The road to no smoking.

[Bare_head]

Hey guys.

So i have decided to quit using nictotine and weed. I smoke up to 10 cigerettes a day usually mixed with cannabis.

The cannabis doesnt really effect me anymore and the nicotine is a horrible habit that i am yet kick. 10+ years of smoking 15 years if we are just looking at cannabis.

I know alot of people have managed with vaping. I do have a vape but i am going to go with patches as i way to wean myself off the nictotine.

So starting today tuesday 11 may i am going to quit smoking and begin to concentrate on my health this year.

2021 is the year i stop smoking and begin to concentrate on a healthy mind and body.

My anxiety is at an all time high and i even feel the cannabis to have some negative effects on my motivation/mood (smoking to try relieve the anxiety but at the same time making it worse long term)

Anyways this is a small blog entry.

I have legit just woke up at 1am so this could be a an interesting first night. Im off to get the patches anyways will start off with 21 mg which says is 10 cigs a day which when i mix with weed i say i do easy.

After 7 days i will move down to the lower strength and so on.

I also have a major neck issue from rsi. I have spoke to my gp. They are adament without seeing me that its just muscle related and the simple cause is from sitting too long in an unnatural position.

It feels as if i have a lump on the right side of the neck (the side where i use the mouse.)

Its like my left side of my neck glides but the right side feels like its hanging on a muscle fiber and it clicks and generally feels grinding noise when i rotate the neck

Basically gravity is pulling me down and im holding my self up with a chair and arm rest and this has caused this neck issue.

This has been ongoing problem for years and caused by my addiction to poker which cost me upwards of $200k last year due to bitcoins rise.

Yes i know :/ i made all my money from poker though. My mental health deteriortated to the point where lockdown made me play some -ev games in a bad mental state and due to bitcoins rise my losses compounded as i had all/most my money in bitcoin which i used to play last year.


These things are my priority at this moment.

I will blog updates here.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Bare_head]

Oh god the anxiety just clicking post. I am so insanely bad with my mindset

 

[Mr. Krinkle]

Ok so here's the deal....

just quit be done and deal with it being bad for the first 5 days and then once you make it to 2 weeks, you're in the clear

one of the things i noticed right away, was how much more clearer i was thinking, so if you notice that, embrace it

you can do it

and if you take a drag off a cig one day early on, it's ok - just keep trying

and if you fail and start smoking again, just quit again

that's how ya do it

 

[Bare_head]

Thanks krinkle man. I have my box of 7 21mg patches to start with.

I think i can do it in a short time frame. But i really am a sucker for anxiety.

The instructions seem to imply a 10 week course but i hope to have that shorter but again i dont want to fail and start smoking again

Now for weed. I dnt have a pipe atm and my bong broke a few months back.

Can i just eat hash straight up or do i need to put it in a yogurt to help as it is more fat soluble? I seem to hear different opinions/ experinces on this.

Also i am really bored so i taken 60mg of codiene (sad i know my mind is racing already from the lack of weed or smoking. Ok time to put a patch on

 

[JessFR]

I had quit smoking for about 355 days. Until recent events caused me to pick it up again. It wasn't too hard to quit before though. Everyone's gotta find what works for them but this is what I did to get as far as I did.

First, I stopped smoking out of habit. Only smoking when I really felt like I needed one not just the various triggers like after food, waking up, before bed, etc.

That alone cut my smoking in half down to about 14 a day.

I stayed at that for a few months. Then I came up with a taper.

13 smokes a day for 2 days, 12 for 2 days, 11 for 2 days, so on and so on until I got down to 3 for 2 days.

After the second day with 3, I stopped. No patches, no gum. Just stopped.

First day was definitely the hardest. But manageable.

Second day was also hard, but a lot less than the first.

Third was difficult, but easier than the second.

Each day probably being about 60-70% as hard as the day that preceeded it.

By a couple weeks I wasn't thinking about smoking very often at all. Every so often I'd crave one, and when I did, I'd decide to give it 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes to see if I still felt like one.

90% of the time I didn't. I'd I did, give it just 20 more. By then I'd almost always forgotten about the craving.

Id still felt like one here and there, but it I was doing pretty well. That's what worked for me.

Id tried NRT unsuccessfully many times. This is what had worked for me. What works for you may be something else.

Then 10 days out from a year I found out a close friend and long time member of this forum had died. I was pretty much right on the edge of breaking and getting cigarettes then. But I took some valium and tried to keep going.

About 5 hours later I was hit with another hard stressor on top of that loss and that's when I went and got some cigarettes.

But you gotta take responsibility for yourself. I made my choices. And I intend to choose to try again.

All in all, it's easy to quit. It's just hard to stay off an addiction, especially when life hits you with something hard. And it will. Odds are at some point you'll relapse, with any habit. When it happens you just gotta start over and try again.

Good luck man.
It's doable. It's hard, but it can be done.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Boredom will getchya, so try and keep yourself occupied. What are the covid restrictions like where you are now? Are you able to go out yet??

 

[Bare_head]

Thanks guys. I have really good willpower when i put my mind to it.

Covid restrictions are getting less now from the 17th boris says i can have friendly intimate contact yeah a man can dream!

Yeah boredom is the worst trigger for smoking i find. As with most things (gambling, pigging out on sweets)

Oh my god this patch...

Its itching like hell!!!

 

[Bare_head]

Do i just remove it? I have really sensitive skin or will persisting with it get better? I will try.remove it and put it back on
..

Oh my god its buring so bad

 

[Bare_head]

Yeah taken it off and skin is pretty red. Damn this is gonna be a great start its legit giving me a rash and burning my arm ha!

 

[Bare_head]

This is not a great start... the funny thing is i have a vape and some juice but i legit cant work this thing out. Will get out first thing to a vape store and ask him to fix it for me.

I was never a man of manual dexterity

 

[Mr. Krinkle]

yea fuck that patch...you don't need it

you're better off taking a drag here and there when you're freaking out in the beginning, and then just stop doing that eventually

i used that thing too ---> https://www.smoketip.com/ they say it has nicotine but it doesn't go into your bloodstream so you're ok to use that - and that helped me with the oral fixation - and then once i was over that part of it, i put that thing down...i think i used it for like 2 weeks - totally helped

keep taking deep breaths in too and keep moving - eat if you have to


i still smoked weed when i quit - the only issue i had with that was how much i liked to smoke a cig after smoking weed - so i just smoked more weed instead

 

[Bare_head]

Thanks for the tips will look into them smoking tips u mentioned/linked and yeah some breathing techniques some shear willpower will hopefully get me through this.

Currently gave in and i am smoking a hash filled one skinner with a bit of tobacco to cause i freaked out. Arm is still sore aswell. I am currently awake during the nights so its gonna be a long night.

I may just go the vape route/ like jess said try the taper method, its the habits we form like smoking after food ect that really needs to be broken that will help alot!

Thanks again guys i appreciate the tips/support

 

[Bare_head]

Put this stupid patch back on. Hoping i dnt get this stupid reaction again. Been awake a while..

Hoping this stops the cravings. Been only a hour since last smoke

 

[Zephyn]

I've gone cold turkey a few times, the two times I was successful (1.5 years and 6 months off respectively), I used sedatives for 3 days (seroquel, Xanax, clonidine). On day 3 or 4, I took decently high doses of psychedelics. Seemed to reset me completely and was smooth sailing without even cravings from that point. I'm going to do it myself in the next month or two, im so sick of cigarettes.

Quitting is the easy part, the hard part is remembering they don't help with stress, anxiety, or depression even though you will have euphoric recall when you relapse you'll notice quickly you don't even feel any better.