby you never know you could end up to a thousand miles a week on the bike if thats your hobby. I did the owning an tropical aquarium everytime i got a craving I would clean the tank, rearrange the plants etc etc best kept tank in Ireland !
COLD TURKEY to me it was the best as it is the shortest route to the nicotine being gone from your system and after that is is YOU that wants the cigarette not your body.

heliumb

For the 1st couple months, I ate a million Jolly Ranchers & wore a nicotine patch while out drinking.
It's almost 5 years later. I still get nicotine cravings once every couple months, but they are just a cloud passing by.
Good luck. Be stubborn. There's never going to be a good time to quit.

CastIron

Rule #1 to quitting: NEVER, ever cheat. No tobacco in any form or amount for at least a year. Period.

Otherwise:
The patch worked ok for me (the eighth time).
Zyban ( a re-labeled anti-depressant) helped but really screwed with my mellon. Consider it carefully and probably avoid it if you're under 30 or already on other psych drugs.
You really have to be ready. THAT was the difference for me.

Thisisit

Beem smoking for about 2 years, and in the past 8 months I've tried to quit probably 6 times. 2 times lasting a month each and others lasting maybe a week.
I'm day 3 right now and it's going better than expected. I'm living by myself for the next 2 months so that is helping.
I'm just trying to make myself mega tired all day, I have been going farther and farther on my rides in the mornings and that usually takes me through midafternoon. Whenever I have a bad craving I do as many push ups as I can, and since I really don't want to do anymore pushups the cravins are slowing down.

Saved 18 bucks so far...

hunyak

I quit by:
Trying many times. If you start again, quit again.
Seeing my mom die of breast cancer - the cancer ward in any hospital is a scary freaking place.
Riding my bike really hard till my lungs hurt so much I couldn't dare smoke.
Become one with the nicotine fit. Embrace the feeling, learn to enjoy it because it takes a long time to go away.

The bike was key in my quitting, couldn't have quite without the bike.

A pack of smokes is $6 or 7 bucks now, right? That's over $2 grand a year for a pack a day. That's a nice chunk of change better spent on a nice new bike!!!

Greg180

Hardest thing that you will do. When I first joined this forum I thought I could continue to have "a smoke or two" and still ride. Nope. You have to want to quit. I used Zyban and will power and changed my entire lifestyle for 45 days to stay away from all the triggers. That included alcohol, (nothing better to get you to say F**k it than a couple of drinks), TV, dead time, and lots of food. I stayed on the edge constantly reminding myself that it was to quit. Finally I wanted my life back more than the smokes and they became meaningless. Best thing I ever did! Just wish I would have done it 20 years ago!

Schrup

Copenhagen, that's how I quit after watching a coworker die of lung cancer a few years ago. I quit chewing a month ago after spending 2 days in the hospital with a gut ache that the doctors couldn't figure out. Turned out to be a stone that had backed up into my liver after my gall bladder surgery 6 months ago, but it still scared me into being more healthy. I quit drinking 10 years ago & don't think I could quit smoking if I was still hitting the bottle. Good Luck!

Santorin

I started smoking casually when I was 11 and quit at age 27 on Dec. 26th. Chantix worked for me. It will be 6 months next week.

I tried cold turkey, wellbutrin, the patch, nicorette and nothing worked. Found out about Chantix from a friend that was taking it and not smoking and talked to my doctor about it. I haven't had a craving in months now and feel great!

Good luck with whatever method you use to quit. It's very hard at first.

dereks

Chantix is FDA approved drug and is used to get over smoking habit. It works on the body by giving you the same feel good effect and hence reduces the craving for nicotine. You can have all the information on chantix here https://www.chantixhome.com/ This medicine should only be used in accordance with the instructions of a physician as there are various side effects which may vary from person to person and it includes change of taste, sleeplessness and many more, but these things diminish with time and Chantix has helped me to lead a smoke free life.

MTBLover

Wow- this thread is a blast from the past, but well worth resurrecting, for sure. With all due respect, I'd have to say that there really is only one way to quit smoking, and that's to quit. Period. Substituting one drug (nicotine and about 1500 other terrible compounds in cigarette smoke) with another (especially one as potentially dangerous as Chantix) may work for some, but in the end, it's all about quitting.

Cold turkey is insanely hard, but the only people I know who have quit smoking and stayed off the weeds long-term (>5 years) have been those who have gone through the hell of sudden withdrawal. That hell is great motivator to never, ever go back. I know I'd never want to go through that again. I smoked 1.5-2 packs per day of menthols (known to be more addictive than regulars) for 14 years. I quit cold turkey in 1981 and haven't smoked since. I'm definitely not bragging, and I hope it doesn't come off that way. Let's just say that carrots were my friend for the better part of three months. How my wife put up with me during that time, I'll never know, but we're still together. We almost definitely would not be had I not quit, not because she hated the smoke (which she did), but because I wouldn't be around.

Bottom line- start thinking like a nonsmoker, believe in yourself as a nonsmoker, establish a strong social support network if possible, be prepared to have a rough patch in your life for a month or three, and just stop smoking. Nothing fancy, no drugs, no bargains or deals, just do it. It can be done.

Santorin

Yes, it is definitely about just quitting. Since I posted in this thread 1 1/2 years ago and it has been bumped, I wanted to say that the one month or Chantix I took helped me quit and I am now at 2 years and one month of no smoking. I say whatever works for a person to quit smoking is great. And yes, Chantix does have its side effects. Some pretty bad.