Who's quit smoking cold turkey?

tbourner

The wife is giving up smoking. She only smoked around 8 a day anyway, last week she cut down to 4 or 5 a day, yesterday she didn't smoke any and decided to quit completely.

A week ago I put a pot out and said we'd put £5 in every 4 days, and it was up to her to spend it on fags or anything else she wanted (CDs and DVDs and stuff that we normally can't afford). So now she's decided to quit there's £6.30 in there (change from the last pack of fags went in, and a bonus pound).
Our 2 close friends are also giving up, with their own incentives, so it should be easier on them all as smoking when we meet up was a big thing with bottled of wine etc. Unfortunately my mum and mother in law aren't giving up.


Problem is I've never smoked, and never been around anyone quitting, so I don't know what to do or say. I have no idea what it feels like to crave one etc. Everywhere I search it's always people saying "I know how you feel" etc. and there's no support for me to be able to support her in the best way!
Yesterday she was coughing up green stuff, and today says she feels like !!!!!! and has almost lost her voice, we didn't get much sleep last night.

So, any recommendations? Things to do to keep busy and not think about it? Anything to help with the throat or will that not last long?
I've said it's down to money for us, so when her mum gave her a fag yesterday I said it was OK cos it's not our money. I guess that's a bad idea though? Should I ban fags from the house completely? She said she hated the taste and it made her feel worse but she still wanted it. Again, not having ever smoked I just don't get it!! Help!

searching_me

ex smoker here ... i quit cold turkey no help no nothing .. its just will power and pushing through it i know lots of people who have used odds and sods but the only thing is will power .. he body will be going through withdrawal and she will always crave it (the craving never goes away sadly) but being supportive and generally saying how much you've saved helps .. ALOT! ..

HTH x

Marisco

The throat thing will go away. If she gets ratty and starts arguing, don't argue back, bad temper is a symptom of giving up. Don't encourage her to smoke other peoples fags, she'll never quit!! Put the jar somewhere prominent so you can see the money building up:) And ask people not to smoke in your house!!! One of the side effects can be weight gain - never mention weight;) I've tried quite a few times - and failed miserably, I've got the will power of a gnat!!:o If she falls by the wayside, don't nag! That is the worst possible thing to do!! Just a bit of gentle encouragement to get back on the wagon should do it. Good luck:)

Hannah_10

I strongly recommend THIS BOOK. Or THIS ONE, which is practically the same just with a chapter on pregnancy.

It doesn't matter if she bought them or her Mum did, she's still smoking and probably truly sufferring for it. You can't ban her because then you become like the ogre standing between her and her fix, nor is "willpower" a good idea because it's like setting up an internal fight with yourself that goes "I need one, I'm not having one, but I need one, but I'm not having one" arghhh!!! Nicotine Replacement Therapy (beloved by the NHS) is just a rubbish substitue and you feel deprived from what you know to be nice again... and don't even think about carrot sticks- they'll be Cadburys Eclairs before you know it and you'll be just as broke shopping for bigger clothes! The book comes at it from a sympathetic angle and isn't preachy or gross or anything, I cried a lot of times coz I felt like someone understood me when I finally read it all the way through and stopped throwing it in the corner coz it kept seeing through all my little fibs to myself "doesn't count if it's just one" etc.

Pee

Giving up smoking is easy, I have done it lots of times. (That isn't my quote, but I think it's a good one.)

Staying given up is really, really hard and so far as I can see the people who have done it successfully have made the decision at the right time for them, i.e. they really wanted to do it and didn't do it for someone else.

I think it's great you are asking for advice on how to support her. My feeling is that trying to ban smoking from the house for instance won't be helpful. It may be helpful for her if she decides not to smoke in the house and banishes respective mothers to the garden/ outside.

I find that I smoke more when I drink and when I have tried giving up it's usually after a few drinks that the craving kicks in. This is partly that I associate smoking with drinking i.e. when I have a drink I usually have a smoke. Other people say that it is after a meal that they really miss not smoking.

I found going swimming helped me stop, but walking or even running would be equally as good. (I sadly soon worked out that if you are smoking a fairly small amount it doesn't actually make much difference to your fitness.)

I didn't get the sore throat, although i certainly got the coughing. You can get a really good sore throat spray from a chemist that completely numbs your throat, but not very money saving.

I would say doing something different is a good way to forget about smoking, especially something where you couldn't smoke anyway/ other people won't be. I.e. playing tennis, cinema.

