Holy cow, man, four packs a day is killer territory. You're doing the right things: plan, list your reasons, strategize, pick the right time . But cripes, it's hard. I must have tried more than twenty times. A month or two was only the beginning and often created a dangerous false confidence. It didn't help that my partner also smoked; we always had to quit simultaneously and if either of us relapsed, so would the other.

I'll tell you one thing I noticed that alarmed me as I got older was that the pattern of quitting and gaining a little weight and relapsing and taking it off, stopped. The weight I put on as a nonsmoker stayed there even when I returned to smoking. I've never been fat, but I sure was a heavier smoker, and we know what's down the road for someone with that profile.

I do think it's actually a substantial help that it's socially less acceptable. Of course that's a very entertaining element of watching "Mad Men."

Acupuncture was OK; it gave me three or four months. Hypnosis was better; I got a ten-month quit out of that, but it seemed too easy and I wasn't vigilant enough.

Best of luck. If you're determined, you'll succeed, but you'll need all the help you can get, it's that powerful. I have a very close friend who, decades ago, was heroin-addicted. After he kicked, he says "I discovered i was also an alcoholic and had to quit drinking as well." He insists the most difficult thing he ever did was quit cigarettes.

Thanks for supplying this thread. Keep us posted on your progress.

Having it be socially unacceptable should help. There simply aren't as many environments anymore where you're confronted with smoking to be tempted. On top of that with the pay at the pump feature as gas stations you aren't confronted with cigarettes in your face every time you stop for gas either.

So far my plan is to clean out my car today and see what I can do to get the smell of cigarettes out of the car. I've made an appointment for Monday for a hypnotist to try that method. That is one way I've never tried before and we'll see how it works. If I get 10 months out of it it will pay for itself four or five times over.

Luckily my wife doesn't smoke so I don't have to worry about that double whammy. But I tend to congregate with the smokers at work, which means I'll need to find a new social circle or find new ways of socializing with the existing one.

As you can imagine though, physically I feel like shit smoking this much so quitting now will be a bonus on all levels.

Good luck with your campaign to quit smoking. I also started smoking at around 12 or 13 and I quit at age 24. I was up to around 3 packs, but since I was a draftsman, the cigs mostly burned unattended. I dreamed about smoking for around another 30 years after quitting. I think it was a very hard thing to do, but I did it in one cold turkey try. It got to the point that everytime I inhaled, I pictured the crap going in my lungs and some not coming back out. My first big test was going bowling and beer drinking without the smokes. After quitting, I ate a lot of hard candy and gained 20 pounds in a flash. Maybe the beer helped cause that lol?

Being around people who smoke cigarettes is something that we simply cannot avoid. Roughly twenty-one percent of adults over the age of eighteen in the United States smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Larson and Swierzewski). I firmly believe that quitting something as harmful as smoking is essential in order to create a healthier country. Reasons to quit smoking include overwhelming health problems, smoking expenses, and secondhand smoking effects.

Believe it or not, around eighty percent of all smokers start smoking before the age of eighteen. In addition, approximately 4,000 twelve to seventeen year olds start smoking in the United States every day. This is a main reason why nearly twenty-two percent of all high school students and eight percent of all middle school students smoke in the United States (Larson and Swierzewski). Based on these facts, it is clear to see that smoking originates in the earlier stages of life. Therefore, I highly suggest all teens, along with the rest of the United States, listen to the information that follows.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of smoking is the inevitable causing of health problems. I still cannot grasp the fact that people continue to smoke even though it is potentially fatal. The causes of death that are most common among smokers are respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and tobacco related cancers. These diseases, among others, are the reasons why around 430,000 deaths per year in the United States are linked to smoking cigarettes. Stunningly, more people in the United States are killed by cigarette smoking than by car crashes, suicide, alcohol, illegal drugs, AIDS, and homicide combined (Larson and Swierzewski). It is fairly obvious that smoking takes a toll on the human life, but there is a bright side for all smokers who are willing to quit. Research shows that those who quit can “significantly increase their life expectancy.” After a smoker that is of age thirty-five throws in the towel on smoking, that person is rewarded with an average of eight years of life expectancy. Also, when a fifty-five year old smoker quits, he or she gains an extra five years of life expectancy. Quitting not only lengthens the human life, but it also provides a better chance of a cancer-free life. After ten years of being smoke-free, the lung cancer rate of death is around half of the death rate of someone who continues to smoke (Buren, Abigail V.) Clearly, these facts concerning the health of smokers are too difficult to ignore.

