Giving Up Cigarettes

Yes. But this habit is a major demon. Each attachment, mental or physical, to smoking has become a hungry mouth, screaming for its erstwhile satiety.

It is not easy for you to give up smoking. Right?

When I - as a moderate or average smoker - gave up smoking in 2005, I first did not intend to give it up but to just smoke less, and after some weeks I smoked merely a very few cigarettes, then I thought „if so, then I can also smoke no cigarettes“. The whole process took merely some weeks. It began without the intention of giving it all up, and then it just happened with a little help of my friend: logic.

It’s been eight weeks and five days since I had my last taste of alcohol–this after at least a quart of beer per day for over 45 years. For me the alcohol was no problem to give up, but the cigarettes were and are.

My method for giving up cigarettes was a three-week program. During the first week I smoked one per hour and increased the time between smokes in weeks two and three until I was down to three per day. So far I’ve gone four weeks and three days without a smoke.

But you still smoke.

Still smoking over here. I’ll quit maybe next year when I’m thirty. Not in a hurry quite yet.

No I do not smoke. 5 weeks, 1 day–absolutely no tobacco. Funny thing, I dream I’m smoking and drinking. The dreams are vivid.

Yes, that’s ok. How many cigarrettes do you smoke per day?

Welcome to the non-smoking club then.

Funny thing - in fact. :slight_smile:

You want to smoke and drink again. Right?

Part of me wants to smoke and drink; part of me doesn’t want that. I went to an AA meeting for help. At the meeting, before and after, everyone was outside smoking. It wasn’t a place I wanted to be.

I can imagine.

Do you think that you will overcome the urge of the part of you that wants to smoke and drink?

When I gave up cigarettes (more than eleven years ago) I did not have any urge or demand or desire to smoke or to drink. Perhaps it was just the fact that the time of giving up cigarettes had come; so it was easy to do it.

Good poem. I like the comparison of addiction and abusive love. Too often the anti-addiction sentiment ignores that there is love there, and while it’s right to leave an abusive relationship, it’s also healthy to grieve.

My aunt is dying too young of lung cancer, so count yourself lucky that you have lived long enough to escape. And stay strong.

Carleas, do or did you smoke?

Be honest!

I’ve never been addicted to cigarettes, though I’ve smoked many at varying frequencies throughout my adult life. I’m not sure why, but even when I would chain-smoke for weeks to get through finals, I had no problem stopping and no cravings afterward.

I do struggle with drinking, but I come from a family with a lot of alcoholism so I knew before I started that it was something to watch out for, and that vigilance has helped me keep it in check (mostly). Weed has been similar, though it’s a lot less worrying as an addiction.

My worst addictions are fortunately fairly benign: TV, video games, internet trash. They’re limiting, but they’re also fairly socially acceptable. But as cravings they feel the same way booze feels: the need, the tug, the surge of blessed dopamine, the “just one more”. And the prospect of quitting feels like breaking up, like losing a friend or family member, a part of my identity.

Thankfully, they won’t kill me, they just stunt my personal and professional development.

If you really can stop smoking so easily, why do you not stop smoking?

I think I was unclear when I answered the question. I would not say that I smoke. I’ve never smoked regularly for more than a couple months at a stretch, and usually much less; a few packs to get me through the late nights churning out final papers, but that would only last a week, maybe two, then I’d go another semester without buying a pack. I bum cigarettes when I’m hanging out with smokers, which is rare, maybe a few times a year.

I did vape consistently for a few months this year, but I stopped when my daughter was born without any problem. Vapes are significantly preferable to cigarettes, but I enjoy both and crave neither.

Fifteen to eighteen.

Thanks for your understanding of my poem. Sorry to hear about your Aunt’s condition.

Yes, Amen, yet “Though it’s a lot less worrying as an addiction?” An addiction nonetheless right? Yet I’ve never seen marijuana as lethal myself… Ever.

I feel as though it’s a more lenient addiction than any other smoke drug.

Okay. And what do you pay for those fifteen to eighteen cigarettes?