My strategy

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Well, i'm off the cigs since Saturday. Seems to be going fine. Just thought i'd post up how it is working for me, especially since i'm sure a lot of people will be perusing this forum come January.

Smoking for six years, and I've been noticing that my smoking had started to creep towards 15 to 20-a-day. Which is the benchmark that i've always associated with being a heavy smoker. Had never really tried to quit before - except enforced quiting when it has been too long since pay-day (painful days!).

The thing that scared me most about giving up was not having the morning cigarette to get the day started. In fact, just the thought of giving up smoking was something that made me quickly light up another cigarette.

On Friday I bought a pack of 24-hour patches, and some lozenges (hadn't seen these before, but they are great for when you have some extra cravings).

Without any real belief that it would work, i put a patch on before going to sleep on Friday night and after smoking the last cigarettes in the pack. Then when i woke up on Saturday i didn't feel any need to go out and get another pack of cigs. Saturday and Sunday were a bit tough, but i just didn't speak to anyone, ordered food in, read books, sucked on nicotine lozenges.

What amazed me was that by Monday I was actually starting to smell things for the first time in 6 years. I sprayed myself with Lynx (classy!) in the morning and got overwhelmed by the smell; I was walking past a bakery that i pass every morning and could smell the scents of freshly baked bread. It was really amazing, like a dog i was tempted to go around sniffing everything.

Suppose there are two things to do now. The first is to keep it up, and the second is to work on reducing the actual nicotine.

Apparently nicotine itself is not too harmful, despite being a toxin. The ever reliable wikipedia claims that nicotine is associated with some positive health benefits. Its only the 4000 other additives in cigs that cause the harm.

Loved reading Stephen Fry's story of how he gave up (http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=21 - it's about half-way down the page called "I give up: A Short essay on addiction")

Anyway, keep up the good fight...

EDIT: forgot to say that the patches give you crazy dreams (really really crazy dreams!) - which is a nice added bonus!

DEmeant0r

Have been off them since Friday/Saturday. This is my 5th time in 2/3 years of smoking and trying to quit, this time I'm determined to quit for good. So sick of them, it just doesn't give me the pleasure/relief that it used to anymore. I was on 8-10 a day, so I guess compared to many people I'm a light smoker. I don't really have a strategy, but I'm starting to replace smokes with coffee... seems like coffee is lesser of two evils. Good luck with it, I know I'll need it.

Terry

Best of luck to both of you.