Is it true the first 24 hours is the worst? How do people make it through the initial rough part?
Community
Community
Is it true the first 24 hours is the worst? How do people make it through the initial rough part?
Welcome and please know it is different for EVERYONE - education is the key - read all the stuff here and at whyquit.com there are videos to watch to discover - YOUR OWN PERSONAL NICOTINE addictions and habits and patterns - ONLY YOU know YOUR addiction - SUGGESTIONS - made by MANY here - keep in mind - what works for EACH individual - YOU choose yiur very own plan - then YOU get to CHOOSE for YOURSELF - please take what HELPS and let go of the rest - to be HELPFUL is MY only aim - thank you- SUGGESTION - blog - BEFORE you take that FIRST puff over YOU - gentle hug❤
I don't remember it being the worst. As a matter of fact, I was so pleased with myself that I made it 24 hours that I gained more confidence with each day.
What helped me get through those first few weeks was planning and carrying out a project. Mine was landscaping my backyard. It really helped to pass the time and kept my mind off smoking.
Everyone is different as to how they react and handle the quitting journey
Education about the addiction is key as it eliminates the vast majority of the fear/aniexty of what to expect
There are many blogs and readings suggested if you work through the quit plan on the site
Others will be along to give you specific readings
For me making the decision what's harder than the first 24 hours
Once you commit and believe in yourself and do the work you will be surprised that all the hype out there is just that
The first 24 hours can be the easiest for some as the determination factor is so strong then. It took me personally 10 days to feel like I had really quit. So much up and down with emotions and physical junk.
Do this one minute, one hour, one day, one week..... at a time. After a while, you'll be like me and forget what day it is
Let us know how you're doing! Congrats on your decision to quit.
Donna
Day 212
Welcome to EX. Youngatheart.7.4.12 will be along soon to give you some wonderful welcoming advice. Stay close to this site, read everything you can find about nicotine addiction, commit to your quit, make it your number one priority and you will do fine. I suggest reading a couple of blogs written by jonescarp.aka.dale.Jan_2007 that you might find very helpful, I am going to link them here: What To Expect In The First Four Months and My Welcome To New Members (12+ Years Of Watching)
You can do this and you do not have to do it alone, we are all here to help in any way that we can.
Ellen
I accepted my decision to quit and chose to do other things rather than smoke---even when I felt upset. One day led to the next. Give it time and all your best effort, accept support.
Hello and Welcome to Ex’s...baizelovers
How do people make it through the first 24 hours quit...? With Preparation, knowledge and hard work...and getting rid of all smoking paraphernalia. Please read at My EX Plan | BecomeAnEX there you will decide on a quit date. You will plan for that day like no other...read everything you can especially blogs here about quitting and smoking...You can do this...it is replacing smoking with healthier habits...it isn’t easy and a bit uncomfortable, but definitely doable.
You are worth the Quit...Keep close to the support site and do the recommendations...~ now get working...~ Colleen 226 DOF
Welcome to our community!
The 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 online or at your local library. If you do nothing else to get ready for your quit, please do give this a read.
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. @https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/best-of-ex has lots of blogs written by members of this site with their experiences and guidance. Here is a video to inform you further about nicotine addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWMgPHn0Lo&feature=youtu.be.
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 after you have tried to delay and distract. 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. You need to start out with a plan to reduce use of them over time - which the patch does by decreasing the dose contained in them.. For the gum, you can start by cutting each piece in half, then in quarters, then sub regular gum of the same flavor in between, adding more and more regular gum. For the lozenge, you need to start subbing a mint in between to begin, increasing the number of them over time. I do not recommend the e-cigarette for four 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, 3) the batteries can spontaneously catch on fire and 4) you can become addicted to that and it has not yet been proven safe .
It will be informative if you do the tracking and separation exercises recommended here on the site. As you track each cigarette smoked, note its importance, and what you might do instead. Put each one off just a little to prove that you don't NEED a cigarette just because you think you do.
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:
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/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
I think the first couple days so far have been hard. I have moments where I am like, I got this! Then...out of the blue I get a craving so hard that it hits me sideways. It always helps when I post on this site or text the messages on my phone as I get a diversion technique that will get me thought those moments. I know I can do this and I know you can too. Stay close to this site and when you get the urge, make a post, ask for help, share what's going on. Someone will reply with the best advice ever and you will know you are not alone on your quit. We are all here for each other to quit smoking. Let's do this!!!!
