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[Choop]

i've been a smoker now for over half my life. i've always thought i'd quit when i was ready; i'm beginning to acknowledge that readiness may never arrive. i've tried cold turkey, i've tried gum, i haven't tried pills because i hate the thought of it. i've recently started using e-cigs to help me quit inhaling actual post-fire smoke, replacing it with vapor, and so far it's helping. i'm down from most of a pack a day to less than half of one. i know it isn't purely kicking the habit, but that's okay because this time for once i'm just not pressuring myself to stop. if this trick doesn't work very fast, it might over a longer period. and if it doesn't, i'm okay with that, and will keep finding new ways to try to kick this particular game of minigolf.

if i can fully switch to vaping, at least i'll no longer be definitively killing myself. it's the nicotine addiction that's toughest to quit of all the facets of cigarette smoking, and e-cigs at least deliver the nicotine. see, i've been so long with nicotine (and i wasn't a nice guy before i started smoking) that when i'm off it, i totally jekyll out. i'm meaner and pettier and insufferabler- well, yeah, i'm just a general dick in a hat. so my thinking is, if i can wean myself off all but the nicotine, then maybe wean myself off the nicotine, it'll be better for me and easier on everybody i come in ciontact with.

how did you quit smoking? have you tried e-cigs? what was the hardest part of your addiction? how do you manage it today? if you were never a smoker, i can't imagine you'd understand how difficult quitting is. unless you were like hooked on crystal or smack, and maybe not even then. the legal status of this wretched beast is a giant fuck-you to anybody who happens to (and everybody who might) get into the habit.

so: former smokers, tell me your story.

[KeithHernandez]

Okay, so I smoke a lot.  I've quit once and I've made many other changes to myself.  For quitting, I knew going in I was doing it temporarily, but still didn't smoke for 3 weeks and if I wouldn't have taken uppers I may never have gone back.  I guess maybe try to trick yourself into thinking it's temporary?

Also, with cigs and weed and cocaine (in the past) I like to keep it on hand if I'm trying to quit.  Idk, makes it somehow easier (for me).

My other advice is about real change (any kind).  It contradicts my first advice, I think, but you just have to be really fuck*ng tough about doing it, and also like, somehow get your mind to change the way it views itself?  Like, I think you probably have to trick yourself into thinking you are a non smoker?  The time I quit I knew going in that it was temporary (otherwise I wouldn't have done it) but after a week or two I started to look at myself as a person who didn't smoke, which, idk, I think of myself as a smoker?  You do too probably.  Breaking that is the hardest thing.  Just be tough and shit dude, you got this.

[KeithHernandez]

I'm really high in my garage in 9 degree weather on a phone.  I have advice about both quitting addictive things (including cigs in a like, okay this is my last smoke for a week randomly after 7ish years at that point of 1.5 packs a day way) and making general changes to yourself.  I will try to make that shit up there make sense at a later time.

[Carlos del Vaca]

My wife was a smoker throughout our courtship and first year of marriage. Then I said "Sure, we can have kids, but you have to quit smoking." That did it for her.

So, Choop, you just have to want to get pregnant.

[Choop]

yeah that ain't gonna happen

[jaydub]

I never got the nicotine monkey, but from what I understand the addiction gets broken (in terms of your brain needing the nicotine to feel right) pretty quickly.  A couple weeks.  After that, its habit - which might be the more difficult thing.  You have cues in your environment that its time to smoke (time of day, just eaten a meal, getting up from the desk to walk around) and even for introverts a smoke break is a chance to chat with fellow travelers, with a built in timer that gives you an excuse to break it off when the cigarette is gone.  From what I hear, the most successful former smokers are the ones who find a way to substitute in a more productive, less harmful, or healthier action when the cues to smoke arise.  It takes a little introspection to discover what your behavior triggers are, so you can plan ahead about what you're going to do instead.

[jay-ell]

My wife was a smoker throughout our courtship and first year of marriage. Then I said "Sure, we can have kids, but you have to quit smoking." That did it for her.

So, Choop, you just have to want to get pregnant.

Yeah, I quit for ten years, starting when we decided to try for Babies. I did smoke about twice a year, always when I was out in bars and stuff, back when you could still smoke in bars. Then they passed the indoor smoking ban in my state and it got inconvenient.

I have a few friends now who are smokers, and I picked it up again as a social thing while hanging around outside game stores and in my own backyard between rounds of Settlers of Catan and the like. When I started buying a couple of packs every week and skulking out to the back deck to get in a quick puff before the kids got home from school (because I do not want them to see their mom smoking), I realized I was getting hooked again and tried tapering back. Then I got a really epic sinus infection that laid me out for a week solid and took two rounds of antibiotics to clear up, and I remembered getting bronchitis every October like clockwork when I was a daily smoker, and decided, "ain't nobody got time for that."

[TripperDay]

I really like vaping. I was a pack a day smoker for almost 20 years and regular cigarettes taste terrible now. I can't believe I could have been "smoking" blueberry cheesecake all that time.

Don't bother with the blus or shit from a gas station. Get something good. I like my protank and vision/ego spinner. Get backups of everything you need so you don't buy a pack of cigs when your battery runs out or a coil dies. Don't vape in restaurants unless someone else is vaping and no one is bitching about that dude.

[jaydub]

Good idea to work up a set of do's and don'ts so the rest of us aren't stirred up to banning it in public places. Vape'rs got a window of opportunity right now to get their pastime/habit into the socially benign category of behaviors.

[pmcd9]

I'm really looking forward to someone blowing cheesecake smoke in my face.

[pmcd9]

Well, y'know if someone blows anything in your face they're a motherfucker that needs a stomping.

Unless you're into that sort of thing. Amirite Ladies?

[Choop]

part of the process of smoking has for me been the walking outside to do so. i'm not changing that with the vape, it still happens outside (though occasionally on my couch is fine). and you know it isn't actual smoke, right paul? it's water vapor. but yeah, blowing it in your face is super uncool.

i did go with the blu, which is fine for me. it's roughly the size and shape of a cigarette, and its box is roughly the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes, which makes a big difference to me. right now it's about replacing the habit, not eliminating it. once i'm beyond the actual burning-tobacco part of the problem, i'll think about ditching the vape too.

[pmcd9]

Yes I know it isn't actual smoke.

[Arachno-capitalist]

When I was smoking it was mostly out of boredom and a way to break up the day. Smokers get an excuse to fuck off out of work for 10 minutes at any given time of day. And if you're standing in line at a concert or whatever, its just something to do other than stare at the back of some guys head. I quit by just not going to the convenience store at the end of the day. I was incredibly irritable for a few days and I had to find new things to do get my 10 minute breaks. Namely, I'd retreat to my car and listen to NPR, play on my phone a bit and chew gum. The hardest part was giving up the after dinner drag, because anyone who smokes knows that smoke after a meal is sublime.

[KeithHernandez]

Oh hey, after smoking like 30 handrolleds a day for, IDK 15 years (sometimes 2 packs pre rolled instead), I stopped really fuck*ng randomly for no real reason.  Shit is easy yo!