quitting_smoking u24 hints and tips and general encouragement required. 061028 ... Death of a Rose I wish to convey my deepest sympathy and well_wishes to you Mr. 24, on your decision to quit the coffin_nails. Much success!!! 061028 ... Infinite Luv Personal opinion.... I dont know anything about smoking...but I plan to go into positive psychology. Change your mindset, change your future. I think that what you conceive in your mind you can achieve in your body. So...from this is To tell yourself things like "I dont like smoking" I hate smoking" "The smell of cigarret smoke is terrible...I just dont like it" and stuff similar to that, and even when you feel the urge to light up just keep saying it, like you believe it. things like "i dont like doing this, I dont even want to do this." Even you find it hard to resist, and you're smoking away...just keep saying it. If you change the way your mind feels about smoking, you'll may change the way your body responds to it. It wont work right away, but it doesnt take anything out of you to try it with whatever else you're doing. Hope that helps. 061028 ... Infinite Luv Oh....forgot. I wish you all the best on your journey. Dont be discouraged. You'll do great. 061028 ... Doar And some other helpful info, Break your habits, and I don't mean just the smoking habit. Break those habits in which you find yourself having a cig; ie; with your morning coffee, after meals, when you feel stressed. I was told that if you do something other than your regular routine, smokings stranglehold on you will diminish. Like say for instance you always have a cig with your coffee (really fucking hard to break), maybe stop having a coffee, go for a quick and brisk walk, or brush your teeth (again, assuming you brush them in the morning), or have an energy bar instead (with a brish walk). Another example; instead of a cig after a meal maybe phone someone to talk with, instead of puffing (just make sure it's someone who you'll know won't make your blood pressure rise, been there, smoked that!). There's more helpful hints, and as I find them I'll try to post them here for you dude. 061028 ... u24 trouble is that I just smoke when I'm bored, or I have a few mins in between doing something and sth else.. is going to have one now (it's 2PM, so I would normally have already had one by now.. cutting down is close to quitting, right? right. no really, I've cut down and then stopped for two weeks before, I just need to get to the stop stage.) 061029 ... u24 2 (after film (a history of violence: good film)) 061029 ... ( PS: thanks for the support everyone ) 061029 ... u24 infinite luv: yeah, mental reprogramming is something I've used to great effect in the past.. maybe I should resurrect the techniques I've lost. 061029 ... Infinite Luv cool, I hope it goes well... I have to try it to with these nasty vegetable juices im drinking....I mean, wonderful tasty vegetable juices im drinking. 061029 ... u24 lol good luck with those yummy drinks 3. 061029 ... u24 4. 061029 ... u24 is not doing very well so far... 061029 ... u24 5. 061030 ... u24 6. I've been very bad. I will try not to smoke any more today. 061030 ... u24 7. I failed. 061030 ... u24 still, given that I normally smoke about 5 a day, I'm doing better than I was. a reduction of 2 per day so far is not bad. grade: "C-" could do better. 061030 ... when darkness falls i used to smoke up to 10 a day, but reduced it to less than 5 now. some days i don't have the desire to light up at all, but i'm not completely there yet. u24, try having you first smoke as late in the day as possible. see if this reduces the number of cigs a day even further. good luck! 061030 ... u24 :) yeah, that's what I'm doing; I didn't have one until around 2pm today. I think it works pretty well. next I need to start going to bed earlier. I don't actually want to completely quit, I just want to have one now and then (every couple of weeks or so), a causal smoker rather than a habitual one. 061030 ... stork daddy i'm down to only a lighter a day, all respect to bill hicks. 061031 ... u24 another one yesterday and three so far today with another planned brings the total to twelve. 061031 ... u24 13. I will try harder tomorrow. 061031 ... u24 my throat hurts today. 061101 ... u24 though I've stopped counting, I haven't stopped. I can't remember how many I've smoked since I last counted. probably averaged 4 a day. give or take 1. I am still trying. but tomorrow I'm going to make a real effort for the first time. 061103 ... when darkness falls chewing on some altoids or smints might help... 061103 ... hsg everytime you light up BURN YOUR HAND with your lighter. this will remind you that it hurts less than feeling cancer spreading through your body and the look on loved one's faces as they hate you dying carelessly 061104 ... DannyH I reccommend getting your girlfriend pregnant. That worked for me. Nothing like a complete change and a totally new set of motivations. If that seems a little extreme the gum really works but use a lot less than they say on the packet if you don't want to wind up with a horribly mundane addiction to chewing gum. Ultimately there's a pain barrier to get through which you either need to find some masochistic way to enjoy or some motivation strong enough to change. 