14 ms·

I quit smoking, and it was very very hard. I don't agree with you that the addiction, need and nicotine + other triggers will remain with me until the end of ti

• dimmke 5y ago
  I agree. I quit smoking back in 2016 and I don’t think of myself as a smoker at all anymore. I sometimes have to remind myself I used to smoke.
  • mavhc 5y ago
    Why do people start smoking? Surely they know it's addictive, expensive, and bad for you
    • magneticnorth 5y ago
      There's a pleasant mild buzz you get before your tolerance builds up.
    • sharpneli 5y ago
      As a teenager one doesn’t really think the things you mentioned. And it was cool. Source: Me. Smoked for 15 years. Stopped 6 years ago.
    • smitty1110 5y ago
      For me it was something I did with co-workers, and eventually at home, to de-stress. I was in a terrible place mentally, physically, and from a career perspective at the time, but it helped me feel like I wasn't going to suffocate from stress. I got my life together after that, but it so bad at the time that taking half an hour to smoke a cigar in the evening was a godsend.
    • TchoBeer 5y ago
      Alcohol is also addictive expensive and bad for you, and yet no one asks why anyone would drink alcohol
      • nine_k 5y ago
        To get physiologically addicted to alcohol, one has to drink heavily every day for a year or so. Few people, especially people with college education, do that. One can drink a glass of wine or a cocktail every weekend for life, and form no addiction at all. Such a person can go dry for weeks or months, without any adverse effects. Nicotine forms a physiological addiction much faster, and then the addict has to have a fix daily, several times. So the exposure to nicotine (which is mildly toxic in the quantities needed) and smoke (which is way more dangerous, and hits the lungs directly) is much more intense and sustained.
        • tialaramex 5y ago
          One of my friends gave up smoking for exactly a year on a whim, celebrated his success with a cigar, I think largely to rub it in the faces of people who struggled to quit - after a few months smoking again he packed it in permanently. So it doesn't have a strong hold on everybody. A few of my friends reduced their smoking to just a cigar once in a while, others moved to vaping, it is disheartening that then going from vaping to nothing seems to be not really a thing, but at least the vaping doesn't smell atrocious and seems less immediately likely to kill them.
        • throwawayboise 5y ago
          I'd say many people can drink more than that without dependency. I have a whiskey most evenings, but if I run out, I don't have any problems. Sometimes I'll go days or weeks without a drink, just depending on what else is going on.
      • namenotrequired 5y ago
        The addiction likelihood of alcohol is much smaller. Nowhere near tobacco's ~100%
    • nyolfen 5y ago
      it's a pleasant social activity when you're young; you have a ritual you perform together and share informal bonding time. smoking also gives a physical sense of relief once you're addicted to it and it gives you something to punctuate your day with, little benchmarks -- i will finish writing these emails so i can have a cigarette, etc. i smoked for 8 years then switched to vaping. i don't want to vape for the rest of my life, but there was an obvious difference in my fitness as soon as i quit (e.g. being able to run twice as far without stopping). i also smell better and my teeth are whiter. i'm glad that i switched, but it doesn't share the same ritual feeling when you can just pull a drag at any arbitrary time.
      • rapind 5y ago
        I quit smoking ten years ago (smoked for about 15y before that) and the only thing I miss is the enforced ritual to go stand outside for 5-10 minutes. I’d pay for an addictive product that gave me that back without killing me!
        • im_down_w_otp 5y ago
          When I was much younger I was the only non-smoker in an office of about 10 people. This included the owner and his wife who also worked there. Several times a day one or more of them would spend ~15 minutes loitering around smoking a cigarette. I'm prone to throwing myself into my work, even back then, and so initially this didn't really bother me. But, eventually the imbalance in workplace expectations, around scheduled breaks up against this informal unscheduled break they all benefited from, started to bug me. Sooooooo... one day I just start going outside randomly and standing around looking at the trees and listening to the birds for 10-15 minutes at a time. A few days of this went by and my boss (the owner) asked me what I was doing (insinuating I should get back to work). I said, "The same thing the rest of you do everyday, just without the part where I'm also lighting money and my wellbeing on fire. Sometimes I eat an apple or a banana though." Thankfully he was the sort to be reasoned with and saw my point. Shortly thereafter he quit smoking.
          • inamiyar 5y ago
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • warent 5y ago
      I started because I thought it made me look really cool. Plus menthols tasted great
      • JohnWhigham 5y ago
        I don't think this is expounded enough: smoking does make you look cool. Hollywood inculcated society with this back in the 50s with the James Dean types. You go down to drags with bars and you see all the people outside doing it. There's something alluring about someone not caring that they're shaving off a fraction of a fraction of of their lifespan. To me socially I've found myself drawn to those who smoke vs. those that don't. They're right below the surface to where I can quickly find something in common with them. At one of my previous places, the CTO told me how he took a bunch of the employees from another job to start their own successful company. How did that happen? They got the idea because they were all smokers and all congregated at the same.
