Withdrawal Symptoms From Quitting Smoking

littlegreenman

6 years ago for me. Had a relapse for a few months following a drunken mistake where I "forgot" I'd quit! Then had to have surgery as they'd found abnormal cell activity in me gob, i.e. early stage cancer. That was quite the motivator I can tell you

Apart from a few weird days and a few very weird nights with crazy dreams I didn't really have any withdrawal symptoms.

As has been mentioned, a very nice side effect of quitting is that I now go on holiday abroad at least twice a year now, following cycling's Grand Tours, been to Paris for Le Tour 4 times, La Vuelta twice and am off to Rome for the Giro in May. Also bought myself a nice Cannondale and seem to pretty much always have spare cash for nice things, never had any of that when I was smoking.

@Bellycaster, just find away to keep quitting, your health and especially your wallet will thank you.

Bellycaster

Thanks, all good advice folks. It's scary and sad to hear your Dad died so young @Neill 60 fags a day though, blimey, I expect that was almost chain smoking. Mind you you hear of folk on 80 a day, the mind boggles.

I was around 100 per week, so that's about £45 a week saved as well as the health benefits. I may eventually dump the e-cig too, but it's helping me through. I'm still getting nicotine, but I think the most harmful stuff has been cut out, all those nasty chemicals in cigs and the Carbon Monoxide levels in my blood are gone.

Neill

@Bellycaster yes, it seems like a lot but in those days smoking was seen as an absolutely social thing to do, not an anti social activity like today, so you would smoke at work, at home, down the pub, I vividly remember my dad's dreadful yellow stained fingers... When I started working in an office in the 70's I think there was me and one other bloke who didn't smoke, I even took it up myself for a while as I wanted to be one of the lads.  Lucky for me I never really took to it.  Alcohol though - that's a different story..!

 

littlegreenman

Bellycaster said:

I was around 100 per week, so that's about £45 a week saved as well as the health benefits.

Close to £2.5K a year! Crazy AF eh?

Look forward to all the things you can now do with that. New posh guitar? Yes please. Fancy holiday? Well why not?

I look at it as free money cos it was always gone on cigs in the past anyway so I don't even have to save for the stuff I use it on, just don't burn it anymore.

Flink_Poyd

The money things a nice illusion. Yes you don't spend it on cigarettes but it just goes to something else. I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all but if you want those pennies to be saved you have to stick that £5+ in a bank EVERY day. I tried it and after a while the money just got diverted rather than saved. If only I could quit using high class hookers...
 

earwighoney

It's been just over a year since I stopped smoking, maybe about 15 months. 

Stopping smoking for myself wasn't as much of a physical issue as it was a habitual one as it took a few weeks to get over the nicotine addiction but a lot longer to get over the habitual/psychological aspects of smoking.  It goes without saying though, I was in a fucking terrible mood for a lot of the time when I first stopped. 

@Bellycaster good luck with the effort though.  If you start smoking again, don't be hard on yourself and don't get discouraged - try to get back to attempting to stop again.

iseverynamegone

I quit 10 years ago and had a relapse for the last 6 months upto Dec 27 since,  when I stopped again. 

Both times I used the boots nicotine mints. They give me something to reach for in the first few weeks when the physical habit of doing something remains and also take the edge of the nicotine withdrawal.

symptoms for me are short temper, cough for a few weeks and feeling generally floaty for first week as the body gets used to it. 

Quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do with your life and after a few months you wonder what all the fuss about. Good luck. 

Teetonetal

I quit in 2008 after a me or the cigs ultimatum from my now wife. I didnt find it hard though I had tried and failed many times before.

The worst bit was the random pangs I'd get for a cig. Still do. Especially when waiting for a tram or train. It's pretty rare now. I think the smartphone has helped. No idle hands.

Bellycaster

Flink_Poyd said:

The money things a nice illusion. Yes you don't spend it on cigarettes but it just goes to something else. I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all but if you want those pennies to be saved you have to stick that £5+ in a bank EVERY day. I tried it and after a while the money just got diverted rather than saved. If only I could quit using high class hookers...
 

Of course you can, there are plenty of cheap coat hangers out there.

  

Jez6345789

I have to firstly say well done keep it up and don't give into the temptation which can get pretty intense sometimes. 
Stopped for close to 15 years and the last 3 been back vaping as I went back to roll-ups for all the usual stupid reasons. 

Every time I have given up I have combined it with a new exercise regime even if that is a brisk walk after dinner rather than the obligatory fag. I find the exercise helps to clear the shit out quicker. 

