How to quit smoking?

My husband and I both gave up about 38 years ago, when someone said our little boy smelt of cigarettes

No help then, just cold turkey, and a ridiculous amount of chocolate!

Does your GP practice run a no smoking clinic ?

I did it about 3 years ago, but do vape

Really notice the smell on people who smoke!

It is not easy but I found Vaping helped wean me off cigs after 39 years. Smoke free for 3 years and the money saved pays for our extra holiday each year. DH stopped at same time to give me moral support. After 6 months I weaned off the vape and not looked back since. It is not easy but so worth it.

I stopped after 40 years by using a vape. I had a cervical cancer scare, and the surgeon said there was nicotine in my biopsy, and I should stop smoking

I used to smoke as many Marlboro as I could, but decided I had to stop at the age of 57, five years ago.

I only use classic tobacco liquid, and my ecig doesn't give off steam train style smoke like the ones young people have. I do vape all the time though and I'm still on the high strength, but it's a lot better than smoking.

Please give it a try and save your health. My poor friend with lung cancer is now housebound, she can't even go a few steps.

Also, the smell on someone that smokes is absolutely disgusting - think of putting out a bonfire with water, and that's the smell. There's also the fire risk, unless you only smoke outside.

Good luck. Vaping works for most people, you just have to decide you don't smoke cigarettes any more.

I agree with Mosaicwarts. I smoked nearly all my adult life and tried several times to give up and failed miserably - weak willed and an addictive personality. Two years ago I started vaping and never missed cigarettes. It was so easy. Now I just have to wean myself off the vape.

As an ex smoker for a long time now, I was genuinely horrified when I realised how expensive they are!

We used to smoke roll ups, but occasionally I’d buy 20 embassy, and I think they were about 25p

I think I’d be too mean to smoke now!

I gave up in my early 50s after my son expressed disgust at the stack of duty free cigs that DH and I had brought back from a holiday.
I didn't bother with patches or gum or any of that stuff, I just went cold turkey, taking it one day at a time.
I coped by eating more sweets, going to bed early and staying away from smoking friends! After a few weeks I was smoke free and I've never looked back.
Much is written about how difficult it is to give up and how tough the withdrawal symptoms are. But I didn't find that to be the case at all and I only wish I had made the effort years before!
Go for it Lisa, and good luck to you!

I agree Lucy

The hard part for us was going out, it was the late seventies, and all our friends smoked, I can’t deny, by the end of the evening I may have given in

But we did stick to it, and the doctor said last time I went, that I can now consider myself a non smoker

I gave up 30 years ago, cold turkey, when they went up to £1.50 a pack. I just thought that was such a ridiculous amount to pay, literally going up in smoke!! I really wonder how people afford to smoke these days.

Try to make sure you have something to occupy yourself, sewing/knitting or even jigsaw puzzles. You need to break habits based around having a smoke - after meals etc.
Think to yourself how you will be healthier, saving money, how much nice your home and yourself will smell (I hate standing by someone who smells of stale smoke) and how proud your grandchildren will be.
Maybe try limiting yourself to certain number of cigs and gradually reducing each week, if you don't think you can give up in one hit that might help you.

Good luck, if you really want to do it and have the determination you will succeed.

My FiL stopped in a day when it was suggested he might have cancer. It wasn't, he had something else, but he never smoked again.

I might add, my mother's closest friend died from lung cancer. She didn't smoke and never had. but her husband did.

He lived to a grand old age, whether he ever came to terms with the fact that he had killed the one he loved by his smoking I never knew.

Lisa445 should contemplate what her habit might be doing to those she loves.

I think the point is you’ve got to really, really want to. Like with M0nicas father in law, something usually triggers it

Oh dear it's so hard.
I don't smoke many, they don't dull my appetite and I've had only one chest cold in my life.
We all know what smoking does and causes but personally the vapes are an unknown quantity.

I told myself a few years ago that after a " clear " PET scan that I'd start then, but it didn't last long. Yet I could give up alcohol no problem as I used to really enjoy a drink, whatever it was, because I firmly think that it causes a lot of cancers when it enters the blood-stream. I've substituted it with water !

I have reduced them greatly these past few years and am limiting myself to 5 a day, a 20 pack lasts me 4 days, so this way it will fizzle out at some point. I can't take patches/pills on account of the warfarin and strangely enough my warfarin levels have remained steady, but they wouldn't be if I drank alcohol.

Had my last ciggy on June 19th last year. Been smoking for at least 44 years, didn’t think I would ever give up. Managed it with patches and nicotine chewing gum. Had tried vaping in the past, didn’t seem to do much for me and felt ridiculous, even more so than puffing away on a fire stick! Don’t even crave a cigarette now, even after a very stressful year. Good luck, it can be done!

Hypnotherapy is meant to work. Good luck and we'll done for trying.

I gave up in September 2000, cold turkey, only to find in April of 2001 I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I had smoked for 35 years. Fortunately the cancer was caught early and part of my lung was removed. Although this causes me a bit of loss of breath, it is far better than the alternative. Give up cold turkey before it is too late is my recommendation.

I smoked for many years, and every time I caught a cold it turned into a bad chest infection.

One of these occasions, I realised that smoking had to go. I tried vaping e-cigarettes, and they helped enormously.

There is a packet of cigarettes in a kitchen drawer, which I've never been tempted to open.

Hope you make the decision to stop smoking, and give vaping a try. The cost of cigarettes these days is enormous, along with cost to your health.

Ask your doctors for Champix tsblets. They really work. You can vape as well which satisfies the cravings.

I'd like to be smoke free. But I really enjoy smoking. I know, its terrible. I am fully aware of the health risks and money wasted. It's sad isn't it?
Good luck OP

I have a friend whose daughter went to the GP and they gave her patches etc to use and she had been off the cigarettes for 6 weeks. My friend was so impressed that she had now been to the GP and started with the patches yesterday. She said that they advised her to out a patch in before she went to bed then she wouldn’t have cravings when she woke up and it worked. I would go to your GP if I were you

Good for you Alima, it takes some doing. With me it's more a habit than a true addiction.
I've been told many times that " I don't smell ", probably because I'm not a heavy smoker. I could do with one of those joke cigarettes that you used to get from the joke-shop
I can go to " do's or gatherings " and not even bother.

I feel the same about drinkers as those who drink feel about smokers !! And some drinkers stink too.

Willpower is the only thing that works. How about everyone doing without their slug of wine,etc ? Can you ?

I cannot remember the title of the book I used.
Briefly it was aversion therapy involving a new packet of my least favourite cigs which I smoked one at a time regular sessions for two days. But not proper smoking! After each drag on the cig I deliberately coughed hard until I was really uncomfortable. When the cig only partly smoked the horrible dub went into a clear glass container with a little water in it so I could view the repulsive brown accumulations. At the end of the five days of aversion I 'smoked' my last ever cig and threw away the remainder of the unsmoked pack .

It worked and I have not smoked for thirty five years.

Yes, absolutely, it is always worth giving up smoking. I understand it to be one of the most important things you can do, for your health. I've never been a smoker but I do appreciate that giving up is hard. My advice is to take all the help you can get - most GP's surgeries offer a lot of advice and support these days. Start today! Good luck! (And please let us know how it goes....)