Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention in my post. Exercise. Start running. Mad relief.
Quiting Smoking
- Thread starter Rage9
- Start date
Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention in my post. Exercise. Start running. Mad relief.
Exercise is great for helping to quit smoking, but running..........ugh. Running after having more than a decade of tar built up on your lungs is no goddamn fun......AT ALL.
In general though quitting smoking blows goats nuts. I've "retired" from smoking too many times to count, only to re-emerge as often as Jordan did. One time I had been nicotine free for over a year. All it took was one crazy night at the bar and the next thing I know I was putting up smoke signals you could see a mile away. It disgusts me how little willpower I have over those damned things.
Drinking on the other hand was easy. I used to drink all the time, largely due to my college years and later, hitting the pub after work with the work peeps. Then I started dating a woman I can only call a raging alcoholic. Needless to say this didn't curb my drinking any.
After a particularly crazy night with her I finally was just like, I'm done. I dropped her and about three months later I quit the job and started writing full-time. Once I did that and started writing and researching for like 14 hours a day I didn't even think about drinking. I'll probably have a rum & diet or a beer about once a month nowadays. Except for the week I'm at Lollapalooza, that's a drunk fest and a half with the boys.
Now if I could just stay off the cigs it'd be great.
Back in the day my grandpa (who'd smoked for like 50 years) just put his pack of reds down on the kitchen counter and never picked up another cancer stick. He did start eating a fuckton of those red and white pinwheel mints though.
Drinking is going to make it even harder. When I hang with my drinking buddies, its so hard not to have a smoke. It might be better to avoid drinking the first couple months. But thats just me.
Best thing to do is distract yourself. I like distracting myself with fun exercises; gym, bike, going to best buy, grilling.
Not sure if cigars help but its at least something to puff on.
Check out willpower - [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength/dp/1594203075"]Amazon.com: Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (9781594203077): Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney: Books[/ame]. Its a great book for managing disciple.
Once you start believing that smoking is the punishment and not smoking is the reward, life becomes infinitely easier. The same concept can be applied to procrastination, drinking, sleeping with crazy women, etc. The book is totally worth it.
This might sound strange, but I'm being dead serious. The thing that worked for me was I kept telling myself "I'm sorry that I smoked in the first place. Please forgive me." Somehow it's easier to quit once the guilt of smoking isn't looming over your conscience. Don't ask me how it works, but it did like a charm for me.