The difficulties of giving up on quitting smoking

acotrel says:

06:30am | 02/08/11

There is no problem giving up smoking.  My father had 3 strokes (2 in hospital) and they told him that if he didn’t quit, he’d die in the next week.  He’d smoked all the high tar brands for years.  While he was in hospital the bronchitis lung infection took over, and he then vomitted the antibiotics, and after a while went t o sleep and drowned in his own fluids.  He knew the score before he died.  My sister was a nurse, and she told him what could happen.  He faced his death extremely bravely, after his body rejected the antibiotics.  In his last days he said to me ’ I’ve found religion, but you don’t have to worry about that’.  He was 63 years of age, died in about 1977, and I still miss him! - Ban cigarettes!

Laura says:

09:48am | 02/08/11

I quit smoking about two years ago after a good decade hanging out with my old friends Wheeze and Old Man Cough.

What made me do it? Well, a boy, but not just any boy - a boy who epitomised everything I couldn’t be or have because I was a smoker. He’s an athlete, a fitness fanatic, leads an active outdoor live and works in the health sciences.

I never told him that I smoked, I just quit and started living my life. Now I exercise around 4 times a week and walk to work whenever I can. I feel great, I never get sick, and best of all Wheeze and Old Man Cough have finally stopped sleeping on my couch.

Whatever your motivation, do it for YOU! Life after smoking is GOOD. Just ask me

Mark says:

11:21am | 02/08/11

I have smoked for thirty years ....took it up at boarding school to mix witha better & more fun crowd & it worked ...& over the years the fun people smoked & the wowsers & tossers seemed not to.But as you get older it begins to take it’s toll..have tried quite a few times oVer the years to give up, usually after a huge weekend when i woke up finding it difficult to breathe.
    tHIS time i have given up for seven weeks & it’s been a breeze , which has surprised me..I still see my friends & go out where smoking is around me. Totally cold turkey, no snewing gum, hypnosis or any of the other remedies recommended to cure & aid my withdrwal from my ” addiction..” Then i began to realise maybe i had a “: habit” not an ” addiction ” & it’s actually easier to do with dare i say that old fashioned concept of ” willpower ” but if that gets out then we won’t be able to blame BIg Tobacco & curse & sue them for all the ills of outr own making ..it’s time ppl took responsibility for their own actions & stop trying to blame other s.

Thomas Anderson says:

11:54am | 02/08/11

My main problem with quitting was that I needed tobacco for spin, so I always had a packet somewhere, and I would end up smoking the cigarettes in my weak moments. Now I got myself a vaporiser, so I don’t need tobacco anymore, and I am a few weeks without cigarettes. Got a whiff of someone else’s second hand smoke today, and I must say, I’m starting to understand non-smokers, it really doesn’t smell very nice.

Camel says:

12:28pm | 02/08/11

After recently getting back on the fitness bandwagon, it’s very, VERY easy to feel how cigarettes affect the lungs. After 15 minutes of exercise I thought my chest was going to explode. I could not breathe. I felt like I simply could not get enough oxygen into my lungs to carry out a very mild group of exercises. Exercises that didn’t require sustained heart rate acceleration. But I kept at the exercise program and it has become easier, but what if I wasn’t smoking? How much more endurance would I have?
Every time I feel like I’m starting to really push myself I start to wonder if the next stride / push up / tricep dip / will be my last moment on earth, because at 39 years of age and with a 25 year history of heavy smoking, I know the pain I’m feeling is twice what it should be, simply because I’ve probably destroyed my lungs and arteries.
Funny thing is I understand what the nicotine and other chemicals do. I know it’s a death sentence.
Ciggies are legal. They shouldn’t be. If, like me, you smoke and have children, you should be ashamed.
Oh, to be able to walk away from nicotine. Making the decision is the hard thing. I mean, I’ve still got 3 unopened cartons of smokes in the pantry. After they are finished methinks…........

lukew says:

01:23pm | 02/08/11

I don’t smoke, but I used to and fortunately for me I don’t really miss it at all. It doesn’t offend me so long as no-one blows smoke all over me while I am eating, but that has always been offensive. 

Although there is little to recommend it, there is a lot of hysteria and mis-information about smoking that is bandied around by those self righteous twerps who think it is their business to tell everyone else how to live. 

