Anyone out there quit smoking after smoking for several years (not an occasional smoker)? -
If so, what was it like for you? Do you remember the first few days being really bad? Withdrawal symptoms- Improvements? Fill me in:)
It was a nightmare. Horrible cravings, unable to function. And I-d already cut down a lot and then switched to nicotine lozenges -- I would never have been able to do it if I-d still been smoking 1-1/2 packs a day, I-d done it cold turkey before and at four months in I still didn-t feel normal and went right back to it when I was under stress at work.
Symptoms reach a peak at 3-5 days, then start to fall off. After that, the rate of improvement reminds me of a graph of y = 1/x -- rapid at first, then decreasing gradually and seemingly asymptotic. At maybe a month in the cravings had diminished to the point where I knew I-d make it. I-m at about 2 months in now and still have some bad moments, though most of the time I feel OK and I don-t break down even though I have cigarettes in the house. The cravings will never entirely go away, because you were always high on nicotine and now you aren-t, and you will always react automatically to the sense of stress by thinking -I need a cigarette.-
Anyway, YYMV. Withdrawal is relatively mild and brief for some people and literally impossible for others. It depends on how much you-ve smoked, how long, and what genes you have and you won-t really know until you try it. Then, if you can do it cold turkey, great. (Don-t make the mistake of thinking you can cheat just once -- you can-t, you-ll be right back before you started and will lose all the work you-ve put into it.) Otherwise I recommend Chantix -- I used it along the way, though it didn-t actually get me entirely off it, just helped me cut down on the nicotine until the withdrwal symptoms were manageable. For most people, it-s the most effective drug out there (some can-t tolerate it).
What I can say is that if I can do it, anyone can, because I was maxed out on every scale of addiction, the sort of person who would have smoked through a tracheotomy. The worst scenario is that you-ll have to experiment with the different approaches and drugs and that it will take a number of tries and/or several years to succeed.
I just quit smoking about 2 weeks ago, after being a smoker for 14 years. I smoked anywhere from 2 packs a day, to a half a pack a day. The only real problem I-ve had is breaking habits, such as stepping outside of my office every few hours for a smoke break, having a cigarette with my coffee in the morning, smoking a cigarette after a meal, or smoking when I have drinks. After fighting off those temptations, it hasn-t been too bad. The main thing to remember is not to cave in and light up.
I smoked for more than thirty years, and at the end I was smoking 60 cigarettes a day.
Giving up smoking was the hardest thing I ever did. I always say that giving up heroin couldn-t be worse. I didn-t have anything else in my head except smoking for at least a month. I must say though that once I had been a week without smoking I was even more determined to stop. There wasn-t any point in going through all that agony, just to start again.
Keep at it, it does get better even if it seems to take forever before you notice any benefits.
I smoked for over twenty years, was up to three packs a day and enjoyed every single cigarette! But about twenty-five years ago I decided to quit and I haven-t had one since. I didn-t find stopping all that difficult, but I did gain weight, so watch out for that. I didn-t use any patches or pills or acupuncture, I think the key is to have decided deep down that this is really what you want to do. Good luck!