I would also say quite bluntly you have got the best reason to stop your health the Xray and stuff is the way you get reminded of the thing you put to the back of your head and think you are 20 and invincible. 

My EX was given the same warning as you at about the same age she ignored completely total denial.  Stayed on 40 fags a day and as the consultant told her you will be in a wheelchair by the time you are 60 if you don't heed this warning. She managed 61 before she had the chair and finally stopping at 60. She is now on permanent oxygen cant get across the room and needs a wheelchair to go out. Along with a few major health scare with related infections that nearly put her in her box, heed the warning.

Heartfeltdawn

Perfect thread for me. Six hours into quitting. Fully expect to be grumpy on Tuesday. Maybe so grumpy that I start a thread on 14 different forums grumbling about a music gear company...

ESBlonde

Apart from will power the biggest help for me was avoiding situations and people I normally smoked with.  Put the money aside each day and watch it accumulate. I got stressy a lot and developed an appetite over time.
Well done for getting it done. Best gift you can give your loved ones and yourself.

notanon

My advice is just see it for what it is, a rocky crazy ride and for sure you will crave. Who cares! How long do you think that craving will last? Try timing it: if you stay busy the craving will not last more than a few minutes. If you have a deep seated habit then sure the craving will come back every 2 minutes, then 5, then 10, then 20, then 40 it will double in time at some point and that I agree is a bit of a 'nightmare' but more so if you make it so. Watch the addiction . . .  if you study it, it will disappear. 

Don't believe me? Try to focus on your elbow for just 5 minutes. Set a clock and time it. Those that study meditation or mindfulness need not apply.

If you are packing in because you think you should then forget it. Your mind will make all the usual excuses:

Could be dead tomorrow why not have fun?

Yep I could save money but a couple of quid a day, really?

Do I have to pack in for the rest of my life?

Pack in when you have deeply considered and confirmed with yourself you want to pack in. Go for a walk first and have a good honest talk to yourself.

TIPS

Avoid smoking when you get older, after say 50 your body can't cope with disposing of the crap so COPD starts to kick in etc. My wife nipped it in the bud and now clear :-)

IMO if you use a crutch you will know that you are using a crutch and you will need that crutch. Nicotine gum etc is a gimmick YMMV but I guess placebo could work?? One thing for certain nicotine is nowhere near as addictive as some companies would have you believe (the habit of smoking is a very strong habit courtesy of regular reinforcement). A craving for cigarettes usually reoccurs every 10 minutes or so (heavy smoker), if this were due to nicotine then that would mean no smoker could ever sleep the whole night and would be constantly waking up (crazy dreams are a bonus to me, do you not look forward to a mad movie?)

If you don't need to save the money then do not think of what you are saving (but a fair bit now). Do it for other reasons, putting pennies in a jar is just patronising, a fiver is now not much more than a few coins. Yeah right, I'm poverty stricken . . . Not! Your mind will argue the case :-)

Enjoy packing in :-)

bacchanalian

I am off them 20 years and do not miss cigarettes at all.  I loved cigarettes and felt that I was not only dealing with physical addiction but that my personality was being drained from me as well.  I started to smoke because of Keef, and the pictures of Eric Clapton and Van Halen, with a cigarette wedged in the strings at the headstock.  I was quite pleased with the burn marks left on a telecaster.
The motivation for me was when my brother and wife were expecting and the advice they received from the midwives was not to let anyone who even smelled of smoke to hold the baby.  As well as that it just became a pain in the balls to find places to have a smoke.  
I stopped using a mix of nicotine lozenges, to replace the ones I really missed, and Muller Mississippi Mud Pie yoghurts.  Concentration was a problem, Weight became an issue when I worked with six women and I had the biggest boobs in the office. 
I also had to make other changes because of strong associations. I have only recently started drinking beer again with the rise in craft beers and ales.  I had a very strong association with smoking and lager and had to stop the Budweiser and Harp. I realise that is no bad thing.  
I think success for me was breaking the routines. So instead of lounging after dinner with a cigarette, go and do something else immediately, even if it is packing the dishwasher.

Best of luck, it is well worth it. If you hang out with smokers do not listen to their rationalisations to continue.  That is part of the condition

hywelg

notanon said:

A craving for cigarettes usually reoccurs every 10 minutes or so (heavy smoker), if this were due to nicotine then that would mean no smoker could ever sleep the whole night and would be constantly waking up

This. What convinced me that it was all on the mind and not a physical craving was I knew I could do without for a whole working day and not think about having a fag.

