Hi all,
Next Tuesday (7th July) will mark 2 years since I last smoked a cigarette. I started smoking casually at school in about 2002, which then escalated to smoking an entire pack if I went out at the weekends, and then to the point where I was smoking at least 10 - but normally about 20 - every day and then up to 40 a day at the weekends. I tried a few different ways to quit including going "cold turkey", cutting down, nicotine gum and then in 2013 I tried the e-cigarette. None of these were particularly successful in that I never stopped smoking for more than a couple of weeks.
On 7th July 2013 after a great holiday in Cyprus I returned to the UK and after the flight I was "clucking" for a cigarette. As I left the airport I lit up, and while I was smoking I decided that this cigarette was going to be the last one I ever smoked.
From then on I took it day by day (or sometimes hour by hour), to make sure that I didn't have another one. I am by no means a qualified expert in smoking cessation, but I do think that after giving up for 2 years I can hopefully offer some sound advice. Here are some tips that helped me:
1. One of the first things I did was read a book called "Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking". This is not guaranteed to make you quit, but give it a chance and read it and it may well help. If you have to, read it again. Something I found particularly helpful in this book was the way that the author compared the nicotine habit to a monster living inside you. (I know it sounds silly). Basically he says that every time you have nicotine, you feed the monster and it gets bigger. If you starve the monster it gets smaller every day. This leads me on to my second bit of advice?
2. Go "cold turkey". This means don't try any form of nicotine replacement therapy at all. Just stop putting nicotine into your body. It is not easy at all, but it's the most effective way of giving up. Replacing smoking with nicotine gum is just another way of feeding the monster.
3. Don't think long term - it will put you off. Take each day as it comes and focus your entire effort on getting through TODAY without smoking. If you find yourself in a stressful situation, then concentrate on just getting yourself through that situation without smoking. Cravings for nicotine can be very frequent, but they don't actually last very long - only a couple of minutes. Drinking a glass of water will help you forget about the craving for a little while, and apparently it's good for you.
4. Don't give yourself too many goals. A lot of people decide when they stop smoking that they are going to stop drinking, eat healthy or go to the gym in order to embrace a healthy new lifestyle. Doing this is only going to make life more difficult for yourself. If you find that eating junk is the best way to reward yourself for not smoking, then do it. You can always lose weight next year.
5. Don't hide away or avoid cigarettes. A lot of the stop smoking advice tells you to throw all of your cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia away, and to avoid situations where you would usually smoke (such as bars, friend's houses etc). I did the opposite. I carried on going to the pub, and there were always cigarettes in the house because my girlfriend still smoked. The truth is that the world is not going to stop smoking just because you are, so you need to develop the willpower to prevent yourself from being influenced by other people and situations.
I hope this advice helps someone. As I say I'm not qualified at all, but the above helped me a lot. Sometimes I think about smoking, but I don't think I really crave it any more. It's taken a lot of hard work to get to where I am, and just like with everything on BHW you have to really put the effort in to reap the rewards. And we all know what the rewards of giving up smoking are.
