Have you quit smoking? How did you do it?

I’m a little unique in this so what I did personally won’t be of much help (I woke up one day and decided cigarettes were gross—mostly from drinking and smoking too much the night before—and i haven’t smoked consistently since. Now, when I do have a few drags, I feel gross!). But I would check out this site or try showing her some images/telling her about diseases and sickness that will happen to her if she doesn’t stop. My dad was just hospitalized for pneumonia and hasn’t been smoking since. Kinda scared him straight.

Cold turkey. I wanted to, for real, and I fucking made myself do it. White knuckle sobriety doesn’t work? I have been cigarette free for nearly four years now and that is with no cheating.

I smoked for 23 years and used to expound on the fact that I would never quit. I fucking loved smoking.

Let me just point out that my mother has tried several methods: patches, smoking a plastic cigarette thing, nicorette gum, going to a class to learn about black lungs & such, maybe even hypnosis. These have no effect on her. She’s tough.

I’ve heard several celebrities (Ellen) talk about how great Alan Carr is – just wondered if anyone here has tried it.

I smoked from 1972 to 1988, and the last five years were close to two packs of Marlboros a day. I have not smoked since.

I quit after a day when I had gone on a bicycle ride and was so short of breath I couldn’t get up a hill. I wanted to vomit from my lungs. I finished that pack, and that was it, cold turkey.

It takes three days of torture to get through the physical withdrawal. I never want to go through that again. To avoid the cravings, I chewed gum, exercised a lot, and promised myself a bicycle tour vacation after 8 weeks of no smoking.

The key was I had reached a point that I wanted to quit. Not sure how to get your mother to that point. But tell her she cannot smoke around you or inside a building where you will be, because it will affect your health.

Cold turkey. I smoked for 10 years, was up to 2 packs a day. I quit 22 years ago. A co-worker threw a 100 dollar bill on my desk and said, “this is yours, please quit smoking”. I realized that day that not only was I affecting my co-workers with my smoke, but they also cared about my health. I told him to give me a week to finish up my carton of cigarettes I already had and a week later, he came to my house and started collecting my ash trays. I knew he was very serious so I quit that day. It was very difficult, but I took one day at a time.

I quit because my daughter (at that time, age 5) developed a smoker’s cough. I used Nicorette gum (required prescription then). I had smoked for a little over 10 years, 1½ packs a day. There are times I’m tempted now, but I know my husband would consider that grounds for divorce.

My mom quit when she was in her early 70’s because she had a mild stroke. She recovered completely, but it scared her enough to quit cold turkey, without aids.

The doctor could tell the patient had once been an attractive woman. But now, though only in her 50’s, her face was etched with wrinkles, her features gaunt-looking with prominent underlying bones and her skin shriveled and gray with purplish blotches. Diagnosis: smoker’s face…

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/women/warchive/960619_1213.html

She doesn’t smoke around me or her family at all. She goes out the back door. All of us tell her how much we hate it and want her to quit (including little grandchildren who I trained at an early age) and she just brushes it off. She says she wants to quit (& has said the same thing for 15 years) but somehow I don’t think she believes it deep down.

I smoked when I was in the service. Everybody did because nobody was really thinking in the long term. I quit about a month after I returned to the world. I was in Atlantic City and had been up playing craps and drinking for about 24 hours. I felt like shit. I quit drinking and smoking on the spot. I do not smoke any more. I will drink a little wine occasionally.

Cold turkey, me too.

At 29, after more than 10 years of fairly heavy smoking, I quit cold turkey and never went back. Why did I do it? Not because my doctor advised me to stop when he found a small scar on one lung that he said might one day become cancerous. I quit because of the reek of stale tobacco that I discovered one day on my mustache. That was the motivating reason for me.

The American Lung Association offered a 6 week class to stop smoking. I didn’t think it would work but I enrolled anyhow. That was over 20 years ago and I have not had so much as a single drag since. It deals with the mental addiction which in a lot of cases is much more intense and long lasting than the actual physical addiction to nicotine. I would call and request brochure for the class and give them to your mother.

