Craving

John Mason

I wont say i have given up smoking but it has been 2 days since my last cig. taking it one hour at a time.

i was just wondering if anyone know, how long it takes for your body to stop craving nicotine, physically, I know the emotional craving go on forever

david1two3

two day is brillaint, it should read days but it sounds nice. The emotional does go on for ever if you want it to. I have no desire to smoke, it would ruin my cycling. The cravings left me after a few weeks getting easier every day, till after a month some one from a group I was in started head hassling me (he was giving me the silent treatment), well I exploded on him after he started talking of me in the third party, after that I managed to contain myself mostly and my June(6 weeks after stopping) Portugal holiday was OK, just the odd bit of parnoia.

For me it was a case of, what lenghts was I prepared to go to and consequently I have never done it since. I will say that my addiction was chronic, in so much as if you wouldnt give me one I would freak out at the idea of cold turkey. I even smoked turf dust at 15 years of age as there was no cigarretes to be had. I can tell you smoking all that history is lethal, 5000 years of history flew past in a flash as I coughed my goutts up.

I would suggest avoiding all stressfull situations if possible and be sure to let yourself know how well you are doing. Excerise on the bike is great as it is hard to smoke and ride(not impossible), keeping the mind busy/occupied is a good idea as your less likely to crave. Having some one you can ring or talk to is great as you can get intervention in case of crisis and by talking about your craving you often talk yourself out of the situation. Stopping for yourself is the only way I know to work as stopping for some other person is problematic if they for whatever reason cease to exist. When I was 16 my brother died of cancer and there was little insight into the disease. My brother arrived home from England and I smoked 140 cigarettes (Major)in 24 hours, he had brought in the duty free and I just helped myself .That 24 hours started 6 hours ago on the 24/09/1979 and went on for another 20 years in different forms.The damage I did to myself was terrible,mostly in my head and very little physical ,I cycled from Dublin to Galway in 7h 20m 4 years ago. I do this regularly on my own and it is like being on a mission, sometimes, literally into the unknown and the buzz is brillaint and after one 114 mile ride in Crete a door man said to me "I wouldnt drive that far"
.Imagine all the things you want to or have previously been able to do and then go off and do them. There is no rush as my fitness has taken years to achieve but if I had a proper trainer I could have done it in 2 years. Sorry to go on but as Tony Cascarino is saying on Tubridy late night fitness makes you sharper and capable of taking on heavy burdens such as hard work over 18 hours, its quite easy now. Its not paid work, much harder .

Good luck with your mission,David

sideshowdave

i think the physical craving is around the week mark well for me that was the worst of it i still get slight cravings but usually go within a few mins and i have been off them for 16 days, i dont know about the emotional craving, im sure i will miss a cigarette at times but at the same time i dont want to die of cancer so the cons outweight the pros, or another way i look at it is when i smoked i just wanted to stop not a day passed that i didnt think like that. and to go back on them i would just wish for the same thing all over again. i will get back to you in a years time and let you know if i miss smoking can only guess now.

eimearnll

hi guys, first of well done on giving up smoking,i want to give them up myself and was just wondering are you guys on the patches or gum or did you just go cold turkey.:( also im a heavy smoker on a bad day i would easly smoke more then 20.any tips would be great.once again well done,irishbird fair play keep it up pat yourself on the back.:)

sideshowdave

i tried every substitute i could possibly find and read books on stopping and this time i went cold turkey. no patches nothing, and it seems to be working fine, i would suggest you try and see whats best for you cause i know people who have given up using all methods, and that have actually not become addicted to gum or patches they just used them in moderation at the start until they were a little confident and then stopped.
good luck

One day, soon, you will be doing something perfectly ordinary. Walking into a shop, washing the dishes, getting on the bus... and you will suddenly realise that you haven't thought about cigarettes or smoking all day.
And it's a FANTASTIC feeling!

The physical cravings will lessen and disappear completely. You won't feel that need for nicotine within a week or so.
Smoking a sneaky one will only set off that whole nicotine cycle again, so don't do it!

eimearnll

hi sideshowdave,i did give them up for 5 days last year cold turkey style it was bloody hard.i also tried the patches and found i felt sick a lot of the time on them,never tried the gum but know a lot of people that after a couple of years been of the fags are still on the gum so i dont think ill try them.

so far today i have had 2 cigs which is brill for me ,im up since 6oc and im normally sick from smoking now,so the way im going to try give up is to cut down slowly i think.

