Are you a secret smoker?

The Virginian-Pilot ^ | 08/08/2005 | JOSEPH P. KAHN

[HiTech RedNeck]

I am unsure how one could truly hide this. The smoke stays on the breath.

[Maven]

I went cold turkey two weeks ago just to see if I could. It is possible but I still want a cigarette. I can tell you that in another two weeks if I STILL want to smoke, I will because I will be damned if I am going to spend the rest of my life feeling like this.

I went to a hypnotist on June 29 - and haven't lit up since. I even downloaded some obnoxious stop-smoking software that calculates to the second how many cigs I haven't smoked since my stop date. But I have too much respect for Freepers to use it here.

The interesting thing with the hypnosis is that you can set the terms and conditions. For instance, I didn't want to feel like I was struggling or suffering - I just wanted to feel like I did the day before I bought my first pack 30 years ago (yikes). I did not want to avoid people who smoke, since some of them are people I love or who are my friends. I just didn't want to be bothered by the smoke. I didn't want to gain weight, either.

Hey - it worked! I don't crave them. I don't think about them. Anyone can light up in front of me, and it's not a problem - if you're in my home, I'll get an ashtray for you. It's great!

I will admit that I can smell cigarette smoke a lot more readily now that I'm a non-smoker. Someone on the first floor of my apartment building smokes - and tries to cover it up with incense. Used to be I could only smell the incense, but now I smell the smoke, too. Doesn't bother me, though - it's just a curious phenomenon.

The weirdest thing, so far, is that I think one of my cats was hooked on nicotine. She spent the first two weeks just moping around the place looking really pitiful and sniffing around the coffee table for where the ashtray used to be. If she was hooked on smoking because of me, then I feel really bad about it, since she never had a choice in the matter (although the other cat seems to be a non-smoker).

Maven

[trubluolyguy]

"Cold turkey worst of the worst"


Surprisingly no. The patch for me is worse becuase I get blisters where the patch is at. And eventually ya gotta get off the patch. Then you ARE cold turkey.

Thanks for the well wishes though...I mean't what I said about the cravings, they are bad. If they are still there in two weeks, I'll smoke and I won't feel guilty either.

[Drew68]

quit smoking after 30 years, 2-3 packs a day. Made it for 28 days. started, stopped, started again and stopped, I am on day 15.

After 18 years of smoking 1-2 packs a day I quit cold turkey for 60+ days for navy boot camp. Easiest thing I ever did! Didn't crave a cigarette once. Of course, nobody smoked at boot camp so I wasn't surrounded by it.

Unfortunately, it was easy to start back up once boot camp was over. Seems *everyone* smokes in the navy! On a ship that's the only way you get to take a break is to go have a smoke.

I want to quit for good after I get married. I am sick of paying so much in cigarette taxes and then being treated like a pariah because I smoke. Plus, I don't want to smoke around the children I wish to have.

Good luck to you!

[GLH3IL]

I wish to the heavens that I was Rush. If I was Rush Limbaugh I'd be puffing away on something far more powerful and expensive that a Dominican cigar...those Cubans are the only way to go if ya got the cash to buy 'em.

[Shortstop7]

Thanks for the info. I tried the patch a couple of years ago, and it just drove me crazy.

Sounds like you are doing great. Stories like yours might give me more courage. (not the Dan Rather kind) lol

Hang in there!