I never stop trying to encourage my patients to quit smoking.

[Aristus]

When they sigh and say: "I'll try..." I want to go the full-Yoda on them:

"No! Try not! Do! Or do not! There is no try!"

What I actually do offer a lame: "Well, keep at it..." because doing this: hurts too much, and is bad for the thought-process.

[rurallib]

1. I will offer this as an unsolicited suggestion

When I quit 40+ years ago, someone suggested taking 10 deep breaths every time I wanted to reach for that smoke.
It worked amazingly well after 3 previous attempts to quit.

It is cheap, easy to do and can be done anywhere, anytime.

[Aristus]

2. I'll give that a try.

It sounds effective, since (I imagine) much of the time, reaching for that smoke and lighting up is pretty-much reflexive. Counteract the reflex, and see what happens.

Thanks!

[rurallib]

9. The guy that passed it to me said

that what smokers really want is the deep breathing and for the most part the only time they breathe deeply is when they are smoking. Makes sense.

Worked for me and a couple of friends.

[Ohiogal]

3. Good for you, Aristus

I remember sitting next to a woman in the chemo room ten years ago. We were both getting our chemo. We got to talking about our cancers. She told me she had beaten breast cancer ten years prior, but to reward herself she went back to smoking, and gave herself lung cancer. She was lugging around an oxygen tank on wheels everywhere she went. She just shrugged and said "It's my own fault, I did it to myself." I just couldn't wrap my mind around how resigned she sounded.

Now, I don't want to get all high and mighty on anyone here, because I smoked, myself, for about 5 years, during college and a few years beyond. I'm glad I got smart enough to quit. (planning on getting pregnant was a big motivator). Please don't ever stop trying to get people to give it up!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. Love the logic!

I beat once cancer, so let me see if I can give myself another one!

Yes, I know she wouldn't have actually thought that way, but it was nonetheless incredibly stupid to "reward" herself by going back to smoking. She's have been better off rewarding herself with food. Or maybe a trip to Cancun or wherever she'd like to visit.

I have a friend who smoked, I don't know for how long. When we first met she was healthy and getting around great. About five years ago, she stopped working and now totes around an oxygen tank. We are the same age, both 70, and she seems at least a decade older.

[Tikki]

4. The State of California worked it's sly mojo on me.

Taxed a pack into oblivion.
Made it impossible to smoke in public.
Worked the children at schools to constantly remind the dangers over dinner.
Put words about the risks on packs, posters and promos.
Pointed out the millions who already quit.

But what got me was...the money saved by quitting...and it is considerable.
More than switching car insurance

16 years ago..I quit.

Tikki

[Aristus]

5. I try to tell my patients that quitting a pack-a-day habit can save as much as $3,000 a year.

Many of my patients are homeless, so the extra income would come in really handy.

[RockRaven]

28. My grandmother was a 2-pack/day smoker for 50 years. It was the cost that finally helped her quit.

This was a while back, before the higher cigarette taxes we have now, but the cost of her smoking habit was still a couple thousand dollars a year. As she reached retirement age, she looked at her Social Security benefits, her retirement savings, and her living expenses and decided she had 3 options:
1) retire, quit smoking, and be financially stable
2) retire, keep smoking, and have money be tight
3) don't retire, keep smoking

She went with option #1, and while it wasn't so easy to achieve, it was easy to decide that was the way to go.

[janterry]

6. My grandfather smoked 1.5 packs a day for 30 years

One morning, he started to light one up and thought: I don't want to do this anymore.

He put it out in the ashtray and stopped. He threw out the remaining pack and he never smoked again.

Good for you to keep telling them. Change is hard, but it's also ALWAYS possible.

[applegrove]

7. I did chantix. Every time i tried to smoke the pleasure centers of my brain

were locked down. So there was no point. No way to get a hit. Then, i'd wake up, and me not in the middle of a crave, i'd take the day's chantix pill and another day there was no point in smoking. After going off chantix in 3 months i had herbal smokes ready. I smoked 5 or more of those horrid herbal smokes a day. After a month or so of that i got tired of being disgusted. And i quit. Immediately when i would see someone smoke i would feel the revultion of herbal smokes. I had tricked the pleasure center of my brain to be replaced with the revultion center of my brain where smokes were concerned. And throughout that I went to the quitnet and logged on (a stop smoking site) and asked for help. I had previously quit for a few months using the quintet only and it worked but I still loved smoking so I started up again. Anyhow been quit almost 11 years and I still feel revultion for cigarettes.

[Aristus]

10. I'm glad Chantix worked for you. I don't have any patients for whom it worked.

I don't prescribe Chantix, because the side effects on the package insert looks like the parts list for an aircraft carrier. But at any rate, when bringing up the subject of smoking with new patients, I'll have many of them tell me they tried Chantix with another medical provider, and it didn't work.

I don't want to subject my patients to those potential side effects in any case, and certainly not if it's not going to help them quit.