Smoking is not only an expense to our lives, but also to our wallets. The current price of a pack of cigarettes is close to five dollars. Even if a smoker goes through one pack per day, that is an annual sum close to $2,000. With that kind of money, the average person could use these savings on a year supply of gas. The health care system is also burdened by smoking. Smoking costs the United States $150 billion each year in health care bills (Smoking-facts). All of this money that is “wasted” is yet another reason to give up on smoking.

Probably the most upsetting effect of smoking is secondhand smoking. Just imagine all of those children who are forced to live with parents who smoke, and they cannot do anything to get away from the smothering smoke. United States infants and children under 18 months of age suffer from around 150,000 to 300,000 respiratory tract infections, lung diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis, which lead to 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations each year (Smoking-facts). To add to the sadness, around 1,900 to 2,700 infants die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome each year due to secondhand smoke. I just do not understand how parents can put their children in such dangerous conditions. Non-smokers clearly take a hefty toll from secondhand smoke. Each year, secondhand smoke is responsible for tens of thousands of heart disease and nearly 3,000 lung cancer deaths. Also, being surrounded by secondhand smoke for only thirty minutes can impair the normal flow of blood to the heart in non-smokers (Larson and Swierzewski).

The smoking community cannot continue to ignore these overwhelming facts. All of the reasons to quit smoking are at hand. Can the smoking community afford the costs of additional health problems, smoking expenses, and secondhand smoking effects?

Works Cited
Buren, Abigail V. "Personal Advice." The Middletown Journal 16 Nov. 2009, Life sec.: D2+. Print.
Larson, Karen, and Stanley J. Swierzewski. "Smoking Facts and Statistics." Healthcommunities.com. Cardiologychannel.com, 15 July 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. <http://www.oncologychannel.com/smoking/facts.shtml>.
Smoking-facts.net. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. <http://www.smoking-facts.net/>.

I quit smoking! It's been 15 minutes and I feel great!

Great going! Now try shooting for a half-hour.

That's how it's done.

I chew... therefore I am. I used to smoke like crazy when i was younger. It wasn't hard to snatch a couple cartons of cigarettes from gramma because she had more cartons in her house than most convenience stores hide under the counter. She wasn't picky either. She had milds, regs, menthol, non-filtered... whatever was on sale, or whatever she had a coupon for, that was likely the carton she purchased.

I still remember stealing a carton of Lucky's from her when I was 14. Yeah, that was a great idea. I just remembered seeing the logo around on t-shirts and advertisements and thought certainly they had to be the best. Little did I know. I think I lost a lung that day.

Makes me ask....
I wonder if less people would smoke if pot was legal?
I'm willing to risk it... I'll be everyone's guinea pig...
...that's the kind of team player skinny is.

I think I have mentioned, KwAwk, that my dad died of his second heart attack, with a two-pack-a-day Camel no-filter habit. He was only 51, his kids were 18, 14 and 14.

I never smoked (anything), but in college I always wondered how many pot smokers would end up with the cigarette habit. Might be the worst long-term effect of young dabbling.

I get great giggles out of Winston encouraging someone to quit smoking after telling them it is sometimes harder to quit smoking than to quit heroin. Everybody is different KwAwk, it might be easier than you think.

Suggestion: take the money you would have spent on cigarettes, (aren't they like $50 a carton now?) and spend it on a gift for your wife. Keep doing that once a week or so, it will give you something to plan for, something to think about, and it can't hurt life at home!
A little gym time can help keep energy levels up as well. The progress you make in the gym as your lungs clear could be substantial, and another motivator.

Best of luck KwAwk.

Hey Skinny, when the time comes for the government to send all citizens their monthly ration of pot, you can have mine.

kwAwk-

I agree with Winston about how hard it is to quit. I smoked 2 packs a day for almost 20 years. Quitting was the hardest thing I've had to do in a while, but now I feel great. When I quit I just went cold turkey. First I made it a day, then a week then next thing I know it's been over 3 years now. I still have dreams once in a while of smoking. Anyway, it sucked, but you will live. You just need will-power.

I disagree with Winston about all of the "quit smoking" products and methods. I'm a skeptic. Hyponosis, the patch, gum, shots.....sounds like a bunch of crap to me. I think people always look for the easy way out. Just quit already and don't let yourself make excuses.

And quitting is worth it. I like not being short of breath. I like not smelling like cigs all the time. I don't get sick very often anymore. My fingers aren't yellow anymore. I no longer have the "smokers cough". Seriously kwAwk, quitting is worth it. I promise you will feel much better in just a few months and in a few years you will almost recover 100%.

kwAwk;

Sincerely, good luck with your battle to stop smoking. Your a pain in the ass but four paks a day won't keep you around long and all I'll have left is to kick Winston's around every day and that's no challenge!