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day 17 of cold turkey nicotine withdrawal


pwal³

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Tip 1 - When you get a craving, try eating something healthy, like an apple.  Tobacco leaves are very bitter (side-note: tobacco was originally used as a pesticide until something safer came along:  DDT!).  Because of this, the leaves are often secretly rolled in sugar-water which causes a sugar-spike, insulin release cycle.  This is one of the main reasons people feel the need to go have a smoke on a regular schedule.

Tip 2 - Drink lots of water.  The reason the skin of life-long smokers looks like a dried leaf is dehydration.

Tip 3 - "Aids" to help you quit are idiotic at best (like nicotine chewing gum).  In other words, if nicotine was truly addictive biologically, why wouldn't you just get hooked on the gum???  Yet, you don't.

Smoking is a social habit (sorry tobacco companies it is absolutely, most definitely NOT a biological addiction!).  Therefore, you need to replace the gap smoking filled with something healthy instead.  Hypnosis (done correctly) can help.  See if you can find someone certified with Smoke-Free International (I was in the process of getting my certification with them before starting a smoking cessation practice when the brown-stuff hit the fan back in 2009).  Smoke-Free guarantees around an 87% success rate with only ONE session (you'll get a booster session if necessary).  Standard hypnotherapy has a much lower success rate and will often set someone up for several sessions up-front.

One thing to watch out for:  Once you stop putting that poison into your body, it will try to clean itself up.  One way it does this is to cough up a lot of gunk from your lungs.  This is another reason you'll want to drink lots of water.  Other things that will help you manage and get rid of the phlegm are steam, lemon, eucalyptus oil, menthol rubs, and gargling with salt water.  While getting rid of the gunk is a good thing, your body might try to do this too quickly and that can make it hard to breathe.  This is why thinning it helps ( This doctor has some very good advice to help you breathe! ).

A final tip:  Remember WHY you're quitting!  Focusing on this can help you get past the temptations.  This is why many women are able to quit cold-turkey once they learn they are pregnant (and more proof of why nicotine literally can't be biologically addictive!).

Good luck! 🙂👍

Oh, and feel free to stare at this should you need any extra motivation!

healthy-vs-smokers-lungs-1543616985.png?

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41 minutes ago, craigb said:

Tip 1 - When you get a craving, try eating something healthy, like an apple.  Tobacco leaves are very bitter (side-note: tobacco was originally used as a pesticide until something safer came along:  DDT!).  Because of this, the leaves are often secretly rolled in sugar-water which causes a sugar-spike, insulin release cycle.  This is one of the main reasons people feel the need to go have a smoke on a regular schedule.

Tip 2 - Drink lots of water.  The reason the skin of life-long smokers looks like a dried leaf is dehydration.

Tip 3 - "Aids" to help you quit are idiotic at best (like nicotine chewing gum).  In other words, if nicotine was truly addictive biologically, why wouldn't you just get hooked on the gum???  Yet, you don't.

Smoking is a social habit (sorry tobacco companies it is absolutely, most definitely NOT a biological addiction!).  Therefore, you need to replace the gap smoking filled with something healthy instead.  Hypnosis (done correctly) can help.  See if you can find someone certified with Smoke-Free International (I was in the process of getting my certification with them before starting a smoking cessation practice when the brown-stuff hit the fan back in 2009).  Smoke-Free guarantees around an 87% success rate with only ONE session (you'll get a booster session if necessary).  Standard hypnotherapy has a much lower success rate and will often set someone up for several sessions up-front.

One thing to watch out for:  Once you stop putting that poison into your body, it will try to clean itself up.  One way it does this is to cough up a lot of gunk from your lungs.  This is another reason you'll want to drink lots of water.  Other things that will help you manage and get rid of the phlegm are steam, lemon, eucalyptus oil, menthol rubs, and gargling with salt water.  While getting rid of the gunk is a good thing, your body might try to do this too quickly and that can make it hard to breathe.  This is why thinning it helps ( This doctor has some very good advice to help you breathe! ).

A final tip:  Remember WHY you're quitting!  Focusing on this can help you get past the temptations.  This is why many women are able to quit cold-turkey once they learn they are pregnant (and more proof of why nicotine literally can't be biologically addictive!).

Good luck! 🙂👍

Oh, and feel free to stare at this should you need any extra motivation!

healthy-vs-smokers-lungs-1543616985.png?

Good on you, @pwalpwal for quitting. @craigb offered a lot of really good advice. No need for me to duplicate it. I just want to add a couple of comments.

1) It took me about 3 weeks to get over the craving after a cold turkey quit. No real way around it, the next three weeks will be hard work, even following Craig's advice. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. Once you get past that, you'll be happier and proud of yourself.

2) So much is focused on smokers' lungs, but it's way worse than that. My brother taught anatomy for awhile, and took me through his cadaver dissection lab once. He said he could identify whether the corpse had been a smoker or not, by making an incision anywhere on the body, and proved it to me. The difference in tissue color between smokers and non-smokers is noticeable. Smokers' tissue was much grayer. So, there's more going on with nicotine than people think. This is why vaping tobacco is dangerous (cannabis is OK). Vapers think they're protecting their lungs from the gunk, but they're still screwing up their entire biological self. As Craig mentioned, tobacco is truly a poison and, in my not-so-humble opinion, should be banned. Sadly, that will never happen.

