Cigarrettes for Kilts

[7 miles]

Tomorrow it will be three years since i Quit a Three pack a day habit. It was tough the first two weeks ,but got a little better each day. The best thing to do is go cold turkey that way all the nicotine is out of your system fast. Good luck my brother take it one day at a time.

[thescot]

Well, now it's my turn.

I started smoking young, too, about 13 or so. I was a two-pack-a-day man myself for 30 years or so. And I, too, tried everything to quit--inlcuding hypnotism! I would quit for short periods of time, but I always started back up.

It's really an addiction, and you have to treat it like an addiction. You don't just drop a serious cigarrette habit by deciding it's not good for you any more than a junkie givews up smack. At least, you don't if you're a real addict like I was.

Now, understand that not everyone is an addict or has that addictive disease thing, so not everyone can't quit. Some folks can drink and quit, some can't. Some can smoke and quit, some can't. I couldn't quit smoking, but I have no trouble with the booze--go figure.

For me, it took a few heart attacks, an emergency bypass (on a Saturday that really messed up a round of golf!), and, two weeks later, a massive heart attack that ended any hope of salvaging my heart.

So now I have a pair of really neat scars down my chest and a new ticker--which I take better care of than I did the old one. Don't let my glib manner fool you; it was no picnic, it was not fun (or funny), and I was very fortunate to live through it.

I hope that my young friends here--Short Bread Jock and his mates, especially--can learn from our stories. I am still a smoker; today I am not smoking, but like KFCarter, one cigarette would too many and a boat load would not be enough . . .IF I smoked the first one.

Haven't had a smoke in over 8 years now. But it wasn't easy. Dan, I hope you don't have to awaken from a week's coma and a trip to the "bright lights" when your heart stops to put them down. Get whatever help it takes, and live to enjoy your family. the greatest joy in my life is my granddaughter, and I'd never have seen her if not for the grace of God and St. Joseph's Hospital. Good luck, my friend.

[KiltedBrewer]

Dan,
I was never a smoker, but I watched my Grandmother, Father, Mother, and younger Sister quit. Grandma quit cold turkey more than 20 years ago. Mom, Dad, and Sister all quit with a Chantix prescription. I don't think it's cheap, but it worked for all three of them. Good Luck.
David

[EagleJCS]

Best of luck in quitting the habit. Get all the help you need - friends, family, meds, whatever! Here are some more stories to use as incentive if you start to waver.

I don't smoke - but I grew up with parents who did, so growing up I got a lot secondhand. After I moved out, I was (and still am after 16 years) fairly sensitive to cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke. I can't stand the smell (or the taste if I get that much secondhand smoke).

Mom started when she was in college, I think. She quit about four years ago, cold turkey, and says she really doesn't want another. (She didn't smoke that much - just when Dad was around & smoking). It was hardest for her when Dad would still smoke in the house.

Dad started smoking - menthols - when he was a sophomore in high school, about 1960 or so. At times, he was smoking almost two packs a day, depending on his stress levels. He just quit this past week, cold turkey - more or less on doctor's orders. Last weekend (May 16), Dad was hospitalized with bronchitis, a little pneumonia, and emphysema. On oxygen, his saturation level (the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream) was about 97 (about normal). Off oxygen for 5-10 minutes, and it was down to 81. A non-smoker would be unconscious, or close to it, at that level. After three days of IV fluids, steroids, antibiotics and breathing treatments, Dad was sent home, with a round of oral antibiotics and some prescription strength expectorant. From what Mom's told me, he is breathing a lot easier and is resting better. Dad now has an oxygen bottle to use 'when he needs it'. Nobody's said so yet, but he'll probably need to be on oxygen the rest of his life.

My grandfather and his three younger brothers all smoked from the time they were teens. Two of his younger brothers died of lung cancer. The day after his first brother died, my GF quit cold turkey. He wound up chewing on round toothpicks - which became his trademark - to help control the cravings. The Big C still got him eventually, though - bone/brain. My youngest great-uncle quit smoking about the same time my GF did. He died last year of pancreatic cancer.

One of my great aunts (widow of one of the lung cancer great-uncles) also had emphysema from smoking, and was on oxygen full-time for her last several years. She died a few years ago. I think it was congestive heart failure, but I don't recall.

Just keep these folks in mind if you start to waver. Again, best of luck!

[Larry124]

I’ve quit and gone back.
And quit and gone back.
So it goes, and I keep trying.

Quit for the very valid health reasons.

My father quit at age 65 (!) so as to not die and leave my mother alone. It (sadly) worked. My mother died at age 64 to smoking-related cancer. My father lived to age 87 and died of ALS. BUT, in another year he would have died of bladder cancer likely related to the years he spent smoking.

A close friend died from lung cancer at age 67 after earlier surviving kidney cancer. Both likely related to tobacco use.

A cousin died from breast cancer at age 57, likely related to tobacco use.

But do not quit because of an asserted moral value: “Smoking is a vice.” That way lies Talibanism.

As in the next bogyman will be overweight from fast-food.

And alcohol prohibition.

ALL humans have vices. Choose the least deadly.

[Pleater]

I saw how my Dad mourned for all the money he had smoked away, after he stopped. Money for his cigarettes had to be found.

Just because it is legal doesn't mean it is not as addictive and as damaging as illegal substances cut with the Lord knows what rubbish.

Personally I would eradicate the whole business if it was in my power to do so.

The tobacco industry is so powerful now that no matter how much damage is done to ordinary individuals, it will never be stopped.

Dad stopped smoking when he began to have brownouts - like a blackout but slower and probably much more terrifying.

It did improve his life, and possibly extended it - the brownouts put a great strain on his body, particularly his heart.

No matter what the withdrawal symptoms, they will pass and the end result is going to be an improvement in your health and wealth, and you will stop yourself doing something that is doing you harm and drugging you into a false sense of well being.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Joseph McLaren]

I don't smoke, and I can't offer you any advice, but I wish you the very best of luck with giving up. $2000 a year is a heck of an incentive, as is good health.

[Mipi]

Personally I would eradicate the whole business if it was in my power to do so.


Anne the Pleater :ootd:

That's impossible!! Do you know how much Tax money is collected this way?


Good luck to all that try to quite!

[dfmacliam]

The negative effects of smoking are real.. You read about what it has cost people,healthwise. What I did not tell you before is, another reason for quitting, I lost my dad about two years ago to a lung cancer, he had not smoked for thirty years.. But it still got him. My mother just had half of her left lung removed, because of lung cancer, she had never smoked, it was from second hand smoke.

Smoking has bad effects on our bodies, but worse yet, it effects our loved ones.. If you can't quit for you.. Quit for your wife.

[IrishGodfather]

You can do it!