The Giving Up Smoking Thread!! Part 2

Sue-UU

Congratulations on that first week Lou!!!! :T You really have done wonderfully well that even I am proud of you! I bet your family are too! I used to hate those 'smoking dreams' as they're such a scare and truly do make you feel as though you've gone back!:eek: What a relief eh!!! Well done on that cash incentive Lou, a great idea to have a holiday to look ahead to! Keep that strength up as you're doing so very well!:D

Hi again adarynefoedd and well done with staying ciggie-free for a whole month!!! That is amazing, but you need to get the patches down asap if possible. I know nothing about them, but just wondered if it was possible to have the full quota one day and the lesser then next and so on? Anyone any ideas???

Keep gritting your teeth and ignore the garages ...work on the theory that they've probably run out of them anyway!:rolleyes: When you do downsize the patches, don't forget the water, OJs, clementines, ice pops etc; you CAN go the whole hog, give it a go and prove it to yourself! :T

Keep strong adarynefoedd, everyone else too as it's another day closer to that goal!!!:j

Sue

Tommy99

Hey everyone,

Me and my girlfriend went to the doctors last Thursday to speak to the nurse about stopping. So, because i have tried before i was given Champix and she was given Patches.

So, i am on my 4 day of taking the tablets, so far so good. started on taking 2 tablets a day now. My stopping day is Thursday so finger s crossed.

PS i am going to save so much money by doing this...:A

maccababe

Well done Tommy99. Today was day 1 for me. Patches for me. Not such a bad day and the mood swings haven't been too ugly tonight. I have a BIG pschological attachment to smoking and I can get quite unpleasant when Im giving up. Have made a concious effort this PM to not be grouchy and have kept myself entertained with changing bed linen, loading and unloading the dishwasher, the washing machine. Anything that needs unloading or loading I'm your gal. OH is banned to his shed as he hasn't given up but is being supportive and making scarce! I so want to make this a success, can't stand being a slave to nicotine and its evil ways. Hope everyone had a good day and the cravings were kind to you.

Naomim

Hi Maccababe,

I know you were asking Lou about Champix so I thought I'd give you my take on it. Champix was my last gasp attempt, really it was..and even though I'd decided to do it, I still put off going to the doctors.

People are always willing to give you the horror stories about champix as there are an assortment of side effects. Sickness, light headed, mood swings.. For me, it's been a positive experience.

When I started on the champix I felt a bit spaced out and occasionally nauseous (sp?). After about 4 days I noticed that cigarettes definitely didn't taste the same, not horrible but more like not there. I might as well have put a carrot in my mouth and lit it and got the same feeling. By about 9 days I was smoking about 5 a day, down from 20 but unsubconsciously. On day 14 I stopped completely. I still had about 7 left in a pack but just couldn't be bothered. The cravings have been minimal. There have been a couple of cravings but nothing strong and definitely not enough to make me want one. DH smokes so they are readily available in the house. I do feel like I have obsessed about [STRIKE]smoking[/STRIKE] cigarettes. Not the acutal smoking itself but cigarettes on the whole although it's getting better now.

I'm now 3 weeks smoke free and looking forward to my first month.:j

Naomi x

Aeshna

Hey everyone, well done on staying smober, and good luck maccababe and Tommy99 (and your gf)!!

Well, I feel like I'm falling apart today, literally! My skin is blotchy and spotty, I have 2 cold sores and I actually have what I can only describe as a spot in my eye, which is irritated everytime I blink. Someone told me this is all the toxins coming out of me, but I'm looking for reassurance from the old hands! Honestly, I feel like I look horrid and it's depressing. I need a perk!

Aeshna x

Naomim

Hi Aeshna,

I'm sure it is all the rubbish coming out.. people talk about how their skin looks better and others noticing. Mine is dry, my sinuses are blocked and I have a spot up my nose. :eek: All for the greater good ay?

At least things can only get better.

Naomi x

frugalpam

Hello :hello: - just found this thread.
I gave up smoking on 25th January, so it's day 16 today :j . I went down with a nasty bronchial / chest infection/virus a couple of weeks or so ago, which gradually got worse and worse. Smoking just wasn't an option :eek: Even though I'm over the virus now, I've no intention of going back to the fags - can't believe how much money I've saved.
Hope I can make this the final quit - have had so many practice quits, i've lost count

Pam

HHH_2

I went to the clinic last night and expalined about the champix so have been given NRP plastic fag. feeling really rubbish as had a cig today after 7 days of none. I will ge the paul mckenna cd out when I get home. Just so fed up with myself for giving in.

bozzy120

Huge congrats to everyone, we're all doing so well!!!

I'm now on day 38 smoke free but we are having a big party at home this weekend, a few of the guests are smokers and I'm sure the urge to just nip outside for a quick one will be stronger than ever I've just got to stay strong!!

fullstopsmoking

I just wanted to add a quick note of encouragment

I stopped smoking 7 years ago on Saturday (14/02/02), I started when I was 11 and quit when i was 33. 22 years of smoking. All that smoke and crap inside me. At the time I thought I enjoyed it, however, now I know I was just saying that to justify what I was doing. This time was different though.

