I can't take it anymore! Wife smokes, I don't. Tips are welcome!

This thread encouraged me to dabble with my own response to Cold Turkey, here's a breakdown of my day:

Sunday-11:30pm last cigarette on the way home from a friend's.
Monday 7:30AM Woke up pretty much as normal.
8-8:30AM- This is usually my first cigarette of the day on my way into work. Only today I noticed that the usual fogginess feeling wasn't clearing and I was sleepy.
11:00 AM usually my first smoke break, bought a ton of candy instead, blood sugar spiked and felt like a bad diabetic.
1:30 PM second smoke break. mild headache but nothing terrible, busy enough where I wasn't thinking about it really.
3PM-4:30PM Intense fogginess, my ears developed an increasing "buzz" and it became difficult to hear what people were saying. I felt extremely distracted.
4:30-5PM First serious craving begins. My driving was drastically affected and while I'm normally a pretty safe driver, I wasn't checking lanes, swore a storm at other drivers who weren't really doing anything wrong, just not moving fast enough, it was a bad experience.
At this point my car wreaked of stale cigarettes and was very gross, apparently smell starts to come back faster than I thought, despite this my craving was intensified. There's a recent string of quit ads that show people screwing up day to day stuff, it's very real, was dropping things, walking into things, it's a feeling like you're doing a thousand things at the same time when really you're not even doing one.
5-6PM Got home and was getting ready for a nice valentines day date night. Wife had a hard day and wanted to talk but it was hard to hear, and I was getting unreasonably short, definite exercise in patience. Headache was pretty strong and was coughing a lot. I did my best to hide being a complete ass.

Broke down and bought smokes on my way to dinner to avoid being more pissy.

I had read that the average craving lasts for 10 minutes and then subsides. I found this to be an annoyingly outright lie for me. I thought about smoking for an hour and a half straight with an intensity on par with a hormone filled teenager in a yoga class.

The last time I had stopped for 3 days I had worked myself down to about 3 a day, this experience is from around a pack a day average. I think before I try again I'm going to cut down to less, and maybe have a week with a filtered cigarette (I smoke straights)

I'm not sure if everyone experiences the same thing and I'm just a wimp or if something else is going on, but it's an incredibly daunting task to me and I have extreme respect for those who quit.
I do get offended by those who treat smokers as social pariah's though, to me it's like picking on a handicapped kid, addiction is addiction, it's become more than just a choice not to smoke, it has effects in a lot of different areas of my life.
 
I thought about smoking for an hour and a half straight with an intensity on par with a hormone filled teenager in a yoga class.

Haha! Love the analogy.

Yeah, quitting is a PITA, no doubt about it. When I was a smoker I hated cigarettes and it still took me a couple years to really quit for good. I really didn't like anything about them, except after I smoked I didn't feel like I needed a smoke right then. I've been off smokes for probably around 4 years now (maybe longer) and after about a year off I really lost the desire for cigarettes. I don't crave them at all, not when drinking, not after sex, never (thankfully).

Just keep on it. When I quit I started taking fitness more seriously and that really helped me want to stay off because I started breathing a lot better, over a little bit of time I was able to do long hikes without hacking a lung - it really helped for me. Just keep on it!
 
Pol I didn't know you quit! What was your quit date? Congratulations!

I wish that if people did have to smoke, they would grow their own tobacco and not feed the evil tobacco corporations that kill and pollute. Yes I realize that is naieve, it's just that the big corporations are clearly your enemy, and I encourage people to find alternative places to spend their money. Don't feed the enemy!

You know how there are microbreweries? Is there a parallel in tobacco's case? Does Big Tobacco even allow this?

If we all stopped giving the big corporations our money, they would lose their stranglehold on the world. Find Alternatives!

That's my thought for the day.

Thanks Larry. Not sure of the exact day. I started on the patches around the time we played at the bowling club during Nov last year. Since I'm hard core I was also using gums and lozenges (unlike Razor, I really like them). I'm off the patches but still taking the lollies.

I don't call it quitting any more (MikeM take note) I call it stopping.

Tobacco takes a helluva lot of curing etc - being stored in a specific temperature and humidity for a year - or it tastes as rough as guts. So it's a big production job that's suited to big companies. Big tobacco's main crime is putting thousands of chemicals into cigs, including is benzoapyrene, which I read is one of the most potent known carcinogenics. They also put in poisons like cadmium, lead, arsenic, ammonia, formaldehyde and benzene. Obviously they are put in for a reason (to help burning and whatnot). They also put in sugar to sweeten them up (good for the kiddies) and other crap to aid the absorption of nicotine (so you get more addicted).

The big corporations - lead by media barons - already rule the world and the only change I can see is they will tighten their grip. I just try to fly under the radar, which is why I keep so quiet on public forums :)

I've did some quitting smoking cartoons in 2006 when I tried to quit. Here's one for Chaymus

blog_shakes.jpg
 
smoking is a sickness. if you are looking to quit, then you have already lost. to quit infers to give up something that would've been positive if you'd just stuck with it to the end. who wants to be a quitter? perhaps a better way to think about it (if you want to) is to leave smoking behind.

this came from the allen carr book (allen carr's easy way to stop smoking)

it has helped me stop an ugly, heavy habit which lasted over 15 years. if you want to stop and haven't read this book, give it a shot. it shoots down all the reasons we give ourselves, why we need a cigarette. it also explains why replacement therapy or cutting down to the weekends only, doesn't work.

to the OP, give your wife the book to read...it may help, doesn't cost anything (you may be able to find it at the library)

i don't have anything to gain from pushing this book. it's just great to be able to taste food again, not stink, have cash to spend on better things, not get pestered by nonsmokers, not get pestered by smokers who want a smoke, not hack in the morning etc... plus relapse factor is low to none because all the reasons i told myself i needed a smoke are defused. when you guys/gals are ready, have a look at the allen carr book. freedom to gain, imprisonment to lose....
 
