Quitting smoking tips

[artsnus]

i quit smoking 5 years ago mainly because at the time i worked for a small company (12 people or so) and I felt very uncomfortable being the only one that smoked. At the time I did not have any experience with dipping, didn't even consider that an option, obviously at that time I was unaware of snus. I quit with the patch, stayed off nicotine for 5 years (bumming an occasional nicorette off of a co-worker that struggled with his smoking habit).
About 9 or so months ago I started dipping (another co-worker introduced me to it), discovered snus about 3 months ago.
I remember by the time I was quitting smoking I didn't even like it, it was more like a chore that I did in order to consume nicotine. I hated injesting smoke in the morning, I did not like the smell, I did not like going to 7-11 to get the smokes with all the patrons getting smokes, cheap booze and scratching the lottery tickets.
Nicotine on the other hand seems to have a hold on me even after 5 years - that is something to think about I guess. AT this point though this is my only chemical vice and clearly snus is not the killer the cigarettes are, so I will not fret too much over using it at this point. Plus I only do 3-4 portions on weekdays and 4-5-6 on weekends (depending on how long I stay up etc).
I suppose this post doesn't really have useful tips...How is this one - put in an extra sterk portion and think about your poor lungs, maybe the combination of both will steer you clear from the next cigarette.

[sandman1911]

I smoked for years, and used snus to quit. My biggest problem was getting the nicotine from snus that I was getting from smokes. What I did was I started out on strong snus like Onyx, Thunder Frosted, Skruf, Sterks, etc.... once my body stopped craving massive doses of nicotine, I stopped using strong snus exclusively, but I still throw a can in when I order just in case.

Be strong and take control, don't let the smokes and cravings control you is honestly the best advise.

[Nicobuzz]

Use extra starks - the 17mg ones and you'll not want to smoke.

[Kvlt]

One of the hard parts for me was playing with my lighter. I carried a Zippo everyday for 25 years. When I quit smoking I stopped carrying it. That's when I learned I used my Zippos like a metal worry stone. Subconsciously. When I started snuffing, I began to carry a small wooden snuffbox. I suddenly felt "normal" again. Took a few days to put it together. Now I can't leave the house without my snuffbox.

Long way of saying replace cigs with something else. A friend of mine carried a pen in his hand when he quit smoking. I teased him about looking a bit like Bob Dole, but he needed it to make up for not holding a cigarette all the time. Little things like that seem to be insignificant, but they aren't for some reason. Brains are crazy.

I quit smoking easily. Nicotine is nicotine, and snus has more of it, and its easier, more convienient, and healthier (although I never really cared when I was smoking, or even now). I am against viewing snus as an "alternative to cigarettes". Tobacco is tobacco. Use what you want for the nic fix.

I have to say I agree with you. I really really miss my zippos.

If snus becomes illegal, I'll find a cheap way of purchasing cigarettes (read: smuggled) and start up again.

[whokilledmyhooker]

Re: Quitting smoking tips

Not sure if there is any tips for this but i can hope right.
I've been smoking for well as long as i can remember and have now decided to quit to move to snus, I'm new too snus but i like it (i even like the smell, well the General los smell anyway). However i'm having difficulty stopping smoking, i feel the need for a smoke as much as i did before even when using snus. So hoping for tips but prepared to be dissapointed.
Thanks all in advance.

There's nothing you can do unless you have the will to quit, which you obviously don't have.

Here's a little incentive?







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuhti...eature=related

[Horatio McCallister]

I've been smoke free for over a week now and I've been able to whittle it down to two important steps.

1. Place an order for a wide variety of snus.

2. Stop buying cigarettes.

That was really all I did. I still smoked the first couple weeks after I got my Snus order, but I made an effort to smoke less often. I would smoke when I woke up and smoke when I took my dogs out before going to sleep and that was it. I would leave my cigarettes at home when I went out or went to work just to eliminate temptations as well.

Once my supply of smokes ran out, I didn't buy any more. It's not really as hard as I would have imagined it to be. The snus suppressed my desire to smoke significantly. If I did get the urge to smoke, I would just throw a portion in and I'd forget all about smoking.