[applegrove]

22. I was on strong meds for ptsd at the time so I saw no side effects.

[AirmensMom]

8. I slept in my brother's hospice room

For 2 weeks as he died from lung cancer 9 years ago. Even so, his 23-year-old daughter never missed an opportunity to go outside and light up. For me, seeing my dad die like that would have been all the motivation I needed to quit. It breaks my heart to see young people start, considering how much more we know now than we did in the early 60s when my brother got hooked. 😢

[Aristus]

12. That's "It will never happen to ME" in a nutshell.

[gay texan]

11. Back in my television servicing days

I once saw an old woman take off her oxygen mask to have a cigarette

I was speechless....

[Aristus]

13. Those are the people I've really lost any compassion for.

I see the oxygen tank and the cannula up their noses and I think: "Oh now you want oxygen? All this time, you could have been breathing it for free, but you chose cigarettes instead; carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and every chemical lung irritant known to industrial science."

Plus, they're risking the thrill of being blown sky-high in an O2 explosion, taking with them anyone who might be nearby. That's thoughtlessness of the first magnitude.

[gay texan]

17. It freaks me out

But, unfortunately it's too late to warn them.

In my office it always the smokers who get sick first and stay sick the longest.

[Ohiogal]

20. My late cousin

Had emphysema and was on oxygen. He was practically homeless although since he was a vet, social services managed to find him a place to live ... until he kept getting kicked out of one place after another ... for ... you guessed it ... smoking while his oxygen tank was on.

I think he was mentally ill, depression, mostly. Very fatalistic. “This is my only pleasure in life, etc.”. But one apartment manager after another told him that he was endangering not only his own life, but the lives of everyone in his building if there was an explosion.

He’d say, oh, yeah, I won’t do it anymore, walk back into his apartment, and light up.

[Aristus]

24. I can never quite believe it when a smoker says they take pleasure in it.

Every time I see what Stephen King calls the 'Ten O'Clock People', standing around outside an office building, huddled against the wall in all weathers, rain, snow, strong wind, etc. and smoking a cigarette as if it were a dose of medicine, they never look like they're having a good time.

[GeorgeGist]

15. Yet you TRY to encourage them.

[spinbaby]

16. It's a rough habit to stop

I’ve never smoked but I’ve watched friends try to quit and it took all of them multiple tries to finally do it. I’ve heard that cigarettes are more addictive than heroin. I believe it.

[Aristus]

19. They are. Most definitely.

More people go back to nicotine than go back to heroin. I'm sure the easy accessability of cigarettes has a lot to do with it, and smoking's erstwhile social cache.

But I could never figure out how people were able to smoke long enough to get addicted. I've tried it; it tastes bad, it dried out my mouth, I was spitting all the time, it smells terrible, irritated my eyes, my lungs, etc. How did anyone not just stub out their trial cigarette and say: "This is stupid! Who does this?"

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. I had the same experience as you.

When I was in college I tried smoking because it seemed like that's what the cool, sophisticated kids were doing and I was neither cool nor sophisticated but desperately wanted to be. So I took a whack at it and I lasted only a few weeks. It made me cough and I hated the taste and the smell, especially the stale smell that stuck to my clothes and hair. I didn't think it was cool to stink and cough, so I stopped doing it.

[Hoyt]

18. Worst case of an inveterate smoker was a lady on dialysis, with diabetes, her legs were about to be

amputated because of circulatory issues, yet she chained smoked cigarettes through her tracheostomy necessitated by her smoking. Damnedest thing I ever saw.

Some folks just can't be helped.

[Ohiogal]

21. My dad's cousin

Had a tracheotomy and continued to smoke through the hole in his neck.

I think these type of folks just figure, I’m going to die soon, anyway, so what’s the use of stopping.

[Hoyt]

23. I guess, but Jeeeez.

[Blazesweetie]

25. Chantix Too

I'll second the Chantix. I smoked a pack a day for more than 30 years and honestly thought I'd never quit, not for lack of trying. I tried nearly everything - the gum, the patch, hypnosis, good old fashion cold turkey, and whatever else ... can't remember. I finally asked my doctor to prescribe Chantix out of desperation and it worked. Yes there were some side effects but I think if anything, they worked in my favor because they made me not feel like smoking. Maybe I was just ready after all those years, but I can honestly say that I feel like a nonsmoker for the first time in my life. I haven't had a craving or desired a cigarette in 7 years. It's amazing to feel so free from that disgusting habit.

[Aristus]

26. Thank you for sharing.

And welcome to DU!

[Historic NY]

29. Reformed smoker here and I don't care if it pisses off smoker friends....

I remind them of so and so who ended up with lung cancer and still continued to smoke . They go yeah I know....
People lugging O2 tank and machines that still continue to smoke. Its amazing how many want a dirt nap.

[panader0]

30. Just over 9 months for me after 50 years of Camels and Bugler.

I still crave.....

[CTyankee]

31. I gave up my smoking habit of many years because I wanted to have a relationship with the

man I have now been married to for over 30 years. he simply couldn't abide cigarette smoke and when I realized my clothes and my skin smelled of smoke I stopped and never went back!

To quit find something or someone that means more to you than smoking. It's a great incentive to give it up...