I think one of the most common mistakes people make when they quit is associate everything they feel and do from the moment the finish their last cigarette as automatically something to do with withdrawals or cravings. If you think about it all the evidence suggests that nicotine will quickly leave the body and in truth be out within about 72 hours.

So why is it that weeks and sometimes months after quitting when youfeel under pressure and tense do you assume that it is a craving for a cigarette. I can tell try to explain.


Anxiety, misunderstanding and human response.

Have you ever made a list of the feelings you have when you wanted a cigarette. All the feelings, sensations, thoughts. I have and it was quite a list. Everything from fear and loathing to wanting to run away and hide. I felt a tension in my face and shoulders and a empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought I would explode if i didn't smoke and do anything to get rid of all these things.

But I realised something, the list above was the exact same list for anxiety, What I was describing was anxiety, however, I was associating this with cigarettes. So months after quitting when I felt anxious due to a genuine event or situation i would immediately think of smoking.

So how had this link been made.

There is a natural response to anxiety that is hard wired in every human being and that is the fight or flight response. It is a way of coping with dangerous situations and over many thousands of years has changed very little. The thing that has changed is the triggers. When we were cavemen the trigger will have been sabre tooth tigers or other tribes threatning them. This instinct would have allowed them to prepare to stand and fight off the threat or prepare the body to run away. Without this automatic survival aid the Human race would have become extinct before it even got started.

Now we do not have wild animals roaming the street anymore but we do have things that we could percieve as a threat. Driving on the busy roads, walking in the streets at night, keeping your job, trying to stay free from illness. Like I say the events have changed but our reaction and response to them haven't

So what happens when this fight or flight response is triggered.

Firstly hormones are pumped into the blood system. One of these is adrenalin and another more potent hormone is cortisol. This is produced by the adrenal gland which is sittuated just above the kidney. The cortisol is a kind of ON switch for anxiety and stress. It courses through the body preparing muscles by creating more vitamins and minerals needed to put the body of full alert. It sends signals to the brain to ignore all other thoughts except those that will save them and keep them out of danger.

Now this process is actually vital if you are to function at your full potential but if the cortisol is pumped into the body over a prolonged period it can have devastating effects on it and you.

To switch this whole process off you just have to prove to yourself that the danger or perceived threat has been dealt with or has gone. When this happens another hormone is released by the adrenal gland (same organ as the cortisol) This hormone is called DHEA. It acts as the OFF switch or the all clear indicator. It quickly allows all the bodies respitory and chemical balance to return to resting levels.

So what does smoking and quitting have to do with this?

What I have described above is a reaction to actual danger or a threat, It is probably due to something you can see or feel. In those cases you can deal with it or move away from it. But what if the danger or threat was not real, what if it was a chemically induced feeling. Just as you can make someone feel happy with antidepressants so you can create a chemical mix that will give you anxiety. But how can you deal with something you can neither see or touch. It is triggered in the smokers mind.

When you tried your first cigarette you will no doubt have been feeling apprehensive and anxious about what was going to happen, in fact you will probably have felt every feeling under the sun in a very short space of time. So you smoke it and guess what. nothing, it was not the fantastic exillerating experience you were expecting. In fact for me it was a real let down. What I did not realise was that even though I had finished smoking the cigarette I had set of a chanin reaction in my body that would stay with me all my smoking life.

The carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide which are essentially nerve gasses were acting on my central nerveous system. It wil have been creating a feeling of fear and threat. I will not have known this or associated it with the previous cigarette because this would have been about 30 - 60 minutes later. Now this is where the misunderstanding came in. When this artificial anxiety reached it peak I should have just let it come out of my system on its own.

If i had just waited a few hours I would have returned to normal without any of the chemicals in my body and would have had a perfect memory for what a cigarette actually is designed to do. Make me feel anxious and threatened. Not relaxed and calm as we have all come to believe.

Now the mistake I made when the artificial anxiety was at it's peak was to smoke another. To get the anxiety triggered there will have been a false alarm sent to my brain telling me I was under threat. That in turn will have pumped the cortisol into my blood and now for the ingenius part. Nicotine has been found to stimulate DHEA. Remember DHEA, the all clear message. The opposite hormone to cortisol. So by lighting another all I have done is to trick my brain once again only this time into thinking I had fould a way to get rid of anxiety. It was instant and the human instict for survival will not look any further than that.

The chain reaction had started. I never associated the negative feelings I now had every hour or so with the last cigarette, The real culprit. I blamed the feeling on something I had not even had yet. This misunderstanding was then reinforced everytime I lit a cigarette up.

Until that is I was made to face the truth. Actually see what I was doing. Questioning my feelings for probably the first time in my adult life. I was longer prepared to accept the "truth according to everyone else" I wanted
to find out why I smoked. Why I blamed everthing and everbody else for me not being able to stop and above all stay stopped.
In order to do that I had to relearn my reaction to anxiety and see it for what it was. A feeling that was what I made it.

All feelings start out exactly the same, it is what you attach to them that makes the good or bad.