The anti-smoking lobby kept me at it for longer than I otherwise would have and I’ll wager that their current pointlesss but heavy handed tactics are making it attractive to a whole new generation of smokers.  The message is not representative of the facts and there seems to be an enthusiastic take up of the habit amongst the teens.  I’ve seen them jamming those silly little filters into their rollies.

I agree that smoking should not be allowed in restaurants, but society in general should be able decide what it does and doesn’t want to do.  Did they really have to ban cigar bars?

The real worry is what will be next.  When there is nowhere else to go with smoking (and we are getting close) what other dusty little corner of pleasure in our lives that ‘they’ don’t like will be the target?  I’ll give you the tipple!

Cat says:

01:39pm | 02/08/11

well maybe they will make those electric cigarettes legal and you can at least save some of the coughing/hacking/poison. I quit last year, it is just a damn shame that cost of living keeps rising because I never saw any benefit from not having to pay for smokes anymore.

ausspud says:

01:51pm | 02/08/11

Bloody hell why is it every time theres an article or ad on smoking i want to light up.
Maybe thats the problem.

Demoman says:

05:01pm | 02/08/11

Make cigarettes more poisonous so that smokers die sooner. Preferably before breeding age so that their genetic weakness isn’t passed on.

RC Henry says:

06:21pm | 02/08/11

The best decision I made at 16 was not to smoke. Sure, I tried puffing in and out a couple of times and decided it wasn’t for me. Both of my parents died early from smoking-related illnesses, my mother from emphysema with very reduced quality of life for the final two years.

Both parents began smoking during WWII when there was little to no publicity about the effects of smoking. Anyone who starts smoking today is an idiot with all the publicity there is telling us how harmful it is.

Alternatively, they need to accept that it will have an impact on their health and just get on with killing themselves slowly and painfully.

Lisa H. says:

07:35pm | 02/08/11

Sorry for yet another post, but perhaps a smoker could enlighten me…

There are two very common threads to a smoker’s argument about the right’ to smoke. The first argument is all about free will….the second argument is the addiction argument, where nicotine is presented as being more addictive even than heroin.

So which one is it? Can we even have it both ways?

If my sister gets ill my children will be devastated. She is a charming and vivacious woman with an incredibly filthy habit. I believe her heavy rollies are probably one important reason why she never married and had kids of her own.

pixie says:

11:19pm | 02/08/11

im confused why you choose to humiliate yourself on a public forum by admitting in so many ways that you choose to perform an activity so vicious for your health just to go along with the crowd: monkey see, monkey do; starting to impress a girl; to fit in with others; and even stopping for a girl.

Are you so consumed with what others think about you that you are willing to put your health and comfort at risk? Are you so proud of this behaviour that you want to tell the world. Or is this a shout for help? This article didn’t make me think about the nanny state, addiction, society or health; only wonder the motivation of this soul writing the article.

dr deen says:

04:33pm | 03/08/11

since we’re all on the assumption bandwagon im guessing there is something deeper that is bothering you Lisa? perhaps you are happy being told what to do so long as it doesnt affect your childrens’ well-being. might i suggest there are other human beings about whom havent felt the warmth of your womb.

Zopo says:

01:11pm | 04/08/11

Quit the ciggies and move to weed. At least you get a buzz out of smoking..

A girl says:

12:35am | 06/08/11

I think the point is that smokers love smoking. They love the smell of burning tobacco. they love the way the smoke curls and the cloud that comes from their mouths. They love the taste of a fresh smoke as it compliments the coffee theory drink. they love the incredible way it relaxes you and how it releaves you from stress and nerves that have been building in them. They love the spark of conversation it brings with total strangers in the beer garden. And most of all they love the way they can simply exhale into the face of a whining self- indulgent asshole who is trying to make feel like they shouldn’t exist. And sometimes after you have quit seeing someone so deeply involved in that love affair between them and their ciggarette can make them want to be appart of it and so they take it up again and then they think what right does someone they have never met take that away from them? Lecturing a smoker wont make them want to quit it’ll make them light up and feel happy again. So give it a rest we all know the same stuff so let it go.

Bluemaster says:

11:42am | 29/03/12

Somehow I felt touched as I read your piece, as I identified with many parts of the story. I personally have tried to quit smoking on several occasions, succeeding for even up to a few months before something triggers the habit again. So now, I am a smoker in front of smokers, and a reformed one in front of friends who wished so hard that I quit.