Any former smokers here?

[Leightonm]

How have you managed to stop this disgusting habit?

 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Leightonm

[Colin]

"By inhibiting the dopamine reward pathway, l-theanine has been shown to help smokers quit smoking. (9)"

https://bebrainfit.com/l-theanine-benefits/

Based on this information you could try drinking plenty of tea and see how that goes.

[Leightonm]

@Colin thanks, I will try it out.

[pluto]

By simply stopping. Not buying them, not being around people who smoke, not seeing them. Eventually you will notice how pointless it is and does nothing for you but eats your life-force away.

[Charlotte]

@pluto are you an ex smoker? 

@Leightonm Buy nicotine replacement and cut down slowly. Takes will power. Muster it up brother. Your more in control than you 'think'. ♥️

[Solace]

 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Solace

[pluto]

@Charlotte Ex-everything lol

I was the devil

[Equanimitize]

18 hours ago, pluto said:

By simply stopping. Not buying them, not being around people who smoke, not seeing them. Eventually you will notice how pointless it is and does nothing for you but eats your life-force away.

Indeed this is truth, I never smoked. However, I was addicted to chewing tobacco for 10 years. 

A side tip is to commit to it and work in 24 hour blocks, commit to it everyday when you wake up. 

A book that may help you out is "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. Whats cool about bad habits is that if you overcome one of them, you just acquired a super power. You now have the Power to take out all of your addictions, and it will trickle out into all aspects of your life. 

Hope this helps

[Charlotte]

@pluto  Tell me a little about your transformation, I'm intrigued 

[pluto]

You can message me any questions @Charlotte

[Privet]

I quit for 1.5 years cold turkey because I smoked so much I got sick of it and noticed that it causes more depression and fatigue. This spring I relapsed because of the terrible depression. Which is a clear sign that addiction alone is not the problem, neurosis is.

When I quit first 3 months were a constant craving. I was comfortable being around smokers and not wanna smoke after 6 months. What motivated me was the strong belief "if I smoke again I will feel like shit" and every time I experienced nicotine withdrawal stress I thought that smoking will only make me feel worse. When I relapsed it actually didn't make me feel that bad, although now I'm close to this point again.

They say psychedelics are very effective for smoking cessation.

[Leightonm]

I started smoking in high school and quit when I was 24. It just made me feel horrible, physically and mentally. So I quit cold turkey. I woke up one morning, felt the normal pull, but decided to take a cold shower and take a long walk to nowhere in particular. The physical withdrawal only took one day. It was the mental withdrawal that was the nighmare, since I had a number of triggers. Wake up, smoke. Drink coffee, smoke. Go to the toilet, smoke. Walk to the bus stop, smoke. Walk to work, smoke. Done eating, smoke. Go to bed, smoke. Drink a beer, smoke. It was ridiculous. Anyway, I was smoke-free for the next five years, until I started in January again. 

I started using weed as spiritual tool, every other week. I had some amazing, psychedelic like insights on them. But since good quality weed is hard to come by, I decided to buy 20g in order to have it around when I need it. Huge mistake. I started to smoke every week, and the trips started to become heavy, almost fuzzy. Then I started to smoke daily, every night. It made me feel like shit. So I had the brilliant idea to buy menthol tobacco to combat the horribleness. The logic of it all. So this time around I had to drop weed. Got rid of the weed and went cold turkey. 

But I still had the menthol tobacco, and it tasted nice. I mean it wasn't a lot. I would just smoke the last of it and be done done with it. Wrong. Menthol cigarettes took its place. At first it was one a day. Harmless. I mean I was gonna stop. Eventually. Nah. I'm now at two in the morning and about five at night after work. Which is a lot. And it aint even menthol anymore. I'm reaching that point where I'm gonna go cold turkey agian. But there's something that has me worried. It's like I'm constantly grabbing for one substance or the other. If I drop something, then there's something else to take its place. During those five years that I was smoke free I had issues with alcohol and internet over-usage. So my fear now is what will take its place once I stop.

