Ask Lemmy

Rocky. I quit once years ago for like 3 months and went back, never got the will power up to try again. Then one day my doctor told me there is a good chance I had cancer (spoiler: didn't have cancer) and it scared the shit out of me.

Knowing technically its probably to late I tried to quit, failed almost immediately.

Then kind of sat down with myself and had a good long thing about why. Determined it was a multi layered problem.

1. The nicotine itself.
2. The act of getting up and going outside
3. The hand/mouth part of it

So I took a multi phased approach.

I switched to vaping, which I found hard. But instead of puffing on a vape non stop I got really strong fluid so each time would just be a puff or two. Then I'd sit on the porch for a min before I went back in.

Later I lowered the MG on the vape fluid. Then about a month later lowered it again. Kept that up until it was the lowest MG fluid.

Started the patch. Still went outside a few times a day and would just have a tic tac and relax a bit. Occasionally I'd get a really strong urge so for the first week so I'd let myself have like one puff off the vape but after a week of that, threw it in the trash.

Patch level down, down again, and then right before the lowest level I actually felt I was already ready. I had to take the patches off each night or I'd have bad dreams and the next day I'd put another on. But that last day I woke up and I just put last nights back on. I'm sure it had very little left in it but I knew it would have some effect. I did this so that I would be totally unaware of when the nicotine really stopped. I was playing a mind game with myself and so at some point that day I pulled it off and went about my life.

Two days later I had an ABSOLUTE HELL DAY. One where later I even had to apologize to my boss because I was being such a raging asshole and then... I was free.

I kept up the sitting on the porch thing a few months, I also picked up a pretty big tic tac habit which I had to later break but thats childs play compared.

Its been over 2 years now. I've finally stopped dreaming about smoking or if I do I'm mad at myself (in the dream) about it. The smell to me is now awful instead of something that I want. And I never ever ever want to go back.

I do struggle with my weight a lot more then when I smoked though. Oh, and every scan shows whatever they thought might be cancer hasn't changed in size and might even have shrunk a little. So I guess if whatever that is doesn't kill me I can say "Thanks, weird shit on my lung."

But if you're reading this and you're a smoker. Quit. Now. Soon. But quit. Don't wait until its too late. When the world drops out from under you and you know you've fucked up in a way that can never be fixed. Don't wait until you feel like your whole world is winding down and wait on some sort of miracle. Find whatever path works. Please.