Reply #72: I quit--oh jeez--in November 1989. [View All]

[shimmergal]

So it'll soon be 15 years! This after about 30 years of smoking.

I did it cold turkey. I'd reached the point where every time I got a cold, it'd turn into bronchitis which took 4-5 weeks to get over (and even longer without antibiotics). I discovered that fear and misery can be great motivators!

For times when I could hardly stand the craving, here's what I did.
Lit a cigarette WITHOUT putting it in my mouth, let it burn so I could smell the smoke, and took deep breaths of AIR at the same time. I probably inhaled a bit of second-hand smoke but I only did this in emergencies, and the illusion carried me through the screaming meemies. Yes, I found it very hard to quit and it was a good five years before I stopped wanting a cigarette in moments of great stress.

But I didn't have to use most of my other fallback strategies. My greatest fear was that I couldn't write without cigarettes. These strategies were: 1. More diet Coke 2. Bantron (probably no longer available) or 3. Booze. As it turned out I only upped my Diet Coke consumption temporarily and didn't have to do the others at all. Go figure!

If you have a one-year-old child, smoking is probably one of the few things you can do "just for you" without getting away from her. So maybe you'll need to find a substitute reward that you can use the same way.

On the "up" side, no, I don't miss it anymore and suspect if I'd kept smoking, I'd be dead by now. Or at least carrying around an oxygen tank like one of my S-I-Ls now has to do.


Good luck! Do whatever works for you.