PS. More shit happened that I didn't include in my storytime, like I quit my job in December out of frustration (I'm working again) and my mom passed away in April, from cancer.

PSS. I realise that there is something that I'm avoiding with all this grasping. I'm almost certain I know what it is.

[ChimpBrain]

I dipped Copenhagen for like 20yrs. I quit by chewing gum. Not even nicotine gum, just regular. Every time I felt I wanted a dip I put a piece of gum in my mouth. Simple as that. After a while I didn't need the gum as much until eventually I didn't need it at all. 

[Equanimitize]

@ChimpBrain I’m curious if this gave you the capability to stop other addictions in your life, sort of like a snowball effect? 

[Arcangelo]

For me it was pure awareness (and weed)

I started smoking at 14 by 15 i will smoke 1 cigarette every 2 weeks. By 16 i was smoking like every other day by 17 and 18 i was smoking on the daily.

I started with weed when i was 16 by 18 i was puffing on the daily. By 18 i started going to college and one day after class i saw basically everyone smoking cigarettes. And that gave me the awareness that smoking didn't make me special (at all) so i stopped. And every time i wanted to smoke a cigarette i would smoked weed instead. That lead me to become one of the biggest potheads ever, until this day.

You can try replacing it with candy that helped/worked for me too.  The people you hang around is critical. I remember i stopped after my best friend stopped.

But remember: there is no free will , so don't be too hard on yourself. Is not your fault, ''your mind is NOT your friend''

[ChimpBrain]

On 10/21/2018 at 7:09 AM, Equanimitize said:

@ChimpBrain I’m curious if this gave you the capability to stop other addictions in your life, sort of like a snowball effect? 

I would say not this specific instance, but I can definitely think of other similar instances in which that did happen like stopping drinking every day & quitting benzos. I can also see points in my life where picking up good habits and being disciplined with them snowballed into even more good habits. 

[now is forever]

find it very interesting, that l-theanin is helping with stopping smoking. i tried to find out more about it and there was even a study in china where they put the substance into cigarette filters, what decreased the cigarette amount per day to 48% after two month and 31% of the participants stopped.

well not that i would try that. but i‘ll certainly try the l-theanin, how practical i already stocked on it after the nootropic vid.

so other suggestions: had good experiences with strong ginger tea against the craving. in chinese medicin they say it balances the bitter taste you are craving for if you stop smoking and that worked for me, the first time. but that didn’t work anymore under high stress level.

i also realized the first three days are the most crucial. so maybe going somewhere where you just can’t smoke with a lot of distraction for three days, could help to manage.

and what i did this time and what very surprisingly helped a lot overcoming the first 3days, was accupuncture on the ear together with bioresonance. but i don’t know if its available where you are.

good luck

Edited October 26, 2018 by now is forever

[Hellspeed]

Been one, very highly addicted I was, 3-4 packets of cigs a day, 

I just quitted them after my first awakenings, I wanted more air and life, that simple. 

Now I use dipping tobacco now and then as a lung enhancer. For those who don't know, tobacco is one of the best catalysts for the lugs, but not in smoke form. In old times was used as a cancer cure and had many healing uses. No wonder nowadays if one puts the intention that tobacco is bad and still uses it, it will bite one hard.  

Try raw cacao to escape the cravings. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Hellspeed

[herghly]

former smoke

smoked for 10 years and 6 of those years a packet a day.

I was always trying to quit smoking and was never successful.

Now i have not smoked in almost 4 years.

After I did an ayahuasca retreat i never felt like smoking again.

[now is forever]

@Jol356 watch cat videos instead of porn (sorry i wanted to recommend that just once)

if you relapse, there seems to be still a deeper problem you try to coap with smoking. find out what kind of addiction the smoking habit in your case really is.

not drinking is very important in the beginning - as you can’t control your volition as good as if you are sober.

and try the l-theanin. it works really good for me.

Edited October 31, 2018 by now is forever