Champix or Chantix in the states. It is a drug that stops or negates the effect of nicotine so tobacco doesn’t give you any high or buzz. It is prescription in Canada.

Have never smoked anything, but wanted to be semi-unhelpful and say kudos to all of you guys. Flag me if you must.

My classmates once tried to coax me into smoking, so I did have a few. But fortunately, one day it burnt badly in my throat and I have not touched one of those devilsticks ever since.
It needs to hurt, and it needs to hurt badly, then it may get easier to stop.

I was able to finally successfully quit smoking when I also quit drinking. I would quit for a year or more at a time before, but would always start back up again when I was drinking. I smoked from the age of 10 to 29. This January it will be 20 years without a smoke.

I don’t generally like to recommend pharmaceuticals, but Wellbutrin is an awesome method. I smoked for 15+ years and tried to quit at least 20 times. After taking Wellbutrin for a couple of weeks I was able to quit. Did I suffer some withdrawal and obsess about smoking some? Yes – but nowhere near as much. And the Wellbutrin acts as an antidepressant as well, so I wasn’t as much of a jerk as I normally was when trying to quit before.

Not nearly as compelling as the stories above, but I quit for love. My boyfriend hated that I smoked. He moved from New York to California to be with me, and I figured the least I could do was quit smoking. So I picked a date, bought a shitload of gum, and stuck to it. That was 4 years ago this December, and I never regretted it for a second.

I smoked for 20 years. Like a chimmney. I just kept telling myself that I was a non-smoker and finally it stuck. It was hard….Super hard but I just kept telling myself that I was a non-smoker.

I quite cold turkey 11 years ago. I recently had a chest exray and Dr said I was fine.

I stopped smoking 11 years ago, after 22 years of smoking, through reading Allen Carr’s book. I can’t recommend it enough. I haven’t had a craving since the day I stopped, I found it easy and enjoyable to stop, and I know for cast iron certainty that I will never smoke another cigarette in my life. The book doesn’t go into much detail about why you shouldn’t smoke, as everybody knows that already, rather it concentrates on why we smoke, and how we trick ourselves into thinking that we enjoy it.

Don’t just take my word for it, read some of the reviews on Amazon

The patch.. I smoked for 20 years a pack a day. Marlboro reds and Newports, depending on where I was in life. Tried to quit many times but two weeks on the patch and bye bye… it’s been about 5 years now.

I smoked on and off for about 16 years. I haven’t had a cigarette for 7½ years now. I quit cold turkey. It’s the only way I could do it. Luckily for me, the smell makes me want to puke now. I have no desire to start up again. The only time I ever desire one is when I am extremely stressed. I’ve gone this long without one, I’m not going to start again.

A patch, pray and a practising partner preferential (preferring pharmaceuticals)

I quit cold turkey and had smoked for over 10 years.
I was told to just not do it,so that’s what I did ;) I haven’t had one in 6 years and don’t miss it at all.

I smoked for about 5 or 6 years off and on, and quit when I turned 30. I can’t just casually puff, I’m all or nothing.
I quit with the patch and twizzlers. When I wanted to smoke, I would remember the anxiety I’d have when I’d lie in bed at night fretting about what it was doing to me, inside and out.

I still crave them, I just CHOOSE not to. But boy I miss it. Like @judochop said, tell yourself you’re a non-smoker. Hypnotists use that technique for it as well.

Everyone I know that used Chantix has quit. Some went a little kooky for a while, but they quit.

I quit 15 years ago cold turkey and this is how….Ask her to inhale as deep as she can and then exhale as far as she can…..I mean to really go as far as she can! Not hard or fast…the key is to push the range of lung function. Have her do it 10 times. I bet she won’t make 4 times if that.

But once she does decide to quit, this breathing technique allowed me to occupy myself sufficiently long enough to get past that powerful “I got to have a smoke” craving that usually passes if you ignore it long enough. Plus working your lungs with this method is a painful reminder of just how much damage she has done to her lungs by smoking.

Thank you everyone for your stories.