It's hard to give suggestions as I don't know what you like to do, but I hope that gives you some ideas.

Best of luck! And yes, the grumpiness is normal.

McKneff

Anybody who can quit smoking cold turkey has my utmost admiration. I am a smoker and I honestly dont know how they dont cave in
and have a fag just to allay the craving.

And no, its not a good idea to have one, even if someone else is paying for it, it takes you right back to square one mentally.

Keep her mind busy, i always say you cant think of 2 things at once and when youre giving up smoking its the only thing
you think about unless you can find a distraction.

Marisco

Yes, that's true, if you smoke you don't think about it, but when you try to give up, it's ALL you can think about!!! I think stopping smoking in the house is a good idea, my sister won't let anyone smoke in her house, and when I go there I smoke less, as I cannot be bothered going outside!! So you'll be helping other smokers as well;)

lucylucky

When my father worked he used to smoke about 20 -30 a day. When he retired that when down to 15-20 a day. (Smoked for about 40 years in total)

Went to the docs one day who told him he really should give up. He came home, chucked out all the fags he had and never smoked another one. Didn't substitute anything for it, he just stopped. I was amazed.

searching_me

McKneff wrote: »

Anybody who can quit smoking cold turkey has my utmost admiration. I am a smoker and I honestly dont know how they dont cave in
and have a fag just to allay the craving.

if you really want to you dont give in .. before i gave up i hated the way i smelt and even the taste of a fag .. so it helped ..

hope OP's OH can do it .. i can now do a 5k run on the treadmil .. 3 months ago i was out of breathe after a long walk x

purplerose

I quit cold turkey. What helped me when I had a craving was thinking "this is the worst it can get, it will pass and gradually get less and less" and the craving would be gone within the hour. Sometimes just taking some long deep breaths in and out like I would if I had a cigarette helped - I read somewhere that doing this increases the amount of oxygen to the brain or something, I dunno.

The best thing that helped me was having a boyfriend who disliked it a lot. When I smoked he used to say it tasted horrible or smelled horrible when kissing/cuddling. So maybe after a few days of being smoke free say things like "mmm you smell good now you've quit" or something along those lines. Also, chuck out all ashtrays and lighters, make your house a smoke free home. If mum or mother in law want to smoke when they are over tell them to do it outside and be firm about that. Both my grandmothers took offence at this when my parents quit smoking nearly 30 years ago but after the initial offence, it became the law in my parents house and they never even bothered having a cigarette when they visited or when we visited them.

Try to get her to break associations, like I associated a cup of tea with having a cigarette but swapped the cigarette for an apple or a magazine. I'd associate standing at the bus stop with having a cigarette so I started listening to music at the bus stop and paying more attention to my surroundings.

As for support - suggest distractions: paint your nails, go for a bath, lets go for a walk, read a magazine, bake some bread, play a game...whatever and be prepared to put up with a grump for a couple of weeks.

Ashamed_2

Myself and the wife both smoked.

I like to say I'm in the process of quitting rather than I've quit. This doesn't mean I can cheat and have one. It just means will always get the cravings and until they go away I am not free of it.

I quit before for 4 years and started again because I thought that I had quit and I was a non smoker and one little cigarette wouldn;t make me a smoker again. I was wrong.

I quit cold turkey and feel really good about it. I still get the urge to have one now and then, but it's make easier by the fact that my wife also quit (tablets and patches) and there are no cigarettes around to tempt us, when we do go to a smoking engagement (i.e. somewhere others smoke) we play off each other to stay strong and it works well.

As other have said, the temper and anger, fustration and dam right being rude, comes with not smoking. It comes and goes and luckly enough myself and the wife have missed each others windows most of the time. However on the odd occassion we clashed with these feelings, world war three broke out and stuff got broken LOL. It's all good though, getting fustration out with minimal costs is better than speding lots of money to kill yourself.

The daughter is loving it now and has said a few times, Daddy you smell nice (she's only 2, but see's never said that to me before). Also we don't have to keep running away every hour to go out to the garden to fill our lungs.

The only advice I can offer is this. We men know when the time of the month has come for our better halves, we know because the wife starts acting like she wants a divorce for no reason at all. Over the years we have learnt how to deal with this ourselves. Unfortunately now, the time of the month will last another 3 months or so rather that the 3 - 5 days you usually get. Just be careful, kind, considerate & loving. It's not her fault she's acting like this, she will get better.