Cigarrettes for Kilts

[Colonel MacNeal]

I managed to quit by getting walking pneumonia. I was too sick to smoke for a month. After the month of pneumonia was over, I had kicked the smoking habit.

[The Barry]

Tobacco has never been your friend!

[Old Hippie]

Anyone else made the big Q U I T?

Oh, yeah. You're trying to kick a poison that your body is trying to tell you it needs. I started at 12. Fifteen years later I woke up one morning, stepped out onto the roof to have my first one of the day with my coffee, and thought:

"Y'know, that first one always tastes like :crap:. So if I can put off lighting the first one, then I'll always know that I have that awful taste to look forward to."

So I didn't light it. It also started to bother me that I was paying money just to feel "normal" in short doses. Sorry, man, I have Scottish genes!

Two pieces of advice:

1. Smoking usually starts as a social activity. Stay out of situations where you traditionally smoked for a while, until you can be bigger than the craving. Then use alternative strategies. You wouldn't be the first person at a barbecue chewing on the handle of a plastic spoon.

2. This is a big change, but you can make it. Just tackle the one, though. If you've decided it's a good time to lose weight, start exercising, get a new job and be a better husband just drop all those little projects. Eat what you want, lie on the couch, grumble about your boss and leave your socks hanging on the foot of the bed until you've got some motivation to deal with them. Just tell 'er you have my permission.

And good luck! Yell for help here if you need somebody to buck you up a bit.

:ootd:

[Coinneach]

I've never had the habit, but I've lived with someone for more than 30 years who has quit numerous times. As of this writing he hasn't had a puff in 3 months. Part of his success right now is that he's stopped being around other people who smoke. It's too easy to have just a few drags.

And when he feels he has this in hand better, he'll tackle the weight.

One thing at a time.

You can do this. You can pick a way that's right for you. It's probably not going to be easy, but you've taken a good first step and looked at the finances of it. A new kilt will go along way toward celebrating every six months of success.

Best of luck to you.

[thescot]

I managed to quit by getting walking pneumonia. I was too sick to smoke for a month. After the month of pneumonia was over, I had kicked the smoking habit.

Hmmph! I would have never let anything less than a coma keep me from smoking! You must have been a sissy smoker. (That's a joke, son. Bit of gallows humor, know whadda mean?)

But seriously, that very fact--and it is truly a fact--demonstrates the seriousness that we should ascribe to the addiction of tobacco.

[bigdad1]

About 34 years ago I was a two or three pack a day smoker. I was working as chief bosun on a oceanographic research ship and was about 150 miles at sea. Clean, clear air and beauty. I got up about 3 a.m. to get ready to go on watch and while on deck started the smokers cough and hacking up vile stuff. When I was done I reached for a smoke then stopped. I finished getting ready for my watch and went on deck for that smoke. I started the coughing again and thought this is stupid. I threw every cigarette I had for the rest of the voyage over the side and haven't smoked since. I have never regretted a day. Now if only going clean and sober had been as easy.

[fudgeman]

OK, time for my story. In high school, I was a jock--no smoking or drinking. When I went to college, guess what happened--drank like a fish and started smoking of course.
After college, I was able to give up the drinking quickly, thank God. But I continued to smoke and was up to over two packs a day. My wife and I were married in 1971. My mother had smoked since she was a teenager, my dad smoked cigars and pipes, my father-in-law smoked as did a brother in law, and at that time you could smoke at your desk at work. My wife never gave me a hard time about my smoking. We frequently talked about going to the UK to visit relatives (my mom was a British war bride), but we didn't have the money to do so.
In the Fall of 1971 I told my wife I was smoking my last pack. One night we were at her sisters' and I pulled out the last cigarette in the pack and told her that was it. And it was. I quit cold turkey. Every payday I put back the amount of money I would have spent on cigarettes and saved for our trip to the UK. We were able to go in less than a year--that was 1972. We also went again in 1973 and again in 1975.
You can do it. I wasn't into kilts then but they would have been a powerful incentive to give up cigarettes. When you feel like having a cigarette, post here again and you will continue to get support from the XMTS family. Good luck.

[lucienrau]

I smoked more or less for 10 years, sometimes very little (1-2 a day), sometimes quite a bit and quit cold turkey last year. Good luck with quitting. To echo what everyone else says, don't think that it's ok to just have one. You may need to stop drinking alcohol or coffee for a while if it's tied to that behaviour. The first two weeks are the hardest for physical addition, I found that it's around a month and a half to two that are the worst for the mental addiction.

What helped me is setting goals and rewarding myself for meeting them. This has worked for weight loss as well. The only other piece of advice I've got is be careful about your diet afterwards.

[Colonel MacNeal]

Now I only smoke after sex. I wish my wife would stop throwing lighter fluid and matches at me after I go to sleep.

[Brandane]

Smoke free for 4 years after 30 a day. You wont regret giving up though remember that you're just 1 cig away from starting again. Good luck, Rob.