Asklemmy

A friend of mine is a Doctor. This is what he suggests to anyone who is truly interested in stopping.

1. Smoke as much as you need to
2. Start rolling your own, unfiltered.
3. Put the pack somewhere inconvenient, like car trunk or in a hard to reach box in the garage
4. Only every smoke outside, under an open sky. No cars, no houses, no awnings, no umbrellas, etc. No matter the weather.

He says this makes it accessible but inconvenient and not as enjoyable. Eventually the inconvenience will start to outweigh the need until you end up quitting. He says he has like a 80-90% success rate with those who actually follow through

My grandfather quit smoking by switching the habit to lollipops. He always used to say it was a good replacement for the oral fixation and fidgeting

I suggested to a friend years ago that he keep all of hit used butts in a jar beside his bed. He came up with this idea that he should add some water to the jar.

The reminder every time he got up or went to bed that the black goop shit was the same stuff he was putting into his lungs every day eventually got him to stop. He couldn’t even look at the jar anymore — and certainly didn’t want to add to it. That thing was nasty.

Mindfulness. Don't resist the urges, but every time you smoke, practice being present - literally just try to keep your attention on what you are doing. Don't judge yourself for doing it, just notice. If you are able to do this, it will help with much more than just quitting smoking.

Quit specific cigarettes. One at a time.

No more "after meal" cigarettes. Ooh, that's rough man.

Okay, now, no more "after work" cigarette.

No more "responding to frustration" cigarette.

No more coffee cigarette.

No more drunk cigarette.

You're probably more addicted to smoking in the scenes/scenarios/circumstances you find yourself in the most frequently than you are to smoking cigarettes. So quit one at a time rather than "smoking" all at once.

There is a lot of solid research behind this method. If you're a mid 30s American, you might remember the ad from the mid 2000s where the woman carjacks someone so that she can smoke. Narrator comes on "you don't drive every time you smoke... ...but you smoke every time you drive 🤔"

That campaign, iirc, was called "think of a new way to quit"

It's not just a habit, it's a chemical dependence. If you really want to quit, I suggest vaping. It was invented to be a smoking cessation tool as you can easily taper off the amount of nicotine, while still performing "the ritual".

Once the chemical dependency is gone, then you can go for a walk or something to keep yourself busy, but until then you've got an addiction to deal with.

Source: I used vaping to quit a 10-year, pack/day habit.

This is going to be really atypical: smoke cigars.

I never really smoked cigarettes so I never had an addiction with them. But I do like cigars. I smoke them occasionally, as do most people with few exceptions. I've heard, though, from some former cigarette smokers that switching to cigars helped them mostly painlessly stop their addiction to constantly smoking cigarettes by instead just having an occasional, even maybe weekly, cigar. Cigars may be more intense but also don't have all the chemicals and crap that some cigarettes have, and cigars even intentionally remove some of the chemicals that cigarettes may add, like ammonia.

Way I quite. First I swapped to vaping. It was an easy switch. It tasted better smelled better and gave me the same rush. Though it did take 2 times for me to guilt switch. After that lowered the nicotine level slowly. Got down to 0. I never said I couldn't have one. I just played the game of how long I could go without. Started off delaying a few minutes. Then progressed to 15 minutes the half hour. Then I'd skip a break at work. At some point I crave one then tell myself later and if go hours without one. Changed to days. I don't remember my last one. Also jolly rancher hard Candy or the like helped with cravings or delaying the need to go have a smoke. Could skip the vaping but I found it so much better that smoking.

Honestly sit by yourself one night and actually realize that majority of people who will see or smell you are going to think your the dumbest mother fucker they met that day and they're likely right if you smoke. You're paying thousands a year to die young and very horribly. And all you get in return is proving to everybody you met that nobody should respect any decisions you make since you prove to everybody you aren't capable of making good choices. That's what got me to quit. It hit me hard one night that this was how I would come off to a lot of people considering what we know noe of cigarettes. Its really the dumbest fucking choice I ever made to get addicted. 15 years and what the fuck did I get out of it. So for me, intense shame got me to quit relatively cold turkey.

The thing that worked for me, which I had literally never heard anywhere for some reason, is to quit drinking for about six months when you quit smoking.

At least for me, all my relapses happened when I was at a bar or a party having drinks.

I'm not a smoker, but I saw some advice on here a while back that seemed really solid. Basically stop saying "I'm quitting" or "I'm trying to quit", and replace those phrases in your vocabulary with "I have quit". Then don't make a liar of yourself.

There is a book my friend swore by. I think it's called "how to quit smoking". By the time he finished it he said he had lost all interest.

It's kind of well known, and I'm sure you can find it if you Google.

For me, I started thinking about the cost and the smell every time I had one. I quit cold turkey a few weeks later and felt grossed out every time I had one after that. I quit in 2009 and haven't had a cigarette since 2010.

Cigarettes smell really disgusting to me now.

Do it like I did and get pneumonia. No smoking for 3 months and when I tried it again afterwards the taste was just disgusting.

Had a good doctor who told me you can't "try to quit". You can't "cut back". You can't quit for other people or before you are ready. But once you are... he said every successful quitter he helped, quit cold turkey. You have to stop 100% or you won't stop. He offered meds to help with the emotional and physical side effects. I declined.

I was a smoker for 20+ years, many of those I was well over a pack a day and I worked in a smoking bar for over a decade. It's probably too late for me is what I thought, BUT I DID IT.

