Warning: Long post about quitting smoking.
I know we are now way off topic, but smoking or preferably not smoking is of vital importance to us all as bicycle riders, so I will add to the off topicness.
WHAT WORKED FOR ME
I smoked 2 1/2 packs a day for 20 years, and tried quitting 4 times. The last time was 24 years ago and so far is successful. What I used was simple, but not so easy. You have to REALLY want to quit and mean it.
1. Carry a notepad and pencil around with you and take a note of every time you have a cigarette and what time of day it is. You will soon have a chart of what your smoking is like.
2. After a few days of analysis, you will notice that you have a few cigarettes close together in the morning. This is to get your nicotine level up to what your body considers normal after nicotine fasting for 8 hours while you slept. You will also notice that your cigarettes later in the day are more consistently evenly spaced, perhaps 20 minutes apart or a half hour, whatever it is, take note of that number. (note: this is a good time to not drink alcohol. When people are drinking, they tend to chain smoke.)
3. What we want to do is even out the times when you smoke so that the nicotine level doesn't get up to "normal" as quickly in the morning and also try to adjust your body to a lower level of "normal" nicotine gradually over time.
To do that, we now increase the time between those morning cigarettes while keeping our later in the day cigarettes at their normal frequency.
4. After about a week of this, we gradually increase the time between all cigarettes. From 20 minutes apart, you may go to 25 or 30 minutes apart. The goal for this section is to get in the habit of saying "not right now" to cigarettes and getting used to fighting the cravings. You must remember that if you just put the cigarette craving out of your mind for 1 or 2 minutes, you will be thinking of something else which distracts you from the cravings. The craving won't be back for a few minutes while you are distracted. It's a good time to do something creative with your hands, such as clean up, or working on a project.
5. Keep logging your cigarettes and times while going through this process. Every week, increase the time between smokes and improving your ability to say no to cigarettes. You will now be smoking less cigarettes in a day. If you slip and get off the program, don't beat yourself up. Realise it's a process and get back on the program. You are not a failure as long as you are still trying.
6. Keep increasing the time between cigarettes each week for as long as you need to until you are down as low as you can go. For me this meant that I went from about 50 cigarettes a day down to 11 cigarettes a day. I remained at that level for about 2 weeks. I could not go any lower. I was now very good at saying no to cigarettes and my nicotine levels were the lowest they had been in years. I decided that, because I couldn't go any lower and it was just as difficult to quit as it was to stay at that low level of addiction, it was time to quit.
7. I kept a record at first of how many hours since my last cigarette and marked each smoke-free day on the calendar. The first 3 days were the hardest, but I was good at saying no and doing something else. After 7 days, not smoking was beginning to feel normal. I still thought of smoking a lot, but, "just for today I will avoid that first puff" saved my ass.
It seemed like it got easier in stages, 3 days, 7 days, 2 weeks, a month, 2 months, 4 months 6 months, a year etc. After each milestone where I felt the addiction slipping away and becoming easier I thought about smoking less and craved it less. I still had to watch it because that first puff/cigarette is just an arms length away.
THE MOST DANGEROUS THING YOU CAN THINK AS A SMOKER IN RECOVERY IS: "Wow, I'm a non-smoker. I wonder what one would taste like now?" If you think that thought or even want a PUFF..... RUN! You are in extreme danger of all your quitting work going literally up in flames. As a smoker in recovery, you are ONE PUFF away from being a smoker again in spite of all the effort you put into quitting. TOBACCO IS EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE! Some say it is more addictive than HEROIN! Beware!
It's been 24 years for me now, one day at a time. In the early years, I would sometimes have dreams I had a cigarette and wake up relieved that I hadn't. That rarely happens now. My health is good for my age, except for a few non cigarette related issues. I breath clean healthy air with lungs that are unobstructed. I am glad I don't smoke today.
Good luck to all quitters. If this helps anyone, then it's worth the share.