One problem that I did have was that when I would go to the store for food or stop at a gas station, I'd get the urge to buy a pack. I just started making sure that I'd throw a portion in before going and by the time I was there, the craving was decreased enough that I was able to resist buying cigarettes.

I know my success is still very young, but after slowly tapering my smoking, it has been easy. The hardest time I had trying to stop smoking was when I was still occasionally smoking. The last week has been simple. It's been 100 times easier this way than my previous attempts with methods like cold turkey and nicotine patches and gums.

[TropicalBob]

You need a new "best friend."

As long as you see a cigarette as your go-to best friend in times of stress or need, you'll keep smoking. And, as far as I'm concerned, you either smoke or you don't. I, personally, could never have "just a few" a day. I know that. I quit July 17, 2007, and if I had one cigarette today, I'd be back to 30 tomorrow.

Snus is not a complete substitute, as many have noted here. But snus did help me make the initial break from cigarettes, and still supplies me my needed daily nicotine. In fact, snus took me about three months into a no-smoking future. Then the tobacco cravings not only did not decrease but actually got worse and worse.

So I returned to the pipe smoking of my college days. A new adventure. New tobacco flavors to try. I made a new best friend and began collecting pipes of all styles and eras. (Hurt my mouth so badly that I had to give up pipe smoking twice, but I kept coming back until I found the right tobaccos for me.) I still puff about three pipes a day, never inhaling, of course.

The big break for me came with my purchase of an electronic cigarette in January 2008. Now that mimicked cigarette smoking better than anything I'd ever tried (and works a helluva lot better than any NRT product from Big Pharma). I continue to vape-smoke from four e-cigs I now own.

I also added nasal snuff to the daily rotation and strongly suggest Dholakia Swiss Chocolate and Coffee Bites for beginners. I've used Java Stonewall dissolvable tobacco pellets since they came on the market in 2004. I do five boxes of 20 a week. I order Oliver Twist, regular, with each snus order.

The trick for me is to keep not-smoking interesting, to use what time and mood dictates. I wake up to a Java Stonewall and e-cig liquid called Janty Cappuccino. Somewhere over coffee, I'll sniff Coffee Bites. Later it will be Swiss Chocolate snuff accompanying Janty Chocolate e-liquid in my e-cig.

Make quitting something you look forward to, a new adventure in your life, not a loss. Best of luck. Just know that from my perspective, you can't be a "sometimes" smoker. Break away. And never look back. You will have just done the hardest, most courageous, healthiest thing you'll ever do.

[snupy]

Re: Quitting smoking tips

Not sure if there is any tips for this but i can hope right.
I've been smoking for well as long as i can remember and have now decided to quit to move to snus, I'm new too snus but i like it (i even like the smell, well the General los smell anyway). However i'm having difficulty stopping smoking, i feel the need for a smoke as much as i did before even when using snus. So hoping for tips but prepared to be dissapointed.
Thanks all in advance.

1. Don't limit yourself to snus only. Get some electronic cigarettes, Arrivas, Stonewalls, etc. Keep nicotine around in NUMEROUS forms aside from cigarettes.

2. Stop buying cigarettes you enjoy smoking. Buy the nastiest tasting and cheapest cigarettes you can find. Tuscon, Goldcrest and GT Ones will all work well for this application. The GT One light 100s were so particularly nasty that one puff was enough to have me put it right out.

3. E-smoking can not be recommended enough here. Electronic cigs are what allowed me to first break the chains of cigarettes. Addiction to smoking should be kept in a separate category as addiction to nicotine, in my opinion. When you quit cigarettes, you are also breaking the following addictions:

A. The physical hand to mouth action of smoking

B. The sharp and steep spike of nicotine in the blood stream that cigarettes deliver.

C. Other addictive chemicals in cigarettes most surely added by the tobacco companies.

D. The carbon monoxide hit.

A-D above are why I believe the electronic cigarettes are so helpful, in that they break all of the above, leaving you only with nicotine itself (which I personally have no intentions of ever giving up) If you snus when you feel like it, but hit an e-cig whenever you get the urge to smoke, this will become MUCH easier.