Quit 2 and a half years ago. It hasn't gotten any easier yet. I still want to smoke daily. But I haven't had a single puff. I still hang out with friends that smoke but I did change my normal environment. (Quit while I was moving to make breaking associated habits easier.)

The things I found most helpful when the craving kicks in... Exercise was the best. HARD physical labor. Also sleeping and eating. Luckily I was in decent shape already so eating a bit more often wasn't a huge deal. The tons of extra exercise just burned it off or helped build up some muscle mass I didn't know was possible.

Smoker for 35 years... This might not help you directly, but I went to Australia for 3 months where cigarettes are USD$50 per pack. At that price I'm not buying. Went cold turkey and it's been 6 months and still not purchased a pack, even though I'm now in another country where a pack is just USD$2.

Sunflower seeds helped me. Watch the sodium intake.

There is no way you could reproduce this now, but when I quit smoking, I worked in a place where everyone smoked, so I got it second-hand for quite a while after that.

my mother went cold turkey on quitting, with the motivation of buying (leasing?) a new car.

she knew, that if she continues to smoke, she won't be able to pay the debt.

now, she's completely cigarette free, for almost 15 years or more. the whole process took around less than a year.

(granted, had to replace some furniture at the beginning, because she smashed them, but this anger management problem got better rather fast)

Not sure if it's atypical, but you could try reading "Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking" and "The Freedom Model of Addictions". The basic premise of the books is, that if you really want to quit, you will quit easily, and that in order to really want to quit you need to reevaluate the reward value of your habit instead of focusing on the negatives. You smoke because you find it pleasurable. The books guide you to better understand what part of your habit you find pleasurable exactly. Is it the nicotine rush? Or maybe the you like the social aspect of it? After finding out what exactly you find pleasurable about your habit, the books will give you pointers on how to reevaluate if the pleasure you derive from it is really all that great compared to other activities or whether it really solves the problem that you set out to solve with your habit.

I quit cigarettes cold turkey with the help of raw fettuccine. It's useful for fidgeting, restlessness, and oral fixation. I ate about 3 packs and drank lots of water in the first 3 days, just staying home. In those 3 days, you don't want to go out, people will suck, air will suck, the sun will suck, everything sucks. After 3 days I was able to stop thinking so much about cigarettes. In those first 3 days, I wouldn't recommend leaving the house. Also after quitting for a while the smell of cigarettes might make you nauseous which is an extra buffer to keep off of them.

I got down to 1 a day. As long as my body knew that one was coming at the end of the day I was fine.

One night I got drunk and when I smoked that one it gave me the spins and I puked everywhere.

The next day I went out and got some of the nic gum and just replaced my 1 cig with that. Eventually I just used less gum and then phased it out entirely.

It took me 6 tries to quit a 30 year habit. In the end you have to want to quit. Realizing that quitting is the smart move is not the same as wanting to quit. I finally wanted to quit when I just didn't want to go to the fucking store again and smoke in a parking lot because I can't really smoke anywhere else. I decided that I was just done with that shit.

Spent another year on lozenges and quit those for the same reasons.

do other drugs instead. everytime you want a cig just have an edible.

There's a movie with a sure-fire method, Stephen King's Cat's Eye. Just find someone willing to "help you" like Quitters Inc.

If you're not opposed to medications, bupropion (brand name zyban) helped me. My cravings lessened almost immediately. Nicotine also feels like it has little to no effect since I started, which was honestly kind of a bummer to find out when I fell off the wagon.

I get medication isn't for everyone, but just putting what worked for me out there. Funny enough, I didn't even start taking it for smoking cessation. That's just one thing Bupropion can be used to treat. It was a two birds one stone kinda situation.

Switch to vaping, learn to make your own juice, slowly titrate your nicotine down over a period of a year or so, work on kicking the oral fixation without having to worry about withdrawals from nicotine. Worked well enough for me

Sunflower seeds

Vape.

It's a good gateway to quitting, also cheaper

Reduce first but have attainable goals. Go easy and steady.

For some folks cold Turkey works best but it might not be for you.

Most importantly, find a reason that's really important to you.

Maybe try sports - something measurable. It easier to tell yourself no after a cardio as you realise how it ruins what you just achieved.

My Dad quit after almost dying from lung infections. So maybe see if you can get yourself one of those every year for a decade to where you're hospitalized for a few weeks at the end and the doctor says the next time you leave in a body bag.

Always act like you’ve just smoked one. What would you do next? Just go and do that now. Also, roll like 10-20 joints and smoke em when you crave a cig. You can only do that for so long until you’re like nah I’m good on smoking I’m too high to have more.

I used Wellbutrin about 7 months ago to quit. And was only on it for about a month or two. I have since gone through the death of my best friend for over 30 years, and recently the loss of a beloved pet of 15 years. Neither of these events triggered my urge to smoke again, so there’s at least a testimony to it’s effectiveness.

More on the process:

So I went to my GP and asked for help in quitting, (habit was a pack or more a day for 40 years) was prescribed Wellbutrin and just went with it. I was smoking while on the medication for probably two weeks or so, and then gradually lost the taste for it along with the urge to smoke. It got to the point where I would forget to smoke at times when I normally would, such as- after waking up/eating, etc.

Having dealt with some extreme grief/sorrow/stress/anxiety over the course of this shitshow of a year and still not smoking as a result of it has been one of the very few things I have to be happy about.

Helping someone achieve this and paying it forward would certainly help make it more worthwhile, so I wish you the best of luck in whatever works for you.

Hang in there.