FavouriteSlave,god i hope your right about that feeling my whole day is bloody planned around smokes this is why i want to give them up.im sick of saying to myself ill have a smoke then ill do this or that,ill have a smoke before i do anything :mad: and i dont even enjoy them anymore.

anyway ill keep ya posted on how it goes for me.

Pat the Baker

i'm off them about 8 or 9 weeks now and i think the cravings are getting worse. i am drinking a lot more too to try and substitute the smokes.

tallus

irishbird wrote:

I wont say i have given up smoking but it has been 2 days since my last cig. taking it one hour at a time.

i was just wondering if anyone know, how long it takes for your body to stop craving nicotine, physically, I know the emotional craving go on forever

As far as I know, medically it takes three days for the physical cravings to go. Mine kept coming back every once in a while tho. You have to be really motivated. It's such a filthy habit. Smoked for over 20 years and I'm off them for almost two and a half years now. I had a mental block about the first 24 hours, so once I got past that I knew I would be able to stop. I used the strongest niquitin patches for 6 days, then for another 6 days used weaker ones. That got me over the initial hump.

Marksie

I am on patches three days now.

The cravings aren't there as its replacement, but the psychological thing is present. i.e. I would have one doing xyz. When it comes to xYz that when it hits.
So I am hoping i can break the mental habit of it.

leninbenjamin

i'm at now at 11 days off after going cold turkey. changing my routine has helped with the cravings. i now cycle everywhere, as david1two3 says it's really good for getting rid of cravings. In general the exercise makes you feel better and also as you begin to rely on your lungs as a non smoker you really begin to feel the benefits of having quit, even after only a short time. It was a bit of an eye opener and catalyst to keep off them to realise over the past few days how much my lungs had been damaged. Also I do more housekeeping than i would have previously which keeps me more occupied. and another important change: i'm spending less time on campus (where boredom would make me smoke).

so yeah, now that i'm writing this i've realised that i'm finding it a lot easier than i thought i would (and i was the type who planned my day around them). Around day 4 and 5 were the worst in terms of craving, but it's really leveled off since then. now the only time i really notice a desire for them anymore is in the evening. and even then, i find it doesn't last very long...

syklops

I smoked my last one on thursday evening, have not had one since. Was at home for the weekend, and I cant smoke at home, so I didnt, and when I came back to dublin, i decided, that I wouldnt. Went cold turkey the first few days, then bought some patches and gum I hate the gum. I hate the hot sensation in my mouth, but the patches are ok. Im still coughing crap up, but for the last few weeks, when i opened my mouth to say something,i got a frog in my throat and had to clear it, and say what I was saying again. It was embarassing. That doesnt happen anymore, and its early days. I would love to have one. Just one. It would calm me down, but im resisting for now. My dreams have been really vivd for the last few days. One of them I was inside an episode of lost. Have not seen an episode of lost in ages, so I dont know where the thought came from. I also feel I sleep better, but get knackered around 5 o'clock. Nearly dosed off in the chair yesterday.

im going to travel into town later, and buy myself a present. Im broke, and shouldnt but I did not buy a pack for the last 4 days, so have 28 euros to spare. Treated myself to a steak last night and it was fantastic. Although, since I stopped smoking, I have gone off cheese completely. I only started liking it since I started smoking, so maybe my taste was no longer sensitive enough to detect the tastes that I did not like. What do people mean by the physical addiction? Is that the act of going to have one? If so, thats the most difficult bit for me.

E. Fudd

Folks, I tried everything to stop smoking, and I mean everything!

I started a course of Champix last month, and am off them since sunday the 27th.!

I smoked 40 to 50 a day. A colleugue who works with me day-in-day out, told me today that he actually considered me to be a chain smoker. But right now I couldn't give a s**t about cigarettes, and it is the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced!

Froot

I went off them for 8 months in 2006 and 6 months after quitting I was still coughing up bits of tar and the lining of my throat.

The cravings did go until only boredom or alcohol could really make me smoke.

I recently (re)quit just over three weeks ago. I feel fantastic, far less irritable/edgy etc and despite the burning feeling in my lungs pretty much every day I do feel like this is doing me good.

The trick is to want to quit more than you want to smoke. If you genuinely want a cigarette more than you want to quit then you will never quit and you will keep smoking. For me the decision to quit came when in addition to heart palpatations from hyperthyroidism I was getting panic attacks from stress and heart palpatations from smoking. Those things combined is like a heart attack cubed.

Best of luck and keep fighting the good fight