Can she/you compromise? I smoke about 2-3 cigarettes a week. Can she cut back to a couple a day?

Unless she wants to quit, she never will. Even if she wants to, she may not be able to.

If she doesn't care how this affects your marriage, then you really don't have much of a marriage.
 
I smoked for like 20 years I quit in Feb of 2009

If you want to quit - remember: if you can make it three days without one puff
that's half the battle and if you can make it 3 days - you can make it 7
and if you can make it 7 days you can go another 7 etc...

This is how I quit I first told myself 3 days - if I made it I went for 7
I failed at least 5 times somewhere in this process but kept trying for those three days
one day I realized I hadn't smoked in 10 days - three months later I had a cig and it tasted so aweful I literally took 2 puffs and said forget this! Never went back.

It is true that no-one can make you quit you have to want it for yourself.
Incentives are nice but in the long run your wife will have to want it for herself.

My advice is positive enforcement rather than negative.
Keep telling her all the benefits of being free of such an addiction.
Tell her you are are more attracted to her when she is not smoking.

offer to help her in anyway - eCigs - nic-gum anything...

although I quit smoking - nicotine still has a grip on me as now I chew
copenhagen...

tobacco - its a terrible thing.
 
Is there something major about you that she'd like to see changed? If so, then make a deal with her that you'd do it if she quits smoking.

Also, smoking is ridiculously expensive nowadays. Tell her that she can bank all the money she spent on smoking and can spend it on anything she wants.
 
Tell her that she can get something that she really wants if she agrees to stop smoking for one week. Better yet, start with 3 days. There has to be something that she has been wanting. Then make the rewards bigger and bigger. If she can go for one month get her a massage or something similar. If she goes for 2 months then a day at the spa or something like that. My wife is always hinting about spa days or a new purse or something. Don't wait until it is too late. I was put on a pulse oximeter when my heart got too bad from prolonged smoking. It was enough motivation for my wife to try and stop. Good luck with the motivation, it is a good thing to stop smoking.
 
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Chaymus, I did heaps of them - it was how I expressed the way I felt. Here's another ... just slightly derivative :)

blog_the_scream.jpg


IThis is how I quit I first told myself 3 days - if I made it I went for 7
I failed at least 5 times somewhere in this process but kept trying for those three days
one day I realized I hadn't smoked in 10 days - three months later I had a cig and it tasted so awful I literally took 2 puffs and said forget this! Never went back.

... offer to help her in anyway - eCigs - nic-gum anything...

although I quit smoking - nicotine still has a grip on me as now I chew
copenhagen...

Yes, I'm addicted to the gums and lozenges, which at least doesn't have most of the disadvantages of cigs (the only one being a risk of oral cancer with prolonged use). I once stopped smoking for two years, another time for one year. Trouble is, I wasn't disgusted when I had another cig .... I loved it!

It would be great to be able to hate cigs like other reformed smokers.
 
I once stopped smoking for two years, another time for one year. Trouble is, I wasn't disgusted when I had another cig .... I loved it!

It would be great to be able to hate cigs like other reformed smokers.
I totally relate to this! Every time I've slipped I felt like, "Wow, look what I've been missing this whole time!" I wish I could hate them, too. I think that's why I've quit (erm, stopped), and restarted, so many times.

I was only half joking when I said that quitting was easy since I've done it lots of time. It's not the quitting that's so hard (first few days, weeks, even months), it's the staying quit part because I don't hate them - except for the sinister companies that produce them having purposefully manipulated their product to ensure that quitting is so freaking hard, and the social ostracism.
 
I don't hate them - except for the sinister companies that produce them having purposefully manipulated their product to ensure that quitting is so freaking hard, and the social ostracism.

What I hate is the addiction, which means I become wildly depressed without nico in my system. Also hate that it makes me smell bad, and my flat, and my clothes, and it makes my teeth yellow and it's ageing!

But I love the act of smoking, which is one reason why I am still smoking even though I don't have cigarettes ....
 
I recently bought a ZZ Top concert DVD, and there were some behind the scene interviews included. I was dismayed to see that Frank Beard, the drummer, was a chain smoker. Neither of the other two guys lit up.

The older you get, the harder it is to keep the stamina needed to play vigorous drums. I can't imagine playing drums on tour, and fighting the affects of smoking on the body. Then again, up until 20 years ago, I would venture to say that most musicians smoked.

I am blessed that neither of my parents smoked during my lifetime, and I never had the urge to start. I know a lot of people that have struggled with the nicotine dependency, and it is a hard battle to fight. My brother-in-law quit nearly ten years ago, but is still chewing nicorrete. Now he has all kinds of health issues.
 
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