    • Baeocystin 5y ago
      I don't smoke, but my roommate does. After living in the same house for a couple of years, now, I think I understand the social aspect of why people start. A cigarette break is the perfect amount of time to sit down and have a little chat, and provides a reason to stop once it's done, too. Meet on the deck, catch up on each other's day, see you later, back to work. That kind of thing.
      • pstuart 5y ago
        That's the only thing I miss about smoking.
      • ridethebike 5y ago
        Never smoked but always liked to get out of the office with my smoking friends for some (ironically) fresh air and a chat. There was a bit of zen in this. And hey, my lungs didn't have to pay price for it :)
      • throw20210211 5y ago
        Could do the exact same thing with... a bottle of water instead. I guess it's not cool enough though.
        • girvo 5y ago
          It's about social rituals. If you can create one of those with the people around you without addictive substances, more power to you! But coffee and cigarettes: they come with prexisting societal level rituals out of the box, so to speak.
      • wirrbel 5y ago
        I can totally understand that. I would just suggest to reconsider coffee/tea drinking in that regard (or whatever drink might serve as a substitute). Already when studying/researching at Uni having a cup of coffee together did serve as such a communal break, catching up, etc. When I did an abroad term in Canada what hit me by surprise is that people would get take-away coffee and would ONLY drink it at their desks browsing Facebook. As a European it didn't take me long to find a Dutch guy who had the same feeling about joint coffee breaks and we became buddies.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • meristohm 5y ago
      My dad started smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol in his teens. From what I’ve gathered, he had a rough childhood. If you’re not sure you’re going to live very long, putting harmful things in your body for the immediate high isn’t the worst. It might feel worse to deny yourself the pleasure of (temporary, and in his case ultimate) escape.
    • DowsingSpoon 5y ago
      I used to smoke. I started smoking while drinking and the reason is that it feels fucking amazing. People don't smoke for no reason. They smoke because it feels good. Really good. The long-term health consequences don't feel real when you're young. It's easy to dismiss, even if you logically understand the risks. The expense is not a problem. Utterly unimportant. The addictive aspect is a subtle beast. It creeps up on you slowly. At first, smoking is a great, fun thing to do every once in a while. It's a great, fun thing to do with friends. Slowly, every once in a while turns into every day. Then, a few times a day. Now you need a cigarette to start the day right. You try to cut back and only then realize you're addicted.
      • lultimouomo 5y ago
        > I started smoking while drinking and the reason is that it feels fucking amazing I have smoked about 5 cigarettes in my life, also when drinking as a young adult. It was honestly unpleasant for me; the feeling of hot smoke in my lungs was definitely not a natural taste to me. I have always thought that people powered through the initial distaste for smoke to fit in, and then they acquired a taste for it (or became addicted and thus associated the smoke in the lungs with the nicotine rush, not sure). Was I wrong? Did that first cigarette feel amazing to you? Was the first drag a pleasant feeling? Genuinely curios!
        • YetAnotherNick 5y ago
          For me I thought I would never be able to like the cigarette. I hated smoke(not just of cigarette) for my life and my eyes were sensitive to smoke. I hated the smell of cigarette too. But, oh boy I was so wrong in thinking it would never become part of my life. Also if you hate smoke smell like I did, you tend to smoke wrongly and fail to fill your lungs with smoke. In that case you wouldn't even get the "buzz" of the cigarette while still feeling bad smell.
        • taneq 5y ago
          You don’t inhale solely through the cigarette until you’re a seasoned smoker. You suck a bit of smoke in as you breathe in, gradually more as you get used to it. Smoking never made sense to me until I spent some time in an English winter. It warms the air up when it’s so cold it hurts to breathe. The nicotine feels nice as well. I only ever smoked a few times though. It started to feel normal and I took this warning sign to heart and stopped forever.
    • leemailll 5y ago
      https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/s/smoking-and-mental-health https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/s/smoking-and-mental-...
    • mlang23 5y ago
      Yes, they do. But people are not programs. Wondering why people behave irrational is a bit like wondering why rain is wet.
