Sonic, if the sideeffects would not agree with you as it did with some others here me included

then quit without Zyban


if you get truly ticked off about this weakness, you can go cold turkey... just keep repeating whenever you get a craving " this is not me talking , this is the nicotine talking for me, i'm the boss, not the drug"
get angry :mad: about it , it works.


set a schedule

1 month in an XLS sheet
every good day , you color green

set special check boxes for mile stones
next to the mile stones, you set expectation levels

20 minutes, blood pressure goes normal
1 day , all traces of CO left your body , lungs start to clear
2 days, all nicotine left your body, taste and smell have improved
3 days, blood coagulation goes normal, breath easier, more energy
1 week , craving at it's worste, headaches, sore throat, this is normal , signs of healing, they go away in week 2 , use nicotine replacements to get take the edge off
2 weeks, blood circulation improved, you can run easier
3 weeks
1 month
2months , by the end of week 8 the need for a ciggie and all withdrawel goes away , good time to start working on the extra pounds you gained

in the same sheet, list all reasons for quitting
- it's unhealthy
- it's expensive
- bad smell in your clothes
- badger breath in the mornin
- lack of taste and smell
- it's antisocial

reward yourself with things if you hit the milestones
i finally bought me a dishwasher ( never bothered to spend money on household appliances, my budget was for porsche related stuff lol )


clear out your house , your car , remove all traces from smoking
get rid of ashtrays, lighters, old packs, etc
wash the curtains, stuff like that
that oughta keep you busy in the beginning

start on an evening.... i quit at 17 h 00
went to sleep early
woke up next day, and only had 8 hours to go till i hit the DAY 1 mark


keep yourself busy with timewasters
build model airplanes
build a model train track
play chess with the kids
make time fly with things you normally don't do , so you break the psychological pattern

Mostly good things to do there Stijn.

I'd add why you like to smoke to the list. You should be able to be honest that there are things you liked about it, just that the things you don't like about it outweigh the likes.

Also it's important to realize that there are often triggers to smoke like coffee breaks, getting in the car to go home, reading the morning paper (or internet). These are the times when one is most likely to fail, because the activity brings out the memory of the habit.

Since smoking involves hands and mouth, often the weight gain is related solely to snacking more. That was the original thought behind putting nicotine in gum. The mouth satisfaction would be echoed by the gum, and the nicotine replaced. Suggest low or negative calorie foods (eg celery).

3 1/2 years and not even the slightest urge to light one up!

I hope others have had the same luck. I watched one of my favorite movies tonight (Mel Gibson in Payback) and there isn't hardly a scene without someone smoking a cigarette. I used to tell people I know I'd be cured if I could sit through that entire movie and not get the urge to go out on the porch.

Who else is willing to take the Payback Challange!?

Nice!!!!!

Wow, commendable thread.

Stijn did you hang with it?


I've tried to quit 6 times over the last 4 years. I went one some good stints but never stuck. Never tried the quitting drugs. I always felt like it's something I should be able to do on my own.


I don't have the urge to quit. That's the big problem.

Been over two mos. for me and ever day is a struggle. Just one or two urges per day, but I'm too lazy to bother going out to buy smokes. Very tough when I'm around smokers. Gawd, I miss it. I've certainly not noticed any health benefits since quitting and I felt fine when I smoked. Never get sick and I have no problem doing a very hard cardio workout several times a week.

My physical health isn't bad but I know my breathhold isn't as long as it used to be in my free-diving days. I used to be able to make it to 'the caves' at this amazing 90ft deep freshwater lake where I used to live. The caves were 30-40 feet underwater and to make in and back required a good 3 minutes. I used to be able to do it no problem. This was 10 years ago.

Now It's tough for me to make it 90 seconds.

Congrats Leland...

Seven weeks ago I had pleurisy with a touch of pneumonia. I'll tell you what, thinking that you are going to die with every breath you take was enough for me to quit. Haven't touched one since, and if I get an urge, the memory of the pain stops me in my tracks.

I quit cold turkey in 2003.

Unaided.

What I haven't figgered out is why people start in the first place? Other than trying to look "cool" WTF is the point?

I started when I was 19 because the restaurant where I was washing dishes at the time would not let anyone ever take a break unless it was a smoke break. So I brought a pack of smokes to work with me. Took a while before I even started inhaling, but eventually I did.

Years ago I did volunteer work at a facility for the handicapped. The employees had taught several of the patients to smoke - the same people who couldn't feed and dress themselves without assistance - so they'd have an excuse to take more smoke breaks.

It's a very powerful thing.

Back before you had to be 18 to buy, I worked at Wendy's, flipping burgers. There were a bunch of women on work release from the local women's prison also working there. They used to always ask me to run across the street to buy smokes for them. Finally, I asked one of them why she couldn't do it herself. That's when she told me there were all incarcerated and could not leave the property or they'd yanked back during the day. So weird that I was literally buying smokes every day and around it all day, but didn't care about trying it back then. College stress, drinking, going out and a $hitty dishwashing job sort of change your perspective. Anyway, I was immortal back then.

Plus the threat of getting yer ass kicked by prison chicks...

I was kinda into that. They were all tough-looking black ladies, but I tend to get along with those types pretty well. Sadly, one of them stole a purse from the dining room one day, ran across the street to the local mall and bought a ton of stuff on the credit cards, obviously not thinking too far ahead about how she was gonna explain bringing all those Macy's and such bags back into jail with her. All of them were yanked back to prison after that.

Rick there's got to be a few stories here you're not telling us about :D

WOW!!! That's pretty much how I started smoking. I already smoked a bit, but I got a job as a dishwasher, and unless you smoked you worked 8 hours straight with no break. So I started smoking a lot more.

Yup, that law about a 30 min. break every five hours doesn't mean much in the restaurant biz. But hey, I got a lot of great free food and beer, which was pretty cool. Alas, I went to work one day and the doors were locked, place had closed down. But by then I had picked up the habit and took it to my next job and then back to college after the summer. Honestly, I never enjoyed smoking back then as much as I have recently. I went several mos. at a time between cigarettes for many years, but was smoking almost a pack a day when I got my best marathon time. The last three years, though, have been when I enjoyed smoking the most. It's a battle every day.

I smoked for over 20 years, at times almost two packs a day.

I honestly found quitting to be chilidshly easy.