I used to work for British Coal. In my early career i was underground every day and of course smoking underground was not only a sackable offence but also punishable by a gaol sentence and the possibility of killing a few hundred other blokes if you timed it wrong. A lot of miners chewed baccy or took snuff but I couldn't abide either of them so I just did without. And there were absolutely no cravings all the time I was underground, but the first thing when coming up was to find where you'd hidden a fag or in my case a tom thumb cigar and a match, you wouldn't want to wait to walk all the way to your locker!

So I knew, for me,  it was all in the mind and that was the secret to beating it. And that fact I realised that inhaling Erinmore Flake in a pipe was really really bad for you, never mind the Park Drive Plain or Capstan Full Strength. 

Neill

hywelg said:

notanon said:

A craving for cigarettes usually reoccurs every 10 minutes or so (heavy smoker), if this were due to nicotine then that would mean no smoker could ever sleep the whole night and would be constantly waking up

This. What convinced me that it was all on the mind and not a physical craving was I knew I could do without for a whole working day and not think about having a fag.

I used to work for British Coal. In my early career i was underground every day and of course smoking underground was not only a sackable offence but also punishable by a gaol sentence and the possibility of killing a few hundred other blokes if you timed it wrong. A lot of miners chewed baccy or took snuff but I couldn't abide either of them so I just did without. And there were absolutely no cravings all the time I was underground, but the first thing when coming up was to find where you'd hidden a fag or in my case a tom thumb cigar and a match, you wouldn't want to wait to walk all the way to your locker!

So I knew, for me,  it was all in the mind and that was the secret to beating it. And that fact I realised that inhaling Erinmore Flake in a pipe was really really bad for you, never mind the Park Drive Plain or Capstan Full Strength. 

That takes me back @hywelg I was born and raised in a mining community, when I went to college I had to get the early bus into town which was the first bus after the night shift and I remember very well you could hardly breath for the clouds of cigarette smoke.   All my family smoked, my grandad even had his own cigarette making machine we were fascinated by as kids, a wooden contraption, you put rizlas and rolling tobacco in and turned a handle and out came a perfectly rolled cig. 

But I wonder about that enforced discipline of working underground, interesting that my grandad worked underground for 45 years smoked all his life and lived to a ripe old age, my dad worked on the surface and died at 48, riddled with cancer.  

Kebabkid

Keep with it Jon and deposit the money you'd spend on fags into like a jar where you can see it and treat yourself at a given point or put it to good use.

All the best

goat

Crashed the mountain bike and broke 7 ribs and collapsed a lung on 15t Oct last year. I was in hospital for 9 days and attached to the wall via a chest drain so I couldn’t sneak out for one even if I wanted to . They offered me nicotine replacement but I decided to try cold turkey since I was off my face on morphine anyway.

Some trouble sleeping, not helped by opiate withdrawls after 6 weeks! Had some crazy gum/toothaches about 3 weeks in that lasted for a week. The urge to smoke is still pretty strong at times, I deal with that by compulsively cramming  green extra chewing gum into my face. Probably going through 4 packets a day. Put on about 1.5 stone but Im back on the bike and whittling that down.

I don’t think I would ever have quit if my normal life hadn’t been interrupted. Massive respect for anyone who just makes the decision, buckles down and powers through.

earwighoney

hywelg said:

I used to work for British Coal. In my early career i was underground every day and of course smoking underground was not only a sackable offence but also punishable by a gaol sentence and the possibility of killing a few hundred other blokes if you timed it wrong. A lot of miners chewed baccy or took snuff but I couldn't abide either of them so I just did without. And there were absolutely no cravings all the time I was underground, but the first thing when coming up was to find where you'd hidden a fag or in my case a tom thumb cigar and a match, you wouldn't want to wait to walk all the way to your locker!

So I knew, for me,  it was all in the mind and that was the secret to beating it. And that fact I realised that inhaling Erinmore Flake in a pipe was really really bad for you, never mind the Park Drive Plain or Capstan Full Strength. 

Great post on a number of accounts, the insights into mining and a lot of smoking aspects are based in the mind.  A special mention for the using 'gaol' as well. 

FWIW, a lot of people look at the financial savings as a great rewards for stopping smoking but I think the greatest reward for stopping smoking is not smoking be it the psychological achievement of giving something up which can be very difficult to do, the health benefits and not having your clothes and hair smelling like a damn ashtray all the time.  

jonnyburgo

I gave up in 1998. I think a pack of 20 lambert and butler was £3.60. A guy in front of me in the shop bought 20 Marlboro and a lighter and it was £11 odd wow how the hell do people afford it these days?