      • mavhc 5y ago
        You never wondered why rain is wet? But it's so interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
    • pantulis 5y ago
      First, it's the social aspect. You smoke because it is/was cool. Second, it's the anti-stress effect. When you take a hit, you concentrate on your breath. It's like a mini mindfulness moment. Under stressful situations at work I used to do it by myself (even walked out of the office to not be seen). Then I did not care and started smoking outside with the rest of coworkers. This combined the anti-stress with the social effects. In the meantime, addiction kicks in. You don't get any pleasure any more, but you cannot leave it. I am currently on an average of 6 cigarettes/day, but it's only because I do not smoke at home or weekends. Only on workdays, so really around 9-10 cigarettes/workday.
    • smnscu 5y ago
      Depression in my case. I started smoking before high school as something to fill the void, only realizing much later that I've been severely depressed for a long time. (SSRIs are an amazing tool in my case FWIW) Once you get used to it, it's an amazing social tool -- making new friends/acquaintances becomes a piece of cake. I travelled a lot for work and, as a smoker, I would instantly integrate with the other smokers. It's just something fun that leads to pursuing other social activities together. I've seen ADHD mentioned in this thread and that makes sense, the habit as "something to do" is a powerful grip on top of the chemical addiction.
    • peanut_worm 5y ago
      It is a drug. It makes you feel good when you use it. Being able to feel good on-demand is very hard thing to resist.
    • tomcooks 5y ago
      Feels good man
    • tinus_hn 5y ago
      It’s also cool, something to waste your time on, a way to socialize, an (apparent) way to control your mood. It’s not worth it and the advantages are mostly fake, insignificant or easily replaceable but you only see that if you quit smoking. Just like you have to quit smoking to notice how bad it smells.
  • warent 5y ago
    This is my experience as well, and I can still occasionally have a cigar or hookah on special occasions a couple times a year without any problems. Then again I only smoked about 1/3rd of a pack a day for about 3 years, so maybe the addiction levels also depend on the quantity and the length of time
    • cloverich 5y ago
      After getting fully non-addicted (~3 years) I was able to do this. But after having cigars a bit more frequently (once every ~6 weeks, ~7 times total) I found the cravings started to come back. It surprised me a little, so I've stayed away. Back to actual special occasions if that. For comparison I smoked ~5-10 a day for ~15 years, with a few quitting segments in between.
• enneff 5y ago
  A big part of my process for quitting was associating smoking with feeling disgusting and sick instead of feeling relaxed (which was never true anyway). For me it was more like reprogramming than deprogramming. But in broad strokes my experience was similar to yours.
  • Jimmc414 5y ago
    Same here. I started in my teens and eventually quit in my thirties. It was so difficult I'm still surprised I was actually able to finally quit. Each time I walked into the office in the morning and at lunch I had to walk through the gauntlet of smokers and the mantra I repeated to myself to resist was, "That is what death smells like" It didn't take that long (months) before I found that familiar sweet smell very distasteful.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• watwut 5y ago
  I stopped smoking over 10 years ago and still want to smoke regularly. Often in situations where there are no cigarettes available
• hayst4ck 5y ago
  Have you had any major stress events in your life since quitting? I quit something myself and have felt much the same way, but I eventually had a string of very stressful events in my life that resulted in me seeking comfort in my old addiction.
  • jamal-kumar 5y ago
    oddly enough i only quit after a major stress event in my life, but that was such an experience where i managed to quit multiple things at once because i almost died haha good times
  • hallway_monitor 5y ago
    I quit for nine years. After a stressful event four years ago I started again. I think that, for me, the habit of going outside once an hour is the part that's hard to change.
• hellbannedguy 5y ago
  To those that have tried this, I found something a bit different, and I'm not even sure if I should say anything. Again--to those that tried to stop completely, and failed, maybe cut way back? I have never been successful at quitting anything. Diets have failed. Drinking abstinance has failed. What worked though is drastically cutting back. Ok, I was never a two pack a day smoker. I couldn't even imagine it. I did smoke though. That said, I cut way back. Cut back to a few cigarettes a week. I use rolling papers, and only buy one pack of cigarettes every few weeks. (probally 6 week interval, but I don't like to think about it). I roll tiny bits of tobacco into a paper, and smoke it, when I get that urge. Only when I get the urge. I can't recommend it because the research on smoking a little bit of tobacco is fuzzy. What I feel is wrong with most methods of stopping any substance, including food, and booze, is telling the brain you will never have this again. As my grandfather told me so many times, moderation my son. (I am not very successful in any part of my life, but smoke no more than three packs a year.)
• boltzmann_brain 5y ago
  Thing is, nicotine is quite beneficial for the brain, there are numerous studies on it. The problem, of course, is that smoking as means of getting nicotine is unhealthy, due to tar and other cancerous residues. I never smoked cigarettes regularly, but smoked quite a bit of pipe and cigars. I love tobacco taste and nicotine hit. While these are less unhealthy than cigarettes, because you don't inhale and the product is 100 % natural tobacco, I have since switched to Swedish snus to get my nicotine hit without any smoking.