061104 ... DannyH It's worth bearing in mind as well that you're stopping your self-medication of an emotional anaesthetic, so you will find yourself confronted fairly starkly with some emotions you may have forgotten you knew how to experience. If you can enjoy this experience and take strength from it there are a number of positive benefits that may result. 061104 ... u24 I had a bad cold. I haven't smoked since Tues 7th Nov. w00t. But there was no way I was putting smoke into my lungs on thursday, it would have killed me. Friday was about the same, normally I'd have been smoking again by friday or at most sat. I still have a slight tickly cough, so the real test will be whether I smoke or not when my cold has completely gone, but at the moment I'm feeling pretty good. And I haven't been snapping either. Slight urges to smoke, but at the moment I'm overcoming them pretty easily. If I can make it to this time next week without smoking, that'd be frikkin miraculous. 061112 ... u24 change the first thursday to 'wednesday' and both fridays to 'thursday' and sat to 'sun'. I'm doing even better than I thought! 061112 ... u24 dammit, 'sat' to 'fri', not 'sun'.. silly arse. 061112 ... u24 I generally have one every two or three days now. it's been suprisingly easy. Though I do still want to cut down more. If I can go a week without that'd be good. 061206 ... hsg thats very successful imo. id suggest doing some herbal detox stuff. maybe check out a health food store or pester some vegan on a proveggy-trip. you can heal & de-tarify. ive seen it done w amazing results. fresh organic fruits & veggies help ur bod allow itself to heal w/o having to battle the garbage in a diet simultaneously. do your best. again & again. your best gets better. but go YOU!! you've cut waaay down. that's great. 061206 ... the awful truth I'm quitting smoking he says as he lights another cigarette while the ashes of these answers smoulder in the tray and i said every time you think you got it thats when you gotta drop it you gotta put that shit out pick it up another day i got these thoughts of how to life this life i wanna get it straight before i'm dead sometimes i cannot get it out without some reefer in my head so roll a jack and smoke a jon on the roof you miss your lawn neon lights instead of stars you wonder how we got so far away from drinking easy from a pond walking on and walking on and never even thinking back to pick up any extra slack or stuff a store with food for more than mouths you need to feed or break a sweat or use your head to solve questions unseen so i'm quitting smoking he says as he lights another cigarette im not quitting sucking in this nicotine im not quitting suckin in this pot i'm qutting smoking my brain to rot with theoretical hallucinogens 061206 ... u24 been two weeks since I smoked anything. 070412 ... unhinged this past february i got horrible strep_throat and quit smoking for awhile. i remember thinking that it actually felt good and nice not to be shackled to cigarettes anymore especially since it was so so cold here in february. yesterday i had three cigarettes. i guess i have never really been a heavy smoker anyways. cept for maybe when i'm drinking and stuff. my last roommate was a smoking cessation counselor awhile back. she was always trying to pull that shit on me. but some of it was actually helpful. she was a smoker before she started working there so i guess it had to work *shrugs* she said you can't make yourself feel bad for smoking. that's why most attempts to quit are unsuccessful. we all know smoking is bad. even to the point that many states have outlawed it and some employers won't even hire people that smoke. but making yourself feel guilty for puffing here and there when you are 'trying to quit' only makes it easier to completely give up the effort. the other thing she told me was even more interesting. (of course i had figured out that guilt isn't a motivator to quit by then) so lets say you haven't had a cigarette for two days but something really stressful happens at work and you light up. don't beat yourself down to the point where it feels pointless to continue quitting; wait at least two more days before you have another cigarette. hopefully more. and just expand that theory until you've quit altogether for good. so it's okay to fall off the wagon. you have to have a will of steel not to. yeah, it helps not to do the same things or go to the same places where you smoked too. just because cigarettes are legal, doesn't mean the addiction isn't real. 070412 ... u24 much wiseness there. 070412 ... unhinged yeah, for sure. if i ever feel the need to quit, i will be much indebted to renee. 070412 ... jane daxle told me silly_putty helps. keeps your hands busy. 070412 ... u24 the weird thing is that my chest and heart feel worse now than they did before. I read somewhere that that's normal because all the crap is starting to get dislodged. meh. weird. 070415 ... ever dumbening is now jonesing for sweetarts i could punch you in the stomach to distract you for a few minutes. hehe seriously, though, good luck. that shit sucks. i'm fortunate enough never to have gotten hooked on anything ('ceptin maybe for sugar "in this world you first get the sugar, then you get the power and then you get the women" -H.S. ... mmm dextrose), so i can enjoy the occasional cigarette without worry. but i really feel for those who are addicted. cigs are fucked up. 070415 ... u24 still haven't smoked since my 070412 comment. I miss cigars sometimes though, but not enough to start again. 070703 ... daf Again. Geezus. 080530 what's it to you? who go blather from