is this for smokers too?

i started smoking at 14. by the time i was 16 i was up to about 2 packs a day. i quit for my boyfriend (yes i realize now that that was a mistake) january of 05 at 18. a few months ago i was having a really hard time at work and felt like i was going to start punching walls or something so i started smoking again only at work. he finally told me that it did bother him so i stopped again. well now i smoke again only at work and told him i would only smoke at work and he said he was fine with that. before i felt like a smoker who was forcing myself not to smoke. now i feel like a non smoker who smokes. i dont know how to describe it. it makes my stomach hurt, my mout taste nasty and it makes me get dizzy but i still do it. and even though that first cigarette after more than a year was so nasty i still forced myself to get hooked again. why can't i just quit? and want to quit. cause deep down i just feel like... im only 20. if i only do it a few times a week its not going to kill me and my body is at its height of healing itself. but i know i shouldnt. i want to want to quit....if that made sense.

salukigirl....I understand!!! I quit for over 10 years. I went to drug rehab, everybody was smoking, I had no real drugs so I picked back up. I am hooked all over again. Except, I am a closet smoker--I don't smoke at work or around anybody I know--not even my boyfriend knows I have been smoking. I know I need to just quit and I have tried many times...it is a horrible addiction.

I have smoked for many many years and now have a smokers cough ! I wish I could stop but I truly cant I have no will power, I went on to roll ups as they were cheaper but find I smoke more of them than I did tailored ones, I feel for you both.....

Trish.

Absolutely this is for smokers too. I still smoke as well and have tried quitting several times and ITS SO HARD.

One of my best friends quit smoking about 8 months ago and then she was getting way depressed and feeling crazy. She had a visit with her doctor and it came out that she'd been feeling depressed. The doctor asked her if she'd quit smoking recently. I've always known since high school that nicotine mimics a chemical in our bodies, and so when we smoke, our bodies quit making that chemical and thats why its so hard to quit.

Turns out, that chemical is the one that helps us feel happy. So when we quit smoking, we're literally not making enough happy chemical. So my friend's doc put her on Prozac on a temporary basis to help her jump start her body into making that chemical again.

Somehow, knowing that, helps me understand why its so hard to quit and helps me not be so hard on myself. Next time I'm ready to quit, I might talk to my doc about that. I guess thats why Welbutrin and that new Chantix helps people quit, because it jump starts the chemical making process that our bodies "forget" because of the nicotine.

Well, I wasn't going to bring this topic up until I got closer to my quit date but yay for beating me to the punch.

Yes, I believe this area is for smokers too and I for one will never minimize the addiction as compared to more visible addictions like alcohol or hard drugs. After all, I managed to quit drugs but I've smoked since I was 13.

My quit is coming mid January (screw trying to quit during the holidays) and I'll be using Chantix (I already have the prescription). This will be my seventh quit attempt. Usually I only make it a day or two before I'm curled up in a little ball crying like a kid with a skinned knee. My longest quit was one week using the patch but even then, without smoking my life is devoid of peace. I really need my two packs a day of happy. lol.

Good luck if you make the decision to quit.

Cyran0

I quit for 4 days back in May.

Maybe I'll try and quit mid January too and then we can support each other!

i tried the patch and then after about 2 days i said "doesnt this defeat the purpose of quitting if im still putting nicotine in my system?" so i quit cold turkey. then for about 3 days i was throwing up in cold sweats and felt like i was going to die. i quit from january 29th 2006 at 12:10 pm (lol) until like may of this year. it was so much easier at first because everyone was telling me how proud they were but after a while that went away. i was on welbutrin but for depression and it made cigarettes taste nasty. but it also made me feel like a zombie and i hated it. now i just hate having to pull away from my boyfriend because he hates the way cigarettes taste. i feel like im getting closer to being able to say "i want to quit" cause now its more of a social thing, not a doing it so i dont go crazy thing.

thanks for all your support guys.im going to try again over thanksgiving break when we go home to see the family.

Rayn, you're on. Provided that you still want to do it when mid January comes.

Saluk, good luck over Thanksgiving.

Cyran0

I average about 10 hours a day without a smoke because of work. I chew the nicorette gum--it seems to help.

i was carrying around a big bag of 3 musketeers lol

i have also been on celexa, effexor, paxil and adavan(sp??) and none of them did anything. so i dont think anti depressants would do anything for me to not smoke.

whats stupid is that i started smoking because one of my friends bet me when i was 14 that i couldnt inhale without coughing. i want to go back 6 years and slap my friend in the face.

amazing how it starts as something small and stupid and ends up costing you thousands of dollars.

i think i just have one of those addictive personalities where i always have to be addicted to something. the biggest problem is that while im at work and want to smoke i cant just whip out my guitar and start playing to calm me down. i need to find a way to take my mind off of it when im not at home cause at home i never want one.

