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Give and get support around quitting

rgr2018
Member

GEARING UP TO QUIT.

Hi All - I am getting ready to start the first serious quit I have tried in many years. I am 68 yo and have smoked 50 of them. In the last few years, I’ve smoked about 1 ½ packs per day.  I have lots of questions, but one of the most pressing is whether it is too late for me to quit? I have educated myself reading the various blogs and several books.  I do have some COPD, but not any cancers or other smoking related diseases.

  The other question I have relates to cutting down.  I have set my quit date for Jan. 1, 2019 and I have been keeping track of my cigarettes to determine which are the most important to me.  During the course of this I have found I’ve cut down to a little under a pack per day.  Should I continue to try to cut down or just wait until my quit date? In retrospect this sounds like a stupid question, but I’ve read stuff that says don’t put your energy into cutting down because I’m still maintaining the addiction.

            Any help you can provide would be more than welcome.  Best regards, RGR.

21 Replies

Hello and WELCOME to the site!!

 First off, CONGRATULATIONS on your decision to quit. It does sound like your preparing. I think that's an important first step. For me, it made things much easier. Others will be along shortly with more reading suggestions for you, should you choose to do more reading.

 To answer your question from my personal perspective, I cut down during my preparations using a pack tracker to track when I smoked, what I was doing when I wanted to smoke and what my mood was along with the time of day. In fact, I was down to four cigarettes a day when I put out my last one.

 In my case, I used nicotine patches, and the thing was I'd cut down so much that the step one patches were actually pretty strong. I probably should have started with step 2 or even 3.

. Another thing I did was to take away my triggers before I quit such as smoking first thing in the morning (I'd make myself wait ten minutes longer each morning until I reached an hour before I had my first one.

 I also quit smoking while driving. A BIG trigger for me. And of course, waiting for a period of time after a meal. These things can really reinforce your quit. I'd do everything I could to learn my addiction and more specifically, how that addiction reacts to you internally, or rather what makes your addiction tick.

 There's as many ways to quit as there are people quitting. We just have to find what works best for us as individuals. The support on this site is incredible!! It really helped me a lot to learn my new life of freedom. Please stay close to the site. Feel free to ask questions and please keep us posted as to your progress. I look forward to hearing of your success!!

ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!

Chuck

indingrl
Member

WELCOME-your never to old to quit-good job blogging-asking questions-keep up the good job of your self acceptance and honesty-good job! 

My suggestion is to say "I'm going to wait a little longer:" to yourself, every time you want to smoke and just forget about the counting.

Don't deny yourself or worry about quitting.

https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/message/70402-where-does-it-come-from 

elvan
Member

My name is Ellen, I smoked for 47 years but thanks to EX, I have been quit for over 4 years and 9 months.  I have COPD, COPD is irreversible but we CAN slow its progress by quitting smoking, that is number one...we can also exercise, eat well, and take care of ourselves in all other ways.  I don't think it is too late to quit...I had to have both of my upper lobes of my lungs removed because of how severe the damage was.  I am still short of breath, I am oxygen at night, BUT, I do what I can to take care of myself and the first and best thing I did was to quit smoking.  There is a group on this site COPD  and it may be very helpful for you to learn more about this disease.  I am not sure why your quit date is so far out but that's up to you, I can you that the sooner you quit, the better gift you are giving yourself.  Education about this addiction, support from people who know what quitting is like, and your commitment to your quit are the most important factors in being successful, in my opinion.  YoungAtHeart‌ wrote a beautiful welcome to new people and I am going to paste it here for you, it gives you links and suggestions for your quit.  Welcome to EX.

Ellen

Welcome to our community!

The most important thing you can do right now is to educate yourself on what nicotine does to your body and mind. To that end, I highly recommend Allen Carr's “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.” This is an easy and entertaining read. You can search for it  or at your local library. Here's a link to a video here on the site which describes nicotine addiction: Nicotine and Your Brain - YouTube.

You should also read the posts here and perhaps go to the pages of folks who you think might be helpful. You might visit whyquit.com, quitsmoking.com and livewell.com for the good information contained there. Best of EX has lots of blogs written by members of this site with their experiences and guidance.  You should also do the tracking and separation exercises recommended here on the site.

 After you have completed the recommended reading, it will be time to make an informed choice of the quit aid, if any, you will use. If you go that route, I personally recommend the aids that don't let the addict control the dose such as the available prescription drugs or the patch. If used properly, gum, lozenges and inhalers are fine, but they need to be used only as a last resort.  I have seen folks become addicted to them if they substitute them for every cigarette they used to smoke - just trading one addiction for another.  I do not recommend the e-cigarette for three reasons: 1) the vapor has been compared to the polluted air in Bejing on a bad day, 2) they just provide another nicotine delivery system while continuing the hand to mouth smoking motion, and 3) the batteries can spontaneously catch on fire. . But – any method that you think will work well for you will be best for you.

