Smoking

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Why is it so hard for some people to quit smoking?
What are some reasons (if any of you used to smoke and quit) why you quit?

https://truthinitiative.org/news/how-bi ... -addictive

I started when I was about 8 years old. That was in the 1970s. I used to spend a lot of time by myself riding my bike up and down the country roads around my house. There were many barely smoked cigarettes, un-smoked cigarettes or even sometimes discarded packs of cigarettes that still had new cigarettes in them.

Back then so many people smoked including my parents off and on. I didn't think much of smoking, it was kind of a fascinating thing to me. I'm surprised my parents never smelled it on me.

I certainly didn't smoke every day at that age or in the winter months. It was an occasional thing.

Back then there were also cigarette machines in many public places. Put your coins in, pull the lever of your choice and out popped a pack of smokes. That's how I would buy them when I was a young teenager when no one was looking.

I smoked on a more or less a daily basis from probably 16 to 26. Camel filters and Marlboro Reds for the most part. I rolled my own for awhile too.

Toward the end cigs tasted like crap to me. I could only smoke maybe half of one and then I'd snub it out. One morning in the shower getting ready for work it's like a thought just snapped into my head: "I'm going to quit smoking now." I threw away the half of the carton I had left and never smoked cigarettes again. Sure I craved them after I quit, but my urge not to continue to smoke them was greater.

I was sick of feeling like I was twice my age in the mornings and having bronchitis frequently, etc.

Like with any addiction, a person really has to want to quit. If a person backslides, falls "off the wagon", they really don't want to quit bad enough.

Nicotine encourages the release of Dopamine, which is associated with feelings of pleasure. After a while, the smoker can only experience pleasure during smoking. Without the nicotine "fix", no dopamine is released in the brain, and the smoker feels anxious, agitated, and "cranky". The smoker needs progressively more and more nicotine to trigger the same response, so that eventually, even sex no longer gives as much pleasure as a single cigarette. The smoker has become as much of a junkie as any speed freak or meth addict -- their bodies actually need their drug to function.

I fully agree with what Yul Brynner said here:



It's been said that the most militant non-smokers are former smokers. That's definitely the case with me. I'm very irritated both physically as well as emotionally when I smell second hand smoke. I'm also irritated when I'm in close proximity to a serious smoker. The kind that smell like a tar filled wet ashtray. Yuck.

Someone dropped off some papers at work the other day and he was a smoker. The papers themselves smelled like an ashtray. I had to keep the papers about ten feet from my desk so I didn't continually smell it.

the apparent suddenness of this change of attitude is curious to me

what made them start to taste like crap?

i smoke several times a week, have been for several months.

I have no idea why they started tasting bad to me. That I can't explain.

The sudden urge to quit "cold turkey" is hard for me to explain as well. Other than the issues I'd experienced along the way, the bouts of acute bronchitis, pneumonia (that was terrible and painful), loss of breath capacity and increased fatigue and hacking up things culminated to a point that I decided "I'm done."

That's how it is with addiction in general. I know this because of other addiction related things that I don't want to share. All the people in the world can have the best intentions and make the strongest efforts to help or even force someone to quit something; even the addict can 'want' to quit, but if that person doesn't decide, "I'm done", they will continue with their addiction. Addiction can be very complex, but in other ways it's very simple.

I've only tried cigarettes twice, when I was drunk, and I didn't care for them at all. Just knowing that a girl smokes is a pretty huge turn-off for me.

I don't mind the wacky tobaccy, though

I think they taste bad, too. And the flavor sticks in your mouth FOREVER

not having that cigarette feels like holding your breath

I quit because of Mum's nagging

After seeing what smoking does to you in Grade 8 Health class, I swore I would never smoke.

Then I grew up and joined the military. Back in the mid 70's just about everyone (at least in the military) smoked, and they could smoke everywhere, and there was no air filtration system. So either you never went out anywhere because of the smoke, or you started. Once I started, I never noticed it again.

Of course until I quit. Being in Germany, paying $11 for a carton of Player's Light, which cost $27 in Canada, I decided to quit. I can't afford $27 a carton! Was posted to Petawawa, and at one point the boss stressed me out so much, I started back smoking, but nowhere near what I was smoking before. Once I got away from him, I thought, "He's outta my life so why am i still smoking?"

Both times I quit "cold turkey". There were no patches, but there was some god-awful tasing gum. I tried one piece, but spit it out immediately. It took a few months of stop-and-go, but I didn't pressure myself. Eventually it stuck.

I haven't had a cigarette now since October 1993! 25 years free! Life has been so much cleaner since then as well.

I quit smoking for over a year while I was incarcerated. As soon as I was released I started to smoke again. I just figured in my head that any negative wouldn't happen to me and if it did, that would be way on down the road. I chew tobacco now which isn't any better but it is cheaper than smokes