I QUIT!

Remove all ads!

Winners never quit and quitters never win is the saying, but I've made up my mind to quit smoking. As many of you here already know, Mrs. Idiot is expecting, and is due in about 6 weeks. I've put this off as long as I can, and this is my second day not smoking. Granted, it's still morning here, so I can't really say that I've been smoke free for two days. It's more like one day and a couple of hours. Still, you got to start somewhere.

I went to the doctor's with the intent to get the pill that turns off the nicotine receptors. However, my doctor talked me into trying the patch instead. I was not all that keen on the patch, as I didn't see how taking nicotine through a patch helps you break your nicotine addiction. However, what he said made sense. He explained that smoking involves a life style more than just an action. The psychological oral-fixation thing is just as hard to break as the phsyical nicotine addiction. The patch allows you to break the psychological part first, while not having to go through withdrawal.

However, the thing that sold me on the patch was my doctor said that the pill has side effects for some people, including migrains, blurred vision, dizzyness, and a few other things, including in some rare instances psychosis. I'm not sure what psychosis is, but it sounds pretty f'ing bad, so I'd rather not find out the hard way. Since I had not previously tried the patch, he recommended that I try the patch first, because why not try something with no side effects before going with something that has potential side effects? That made sense to me. Also, the pill contains some anti-depressant medication, which means you can only be on it for a set period of time. If you don't actually suffer from clinical depression, it is evidently NOT a good idea to take anti-depressants for an extended period of time. However, nicotine itself is not life threatening (nicotine causes the addiction, but it's not the nicotine that kills you), so you can stay on the patch as long as you need to.

The other good thing about the patch is that it comes in three flavors - 21mg, 14mg, and 7mg. You start at the 21mg level, and gradually you go down to the 14mg, and finally the 7mg. So it breaks the addiction gradually. The prescribed method is to buy 2 boxes of the 21mg patches (each box is a 2-week supply) then one box of the 14mg patches, and finally one box of the 7mg patches, so the entire process is about 8 weeks long. The only bad part is that the patches are expensive - a 2-week supply is $45, which is actually more than I was spending on cigarettes.

So anyway, with the patch, it is hard, but it's not THAT BAD. I feel like I can do this. The best way I can describe it is that I WANT a cigarette, but I don't absolutely NEED a cigarette. As someone who has tried to quit cold turkey (and failed miserably) in the past, the patch kind of takes the edge off. What felt like an irresistible compusion before is now resistible. Wish me luck.

 

Good choice, good luck, I know you can work it out.

 

Congratulations, man. It gets harder as you get older. I was lucky (smart?) enough to quit before it'd really dug its meathooks into me.

Sidenote: since this post was in SS, I thought it meant you were quitting SP. What a relief it's just about smoking.

 

No, when it comes to the SP addiction, there's no patch for that, so I doubt I could quit. I put it in SS because it seemed most appropriate, as this is about me specifically. I considered Whatnots, but this seemed the better choice. /me sticks another piece of gum in me mouth for oral fixation purposes/ God, I've become a chain gum chewer.

It still kind of sucks. While I have known for a long time about the hazards of smoking (heck, I knew before I started), I didn't smoke to be cool, or fit in, or any of the other reasons most people started. I smoked because I actually enjoyed smoking. I realize that sounds retarded given the health effects, but it's true. And the other thing that was stupid is that I started when I should have known better. I've always been a law-abider, so I didn't even attempt to buy pack a cigarettes until I was over 18. Like I said - old enough to know better.

I suppose the good part (or bad depending on how you want to look at it) is that if the Mrs. wasn't pregnant, I probably wouldn't have quit at this time. Evidently, the personal health benefits were insufficient motivation for me to stop. I should put all the money I was spending on cigarettes into a college fund for mini-fop.

 

DR, you mistakenly typed "relief" instead of "disappointment".



OK, jk of course. Good luck, you big likable Idiot, you!

 

Well, he does smell funny.

 

Good for you Aldeth. Smoking would have killed you in the end. Injoy a cough free life.

 

Had me worried for a moment.

Be a winner and quit.

 

Kudos to you man!

 

Well, you might spend a couple hundred bucks now, but that is nothing compared to a lifetime supply of cigarettes. So in the end, you're better off financially.

Haha, I also thought you meant you were leaving here. I was worried for a sec.

Does Mrs. Idiot smoke? (If you don't mind me asking, of course)

 

Geez, wtf people? I think I get along with most people here. It would really be hard to someone to piss me off to the point that I'd never come back to the site again...

Tried that - it didn't work. Although I am worried that when I drop down to a lower level nicotine patch, the urge to smoke will become greater. Although that's almost a month away from now.

Mrs. Idiot did smoke for a time, but never as much as I did. She was one of those very social smokers, as in a pack of cigarettes would last her an entire week. She was like a 3-cigarette per day smoker, so that doesn't really count as a hard core smoker. She also quit completely before she even tried to get pregnant, but like I said, since she didn't smoke much to begin with, it wasn't hard for her. Hers was more of a smoking habit than a nicotine addiction.

I have considered the overall costs. I figured out that I was spending about $50 per month on cigarettes. I smoked about half a pack per day, and at around $3.50 per pack, that's about $50 per month. So yeah, the costs of quitting will not exceed what I would have spent on cigarettes if I continued smoking for a few more months.

 

And even if they did, in the longer term picture you still come out WAAAY ahead. Eventually those costs would even out, and you'd be living $50 monthly cheaper (and/or putting the money to better use--diapers come to mind, hehe). And to really put the longer term financial savings in perspective, consider how much less likely you will be down the road to be paying heavy doctor's bills to deal with the self inflicted damage to your body.

And that brings me to the positive health implications, which are far less than trivial. Not to mention that with a child on the way, I'm sure you don't want to subject him/her to the whole second hand smoke thing.

Congratulations on having the will to make it this far, and I hope you'll be able to carry this progress forward in the days, weeks, months, and years to come!

And by the way -- even though I don't know you like a lot of the board regulars seem to -- I didn't think for a second you were intending to quite the boards.

 

Good stuff, Aldeth.

There are so many different approaches to giving up. You just need to find the approach that works best for you. A guy I work with quit instantly after reading a book that just hit the right wavelenght for him. He gave the book to another guy who sayshe wants to give up, but he keeps putting off starting to read it.

 

The smoking ban is doing it for me. When once I could easily cane 40 fags in 1 night on the piss, I'm now only getting through half a stack of 20 as I can't be arsed to go outside in the cold and wet just to have a fag. I only really ever smoked on nights out.

 

As a former tobacco smoker, I can but support that decision.

Going cold turkey is, as it was told, pretty much the best way - I personally didn't liked nicotine gum or patches.

The urges were totally unbearable for the first weeks (It gave me a valid and widely accepted reason for being a rude jerk to everyone), but gradually it went down to a bearable level. I'm still struggling against the urges in some rare occurences, though. This is a battle that is never truly won -- you'll have to be ever careful not to slip back in the habit.

You can pull it off though, of that I have no doubts.

Oh, yeah... quitting shows on the wallet too. You might find your bank account gaining weight or more money be put to better use.

 

I once heard that the nicotine addiction is over within a week, but the psychological addiction is the biggest step to overcome. But stay strong, I'm sure your kid will be proud of you some day.

 

You may not be physically dependant, it's always hard to break a habit. I plan not to smoke during my summer vacations. I already did that last year but I picked it up again in autumn what with work and stuff it gets really stressful sometimes.
I hope you'll manage to resist the temptation. Good luck.