Grumpy A-holes (quitting cigarettes/ nicotine products) (Part 1)

@Nates26 welcome to the quitters always win (my personal nickname for it) thread! We have a wee family going through this together which is amazing. Congrats on your two days!

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Hey all. Today is day one. Quit for 4 years and started again in 2020. Got my doc to readjust my anxiety meds and that’s what helped last. Here we go again. :muscle:

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Welcome! Strength in numbers! We can do this :heart:

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Still trying! I don’t smoke much - just what I find on the sidewalk. I know what’ll happen if I buy a whole pack. Been using chew to help out. I should’ve started with the 21mg patches. I have around 5 days, but I’m not starting my official counter until I’m totally smoke free.

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Yes! I love it how this thread has sprung to life recently. Keep going all!

Here’s a little bit of my own wisdom (ahum) I wrote some 5 years ago:

I smoked sickarettes and joints daily for 35 years, 30 to 50 times a day. Early in my quit an Elder told me it would take me 1 year for every 10 years I smoked to be really comfortable with not smoking. That estimation seemed and still seems reasonable to me. I trained my brain to accommodate a large amount of nicotine all the time.
It takes a lot of time to retrain our brains, to have ourselves produce a natural amount of dopamine and serotonin and feel ‘normal’ after quitting.
Please have some patience after quitting to feel ‘normal’ again. Us addicts are not exactly known for our patience. That’s why we are addicts, we are looking for that instant fix, that instant gratification. Learning how to do without that is not easy. It takes some serious work.
We are doing it here though. I am. One day at a time. Good times and bad ones. Rain or shine. Autumn or spring. I got this because you got me. It is not always easy but it is always simple. NOPE it is. NOPE it stays. Love from Amsterdam in autumn.

PS on the 1st of September 2022: Indeed it did take me a good 3 years to really feel like I was never going to smoke again. To be really disgusted by the idea of having to smoke again. It got easy not to smoke much much earlier though.

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Great book, worth a read. Hope you dont mind me pinching your NOPE @Mno :+1::no_smoking:

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Of course not Col! It’s for general use :kissing_heart:

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To be honest Menno for the last 3 weeks I’ve been thinking wtf is with all this NOPE! I’ve seen all the memes but it was only today that it clicked! :grinning:
I was the same with the 2012 Olympic logo. It took me 4 yrs to see that it actually said 2012. The F1 was another one that baffled me for years mate.


:rofl::+1:

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Good morning fellow quitters. Wow look at that money I’ve saved! Or not saved. Let’s say £300/month. If I had to buy my cigarettes in bulk I dont think I’d be comfortable handing £300 over.
Thankfully all of that is history for me and now I’m feeling the benefits of being a non smoker.
:no_smoking::slightly_smiling_face:

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Sad to say, folks, I cracked and bought a 10 pjs today. Will quit again tomorrow. I tried without patches because I’m a stubborn ass but will use my patches from tomorrow. Give me strength aaaarghh :joy:

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I tried with patches but could never get them to light . :roll_eyes: sorry that was terrible.
Just keep reading through @Hayleylujah and you will find a way. I promise. :+1::slightly_smiling_face:

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So I started walking to the bus stop just to get out of the house for a while. Began thinking I should start my counter as it’s been over 24 hours since I had even half a cigarette.
But then I found a whole, undamaged cigarette right there on the sidewalk. I began thinking, “Just smash it so there won’t be any temptation”. And that is exactly what I did. So did I pat myself on the back? No. I thought, “Well, that was dumb”. :roll_eyes:

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Today is a grandson’s 18th birthday so I took him, oldest granddaughter and granddaughter in law out for Chinese for lunch. Had a great time and am soooo full. After we were done granddaughter in law looked at me and asked to borrow a cigarette. I paused and could feel my granddaughter laughing. I looked straight at her and said I’m sorry, I don’t smoke. She looked at me stunned and said are you blowing smoke up my arse? Lol granddaughter said nope all of you are just oblivious. So I pulled out the app and showed my 18 days smoke free. I wasn’t going to break the news yet but couldn’t ignore a direct question and frankly, it was priceless seeing her face lolololol

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19 days today.

I did my first ever commercial fishing trip without a cigarette a couple of days ago.

My Co worker had his smokes. It wasn’t as hard as I imagined.

It’s a three hour boat ride. Set Gear and wait for four hours to pull it.

Plenty of time to smoke a pack.

Work hard for a couple hours followed by another 3 hour boat ride.

My coworker ran to his ciggs after we finished pulling all the gear back in.

I’m not going to lie, they looked and smelled good! I was grateful to not have to have one.

A mild craving. It left as fast as it came.

My strongest craving hit when we got back to the dock. I was waiting on the boat and his pack of smokes was on the dashboard. I was really tempted to sneak one. The nobody will know voice was talking to me.

I will know. I only answer to me. :rofl:

It’s still hard for me to sit at the computer. Or on my phone.

I’m still tempted to buy a pack everytime I’m at a store. It’s becoming easier to shoot down cravings and temptation.

I can take a deep satisfying breath easier than I could a few weeks ago. I like that. I feel like I’m healing.

I can hold my breath for ninety seconds pretty easily. I do that when I get a bad craving.

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Tough day today. Forgot how much of a muscle memory it was to hop in the car and grab my vape which is not there anymore. Been chewing gum every time I hop in the car to try to distract myself. Went to A young peoples AA meeting tonight with close to 100 people. Leaving the meeting felt like leaving a damn party, walking through clouds of vape/ cigarette smoke outside the front door shoulder to shoulder with people. Had to get out of there. This is a lot harder than I anticipated as vaping was an everyday sometimes every 5-10 minutes thing. Where as with drinking I was a severe binge drinker so I got used to a week gap between booze. Still here though wrapping up day 5 :+1:t3::call_me_hand:t3: Keep going my friends, keep fighting the good fight! @SassyBoomer
@JasonFisher @DryIn785 @Hayleylujah @Jasty2 @Leveller

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Day 3 today. I sleep better, eat more and be more grumpy, otherwise it’s been ok. Need lot of distraction though.

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Hang in there my friend, you got this!

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It’s the fourth day and it hasn’t been easy today. I feel bored, lonely and hungry. Went for a run but it didn’t really fix my mood. I will probably go for a walk in the woods later and have an early bedtime.

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Stay in there, hope a walk and early rest will do you some good. After the fifth day withdrawal effects should be almost totally gone, at least that’s what they told me.

And hungry = eat :wink:

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Day 1 and some hours completed…
Feeling a bit dizzy and hoping to rest yet doesn’t seem like it at the minute.
Don’t want to go back to cigs, so tired of being chained to them for so long.
Wish you all a great day smoke free :kissing_closed_eyes:

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