The idea is to change up your routines so the smoking associations are reduced.  Drink your coffee with your OTHER hand in a place different from when you smoked. Maybe switch to tea for a bit.  If you always had that first smoke with your coffee, try putting your tennies on right out of bed, going for a quick walk, then taking your shower and THEN your coffee! Rearrange the furniture in the areas you used to smoke so the view is different. Buy your gas at a different station. Take a different route to work. Take a quick walk at break time where the smokers AREN'T.

You need to distract yourself through any craves.  You can take a bite out of a lemon (yup - rind and all), put your head in the freezer and take a deep breath of cold air, do a few jumping jacks, go for a brisk walk or march in place, play a computer game.  Keep a cold bottle of water with you from which to sip. Don't let that smoking thought rattle around in your brain unchallenged. Sometimes you need to quit a minute or an hour at a time.  You will need to be disciplined in the early days to distract yourself when a crave hits.    Get busy!  Here is a link to a list of things to do instead of smoke if you need some fresh ideas:

/blogs/Youngatheart.7.4.12-blog/2013/02/25/100-things-to-do-instead-of-smoke

The conversation in your head in response to the "I want a cigarette" thought needs to be, "Well, since I have decided not to do that anymore, what shall I do instead for the three minutes this crave will last?"  Then DO it.  You will need to put some effort into this in the early days, but it gets easier and easier to do.

Stay close to us here and ask questions when you have them and for support when you need it. We will be with you every step of the way!


 Nancy

Deena-A-Yenni
Member

Welcome.  You won't regret your decision to quit.  You will benefit!!

Giulia
Member

Welcome.  One of the many things you'll learn from us is that everybody has their own way of quitting.  And we discover that way by trial and error.  What works for me may not work for you.  It sounds like you've been doing your homework here.  I'll tell you one thing - you cannot do too much homework!  And if one technique you try (cold turkey, or NRT, or Chantix) doesn't work, then try another.  

I will also say that if one of your most pressing questions is "is it too late for me to quit" then we on this website en masse will say NO, it's NOT TO LATE.  That we all agree upon wholeheartedly. 

Every second, every minute, every day you keep a cigarette out of your mouth you will benefit health-wise.  We can't turn back the clock on the damage we may have done to ourselves, but we sure can prevent further damage from occurring.  

Also - there ARE no stupid questions when it comes to overcoming this addiction.  So don't even go there in your mind.  Questions and answers are how we learn.  A lot of times we know the answers ourselves.  We just have to first trust that answer and then agree to it.  Because some of those answer are hard to agree with, even though we know the truth of them.  Because our addictive minds do everything possible to negate the truth of our excuses.

I'll throw your question back at you:  "Should I continue to try to cut down or just wait until my quit date?"  What do YOU think?  You know yourself better than any of us.  And you've also read the answers.  Cutting down may ease your passage.  Cutting down lowers the amount of nicotine you get.  And cutting down keeps you in a steady "need" mode.  There are those of us who prefer to jump wholeheartedly into the cold water of the pond, and those who need to ease their way in slowly inch by inch.  YOU know which is right for you.  Trust your instincts.  Truly.  

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desiree465
Member

Good for you, this will be one of the best decisions of your life, and of course it's never too late. I think you're doing great. If you wanna continue to cut down until your quit date I think that would be a good choice. I wish I had tried it that way, I feel like it would have made those first few weeks easier. I think as long as you pick a date and stick to not putting a cigarette in your mouth on that date then you're doing the right thing. I used an NRT for the first couple months and I think it helped. What's your plan?

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maryfreecig
Member

     Welcome to Ex. You are in good company at Ex because plenty of quitters here smoked a long, long time. Some have COPD and willingly share their experience and knowledge. We all share 'what it was like as a smoker, what happened (to change our minds about smoking), and what it is like now that we've quit.'  It is never to late to quit. It is a journey of unlearning smoking and relearning life without the smokes. I quit at 54 (started at 17) and wondered how I'd ever forget. I have, and how wonderful it is to be able to live without fixating on having a cigarette. 

     Having a plan (which you seem to have or are pulling together right now) and support are good tools to have in making your quit work. They help to break the delusion that smoking is all important. 

     I tapered down within the last two weeks because I had a carton left and that was my quit carton rather than a set day. I don't recommend severe tapering--because fixating on when you can have your next cigarette isn't a good habit either. But going from 1.5 to 1 pack should not cause nicotine withdrawal. Seems to me that that is more of a habit thing.   JonesCarpeDiem  gave fantastic advice about working on undoing the habit of wanting a cigarette rather than counting. 

     Congratulations on the progress you have made! Keep up the good work!

     Just my two cents worth. Take what you need, leave the rest.

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