• yarinr 5y ago
  Did the "deprogramming" came naturally over time, or did you do anything intentional to reach it? If it's the latter, would you care to expand?
• viraptor 5y ago
  I hope it's true for you long term. But please watch out. My aunt said pretty much the same thing. She was back to chain smoking after 3 years of completely no cigarettes. It may be safe to doubt yourself just a tiny bit...
• geoffmcc 5y ago
  I don't agree with you that the addiction, need and nicotine + other triggers will remain with me until the end of time. Deprogramming is part of the process of quitting to smoke. I do now never want to smoke. First I want to say I don't want you to start smoking again, nor go through something painful. I will admit I have a habit of being negative about things-- so I can't help but to wonder, because you sound so confident. Would you say that in the time you quit smoking you experienced a time where "The chips were down" so to say? I'm not talking about something small. Im talking things got real real. Cause that's usually when the switch appears.
• reissbaker 5y ago
  +1. I quit smoking a little over a decade ago, gradually, by winnowing myself down cigarette-by-cigarette. If I smoked six cigarettes a day, for the next two weeks I'd smoke five; by the end of two weeks I'd stop feeling the urge for a sixth. Then I'd move down to four, etc etc, until finally I was down to two and just stopped entirely. For the first year after stopping regularly smoking, I still felt the urge when drinking, and sometimes would have a cigarette with drinks on the weekend. After two years, I mostly stopped even wanting that. For many years after, cigarette smoke still smelled good to me, although I had no daily urge for one. But eventually even the positive association with the smell faded, and now I'm back to the original state of thinking cigarettes smell bad. Nicotine's hooks run deep, but they're not permanent. Stay away long enough and you'll eventually make it back to wondering why anyone smokes in the first place. I think it's important for people who are addicted to know that quitting is possible — you aren't permanently rewired. And it doesn't have to consume your life.
  • raducu 5y ago
    You must have enormous will power to taper nicotine. I'm addicted to nicotine, though not cigarettes (though I do smoke on social ocasions, but the nicotine in just one cigarette available in the EU does nothing for me), and I've "quit" numerous times for months, but my (undiagnosed) ADHD brings me back to it. It is such a perverse stimulant. I've taken hardcore stimulants and never got addicted, but nicotine has such a small half-life that it's impossible to not get addicted. While I'm on more powerful stimulants I don't need nicotine to do my work(in fact I can go without if I don't have to work).
    • reissbaker 5y ago
      For me, tapering nicotine was about as hard as getting daily exercise. Instead of a bit of muscle soreness or tension, I'd get a mild headache towards the end of the day for the first few days of a two-week cycle. About halfway through the two weeks it would usually stop, and while I'd still want the extra cigarette, I wouldn't get a headache from skipping it. I suspect if you're using enough nicotine that you can't feel the effect of a cigarette, you're probably using a lot more than I was getting from smoking. I'm not sure if my advice is equally useful for you, but I hope you manage to kick the addiction cycle at some point.
• abyssphenom 5y ago
  I would like to ask if you ever had smoking dreams in the first year. Where you caught yourself inadvertently smoking in the dream?
  • JustResign 5y ago
    I certainly did. I still remember the feeling of "oh no, I've fucked it all up" in the dream, and then the feeling of relief when you wake up and realize that you didn't actually smoke.
• throwawaycatch 5y ago
  IMO its not just about time, its also about repeating common activities with or without smoking a couple of times Some things happen once a year, so it takes quite a bit to get around to repeating them, feeling the urge, recognizing that you're learning how to do the activity without smoking, resisting for a bit and treating it as an important new learning experience, and then proceeding to the next one. After learning how well it worked for me for coffee (something I thought I could never ever do without smoking), I was confident it will work for everything else that causes a trigger. Well, except for alcohol, since it removes inhibition barriers. I was very careful with alcohol for the first year.
• graeme 5y ago
  How did you deprogram? This seems like it would actually be broadly relevant to habit change, so as a non smoker I’d be interested to know more.
• moistbar 5y ago
  This was my experience quitting drinking. Once I realized what it meant for my stability, both mental and financial, the upsides stopped outweighing the downsides and I lost all interest. Still working on cigarettes.
• emrah 5y ago
  As always with anything, it seems like there is a wide range of reactions to quitting. I know of people who quit and never went back to smoking, and I also know people who find it incredibly hard to stay off of it forever and go back to smoking sooner or later. For some people's brains, it does seem impossible to quit forever for some reason regardless of how much they want to quit etc
• utxaa 5y ago
  same here. i would say it was a full 2 years before i was free. i do not want to go through that again though.