Well it’s different for all. My first 4 days were really hard. I kept telling myself each day to just get through this day and I did. I tried to focus on the positive. I found new things to do to create a new way of life. Now I do the new things and my old way s are fading away. Tanuaj 79 DOF
For me day 4 was the worst. First three days were a piece of cake 'cause I was all revved up and excited. And I had read that the majority of the nicotine is out of your body in 3 days. That was exciting! So after reaching that milestone I think reality set in! lol The nicotine may have been out but the cravings were in. But this journey really is so influenced by one's attitude. You have to accept that it's just going to be uncomfortable for a while, that there will be good days and bad days, better days and worse days, days when you feel strong and on top of it and days when you slink back into psychological victim mode. My head game kind of went like this playlette I wrote: A Quit Dialogue in IV Acts Our emotions aren't the same every day. Nor are our strengths and weaknesses. Our days aren't the same and neither are our reactions to them. But one of the things we learn through this quitting process is how to manage our reactions. We have a lot of nifty sayings here, like: "a craving isn't a command." Cravings just need to be channeled in different directions.
How to people make it through the initial rough part? They commit 100%. They make quitting their Number One priority. They ACCEPT their choice. They are WILLING to go through whatever it takes. They PERSEVERE. And they read everything they can get their eyeballs on and stay open minded and absorb everything shared by other quitters in all stages. And some of the most successful long-term quitters keep a keen sense of humor about themselves. Humor really helps in this quitting business. It enables one to step back and gain a new perspective. And being able to have a different perspective is a really important thing when you're myopically caught up in cravings. That's why we urge getting up, getting out, going for a walk, finding happy distractions. You have to take your quit into your own hands and work it, like play dough. And when it becomes silly putty, laugh!
Just make up your mind that no matter where you are in your quit, no matter what is happening in your life, no matter who does or does not support you, no matter how hard it is you will never have to do day One again. Make it a day WON. Stay close. You can do this.
Yes the first few days can be hard, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. The key is educating yourself about nicotine addiction and being prepared. There is lots of information on this site to help you with that. If you need help, reach out. We're here for you.
Barb
For many people, I think it is more about changing their routines and distracting themselves. This isn't just a day of discomfort. I'm sorry to say that for me, the first day wasn't the hardest. It was more like 3 months, but I smoked for a very long time and started as a child of 11. I did a lot a deep breaths and told myself how lucky I was that I could breathe. To remind myself what not breathing felt like if I got emphysema, I would breathe through a throw pillow. When I could, I simply refused to think about smoking. As in I forced my mind to go blank and tried to not have any thought at all. When that failed, I would get myself riled up at cigarette manufactures for being so greedy that they purposely addicted me and millions of others, knowing that it would kill us. I just kept saying to myself that I wasn't going to pay them another dime to kill me. Good wishes to you. Stay the course. Dixie
I love that you took the reins of your quit and did it YOUR way. I'm really curious, though Dixie, cause you're suddenly back offering wonderful support. Going back in your history it looks like you became a vaper after you quit cigarettes? Just am really wondering what drove you back to this site to participate again with your Elder wisdom? Glad you're back - whatever the reason.
I quit smoking by vaping. Then I quit vaping. I felt that there was very
strong sentiment against that on the site at that time. The site did not
fit my needs and I got support from other websites.
Recently I got an email notification stating that somebody was following me
at the site. I couldn't imagine what site this was. When I opened up the
site, I saw an entire section about vaping. I responded to a post about
what worked for me as well as a few others that caught my attention. It
wasn't until later that I realized that the site was the one that I had
left.
On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:14 PM Giulia <communityadmin@becomeanex.org>
How cool is that! Yes we were pretty hot under the collar about vapers in the beginning. But we've learned! We're a bit more open minded and tempered in our responses now! lol Though to go from quitting smoking to quitting vaping seems like a two-step unpleasant process when for some of us it was just quitting that one nicotine hand-to-mouth thing. (Well, when we finally got there!) But we each do it our own way. And happily you're free of BOTH! So many kudos heading in your direction. And really glad you've come back to share your wisdom of both experiences. Because we're getting more and more vapers on here daily. And we need more wisdom from Elders with vape experience who have been success at quitting that too. So hope you'll stick around!
Dixie_Quit_8-7-13 wrote:
I quit smoking by vaping. Then I quit vaping. I felt that there was very
strong sentiment against that on the site at that time. The site did not
fit my needs and I got support from other websites.
Recently I got an email notification stating that somebody was following me
at the site. I couldn't imagine what site this was. When I opened up the
site, I saw an entire section about vaping. I responded to a post about
what worked for me as well as a few others that caught my attention. It
wasn't until later that I realized that the site was the one that I had
left.
How cool is that. Yes, opinions can shift over time. We're constantly looking at how we can provide information to help people with their quit journey no matter the type of nicotine delivery they're trying to separate themselves from. The members of the community adapt over time too. I don't know the exact time that E-Cig and Vape Quitters and Users was created but we brought it forward from the old community and have added new content here both on the site and also here on the community to meet the needs of our ever-changing population. Glad to see you back!
Quitting Chewing Tobacco | BecomeAnEX and Chewing \ Smokeless Tobacco and Tobacco-Free Pouches also exist for those who dip.
Mark
EX Community Manager
I used NRT patch and basically hid in my room and watched movies.