Most anti depressants wont help you. But there are a couple like Welbutrin that have counter acting the desire to smoke as a sort of side effect.

And I think everyone starts for a stupid reason. So it goes.

Cyran0

Hey, way cool! I just started quitting smoking. Well, technically I started trying to quit about 2 months ago. I mostly want to quit, but there's still a part of me that REALLY does not want to quit. Where I work, the company brought in someone to do a smoking cessation class because the entire workplace went smoke-free. It helped immensely because these days they look at it as stopping an addiction. They talk about how withdrawal of nicotine can strongly effect the chemistry of a brain.

The past couple of times that I quit it felt like I was actually losing my mind. I got extremely depressed in the way that I began feeling like the world is nothing but evil and badness, nothing in life was worth it, and each time I wanted to quit my job. At that point I would always decide that its not worth the pain and mental anguish to quit smoking. No one I ever talked to before ever had these same symptoms I went through. So I always figured whenever I got health insurance again I'd go to the doctor and find out if there was something that I could take to help quit smoking. So when my work started the smoking cessation classes I took them and found out that now "they" are finding out more about nicotine addiction and thats where I finally got an answer about feeling mentally out of control. Learning that quitting is a more substantial undertaking than simply "quitting smoking" made it easier to quit. I got info on the psychological addiction that helped understand the symptoms that I got. And that made it a little easier to quit. Its still been 2 months that I've been quitting though. I keep caving but I still keep trying.

I know I've been rambling but maybe this thread will be another aid for me to quit. My partner is extremely supportive. She quit a year and a half ago. But we go about things and process things too differently so its hard for me to get the support I think I need from her. Anyway... thanks for listening *lol*

wrenchergirl

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
salukigirl said:
i tried the patch and then after about 2 days i said "doesnt this defeat the purpose of quitting if im still putting nicotine in my system?"

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes, nicotine replacement therapy still puts nicotine into your system. But since you are not smoking, you are not putting carcinogens into your body (nicotine does not cause lung cancer, it's the other nasties in cigarettes that do that). So that is a significant benefit to your health. Also, using a patch or gum can help people break the habit of smoking, putting the cigarette to their mouth, inhaling, etc. Many people find it easier to tail off using the patch or gum than to tail off smoking. So first the switch is made to some form of nicotine replacement therapy, then the tailing off begins. It works for some. Smoking is one of the hardest addictions out there to conquer, so every little bit helps.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
i have also been on celexa, effexor, paxil and adavan(sp??) and none of them did anything. so i dont think anti depressants would do anything for me to not smoke.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I believe it is only Wellbutrin (Zyban) that has been shown to help some people break their smoking addiction. Other anti-depressants such as SSRIs have not been shown clinically to help.

It is great to read in this thread about so many people trying to quit or planning to quit. Please, everyone, keep on trying. Smoking is so very, very bad for your health. The average person does not quit on the first try. It takes a number of tries. So if you have quit and then relapsed, hang in there. Tomorrow is another day. You can quit again.

i havent had a cigarette since yesterday afternoon at around 330. the worst is that i work in a college town and during thanksgiving break it is so slow. so we just sit there bored all day. and im used to snowing on halloween in dayton but down here its still 70 degrees in the middle of november so its nice outside. and im sitting inside bored. i think im going to take my nintendo ds with me and see if that helps.

I have quit in the past with wellbutrin and the patches. it worked great but now they only want to pay for a generic that doesn't work. errrrrrrrrr

i have a horrible addiction to tobacco in cigarettes. it's the only addiction i have. despite chantix reducing my desire to smoke and tweaking my antidepressant, my depression is so much worse since i've quit. and i'm still staying quit.

Wow wicked. Sorry to hear about the depression but congrats on staying quit!

Cyran0

i havent had a cigarette since last saturday i told jason that every now and then i want him to ask me how many ive had that day. i figured that if im smoking i would think "im going to have to say how many ive had, so i dont want to have too many". and last night was sooooooo stressful. Whenever i felt a craving coming on i just went to the other side of the store and started talking to someone until i forgot about it. so not quite a week but almost

congrats to you for staying quit even with your depression, wickedwings.

I've been thinking about my upcoming quit and I think I'm going to need something pretty extreme. I need someone or something's life dependent on it. Like an evil mastermind standing in his lair saying, "if you smoke we kill this puppy." Or something like that.

Maybe I'll just chain myself to a radiator for four months.

Cyran0