3) Apples and carrots are good snacks. Extra pizzas, not so much. 🤪

You'll get through it!

Edited by John Maar
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20 years and 2 months since I last smoked a cigarette.

I used patches and they worked for me, alongside a lot of willpower.

I think what helped was that the patches I used were to be applied when I woke up, and discarded at bedtime. I think the 'hit' of applying a new patch each morning helped allay the worse of the early morning cravings ...

... even though even after all this time, I still miss the first cigarette of the day with a cup of coffee 😊

 

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Going on 10 years next February. 

I was a voracious smoker - almost 2 packs (of 25) a day, closer to 3 when I drank. And I was extremely worried that quitting would impact my creativity negatively, because I smoked almost non-stop when I wrote and when I recorded or even just played guitar.  The only thing it messed up is my voice - which never was the same.

I actually loved to smoke. But I hated being a slave to it. Hated to constantly have to organize my life to accomodate the habit. The in-laws would invite us and serve an amazing dinner and the minute I'd put the fork down I'd be thinking - how long before I can excuse myself to go out for a smoke?

 

Or you're super tired and getting ready for bed, but you realize that you only have 3 smokes left - which means that you'll have to go first thing in the morning or that you won't have any cigarette when you wake up if you wake up to smoke a few times during the night.  Always counting and planning...

Not to mention the prices - when I left Quebec, they sold for $12 a pack... 

Patches did it for me. I kept them on 24h because I used to wake up to smoke at night. And I did the whole treatment, too. I was in a daze for a while, had trouble focusing, felt a bit clumsy, but the not-smoking part was actually not that hard. 

I tried to smoke once after that, at a a Halloween party a few years later. I really wanted to like it but I found it thoroughly disgusting.

I sometimes get a hint of craving but it usually  lasts a fraction of a second. 

Edited by Rain
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Smoked for 40 years. 20 cigarettes a day. Very deep inhalation.

Soo, to the smoking mystery. It surely has more dimensions than written here and other places.

I am and has always been healthy. My last job, i worked there for 12 years, before pensioning had me on sickleave only for half a day because of food poisoning.

After approx every 10 years i would stop smoking for exactly a year to give my body a chance to clean itself up. Maybe that helped?

Or was it that i seldom sat down. Always walking and used public transportation to work. The last work place was a ten minute walk from the tube. I preferred that instead of waiting for the bus to travel that last bit. Maybe that helped?

I like to walk and did so on the weekends if it was sunny. Usually for 2-3 hours without pause. I still do it every day it's sunny. Maybe that helps?

I felt relaxed when i smoked. Maybe the rise in bloodpressure was something my brain needed to feel relaxed. It definitely was relaxing in the workplace when you had an excuse to go out and take a smoke break for 5 minutes. Non-smokers was a bit jealouse of that. They was afraid to go out for 5 minutes without an accepted reason.

To quit cold turkey or using nicotin gum depends on the individual. To keep being smokefree i think there has to be a big reason. Could be economic if the income goes very low. Or choosing between the one you love and a smoke.

For me it was my body signaling something wasn't quite right. Tested change of foods and some other small changes and it didn't help so i quit cold turkey.

Smokefree for approx 6 years now.

PS. The only water i drink is the coffee. 5 mugs a day = 1 litre. And 1 glass of lactosfree milk with dinner.

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I smoked a bit in my 20's but gave it up, I couldn't stand the smell on everything and it made my voice hoarse, constant coughing, had a bit of trouble giving it up but one thing I did that nailed it for me, I had this ashtray that I had butts in with some water and it stank like anything. When I felt like a cig, I shoved my face in the ashtray really hard and the stink made me feel like vomiting. It made a mess on my face and I ran to the bathroom to get it off. Sort of classical conditioning I think, I replaced the craving - > cigarette - > satisfaction pattern with craving - > sniff ashtray - > feel like vomiting pattern. Very soon, the feeling of wanting a cigarette was associated with the feeling of wanting to vomit.

 

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I'm extremely allergic to smoke and sad that throughout my life I had to defend myself from people not understanding what it does to me.  I have had asthmatic episodes and get migraine headaches from second hand smoke.   So anytime someone actually quits I applaud that they did not just for their health but for mine too :) 

Do drink plenty of water while quitting as that will help flush out our toxins that smoking has caused to your body.

 

 

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6 hours ago, pwalpwal said:

beer. i'm using beer

I assuming that is a humorous statement.  I have been clean for 10 years . . .   The best I can offer you is just tell yourself why you are quitting (what ever the reason) and stick to it . . .   Day three is the worst . . .    Go a week and don't give in . . . You will thank yourself for in the future.

Remember this:  if you give in once, you can do it again (quit).   Do Not Give up.  Avoid alcohol, pot or any other stimulant that would make you want to smoke.  No bars for a bit if can avoid it - you will find it easier to go outside and do it with a friend.

Good luck . . .

Syphus

 

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