Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

Stopping smoking that is. And writing about it. I have spent some time reading other people's experiences of stopping smoking and i thought that I would add my two penn'orth in. The more experiences you read about the more likely you are to find someone who feels the same as you. Well it would have helped me to know more about other people's experiences when I was giving up. so here goes: I smoked for fifteen years, 30 a day, through pregnancy, ...
...the loo, full of a cold, during a bout of bronchitis, you name it. I was utterly determined to have my daily allowance. I spent a fortune (I liked the more expensive ciggies, you know, the American ones that begin with an M), not just on fags, I bought loads of perfume and body lotion and mints etc. all in an attempt to hide the stench. What a waste. But my cigs were so gooooood. Who can resist that feeling of absolute pleasure when you light up ...

pippilli 16.10.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

Along with 28% of teenagers in the UK, I had my first cigarette before the age of 11. I already knew what cigarette smoking tasted like, having had the occasional puff on lit cigarettes left burning in ashtrays over the years, but I wanted to experience the feeling of smoking proper. I wanted to hold one between my fingers the way I'd seen adults do; I wanted to casually inhale, remove the cigarette from between my painted lips and exhale in a sophisticated ...
...I did that fated day, 32 years ago, is without any doubt, my biggest regret in life. That one cigarette led to years of habitual smoking; an addiction that almost cost me my life and has certainly cost me a huge chunk of my health. I have "atherosclerosis" - the arteries in my legs are clogged with fatty material that causes severe cramps at night and pain on exertion. Just a short walk can leave me feeling exhausted and in pain. The risk of developing ...

CherryBlossom 29.08.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

“I don’t WANT to quit smoking. I LIKE smoking.” How many times have you heard that litany? If you are a smoker, how many times have you said it yourself? But think…is it true? I’ve been smoking since I was 20 (how stupid was I – I started when I was old enough to know better). In the past year, I’ve been smoking around 40 a day. I can smoke in the office. I smoked in the pub. I smoked at home. I smoked in the car. I smoked anywhere I could. I smoked ...
...I am now into day 40 of my first (and hopefully last) attempt at quitting smoking. I DO get disheartened – it does seem that practically no-one succeeds in their first attempt at quitting. But I plan to succeed. My father died of lung cancer; my mother is suffering from emphysema. Yet…that isn’t why I quit. And here’s the crux of the advice – you are likely to succeed only if you are quitting for the right reasons. The right reason being BECAUSE ...

mattygroves 10.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

♥♥ Giving up smoking! ♥♥ I'm not going to give you one of those 'Quitting smoking was the best thing I did' reports, although it probably was. I'm not your typical ex-smoker - I'm in my very early twenties, so I don't even really feel old enough to be an ex-smoker!! I had however been a smoker for six years. I therefore grew up smoking, started my first part time job as a smoker, and started (and finished) college as a smoker. ...
...♥♥ Why did I start? ♥♥ I really don't know why I started smoking. I just did, really. I was in my teenage years when everyone was experimenting with things. A few of my friends smoked and a couple of relatives, at the time I was totally 100% against it. Then one day, I tried one. The results were the opposite of what I thought they'd be - I thought I'd be sick and it would taste horrible, but it didn't. I was a natural, born ...

ice_pink 02.10.2006 · Read full review
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I was eleven years old when I took my first ‘drag’ of a fag. Eleven years old fancy that. I can remember the day so clearly, I was in the park with my cousin who was three years older than me and who I though was so grown up. I watched with fascination as she took out a packet of Players no ten, popped one into her mouth and lit it with a match. She blew out the smoke in a huge grey cloud, coughed slightly and passed it to me. ‘Go on try it.’ So, ...
...white stick to my mouth and took a huge drag on it’. Immediately I started to splutter and choke as the nicotine ripped through the back of my throat, my eyes watered and I gasped for breath. My cousin laughed loudly as she patted me hard on the back. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to it’. And that was the first easy step to me becoming a hardened smoker. Looking back now I could kick myself for being so stupid but more importantly I would like ...

Scarlet_Ribbons 01.07.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

...if we get a new member today called Ann who's stopped smoking .....We know what she wants! lol. So it was the first time it had occured to me to even think of using Nicoteen fixes to replace my cravings. So it can be done with out costly replacements! Be a stubborn Taurean like me! Day 5 Is today. I've been to work today...again. Havent even given smoking a thought at work. So am very pleased indeed. I thought I'd put today into a list for you ...
...of mind today. How do I feel? Honestly? I feel fantastic. Honestly. My chest feels better than it has in years. No tightness, no cough. My home smells better. My purse feels heavier! My kids have stopped complaining (well about the smoking at least) My teeth are getting whiter everytime I brush them (no exaggeration) I still have 2 cigarettes in a dusty packet on the side. If its something you have been promising yourself to do for sometime- DO ...

Multtinems 05.01.2005 (03.01.2006) · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

How do you write advice on how to stop smoking? I think that probably everything under the sun has already been written about this subject either in the form of leaflets or posters in the NHS or in the multitude of books that you can buy. I have read more leaflets than you would believe for ideas and inspiration on how to quit, searching for that magic piece of advice that would make me never want to smoke another cigarette in my life. Fully aware ...
...quest to abandon the evil cancerstick, I am somewhat hesitant to write yet another piece of advice on the subject. However, having not smoked one cigarette over the last month, I feel that I am in a relatively good position to share how I did it and hopefully it will help someone who wants to come off them but is struggling, or make someone who still loves smoking at least think again and possibly make them think about coming off them. My Background ...

iatethewholebag 02.10.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

This is hard. Some of you know this story already; if it makes just one of you give up it's worth it. This isn't advice on how to give up and it's not deliberately scary, it's all fact. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I used to adore laying my head on the lovely soft skin of her tummy and to listen to the little gurgles going on inside. I loved to walk up behind her, putting my arms around her waist and squeezing her whilst kissing her neck. We talked ...
...stars; of doing adolescent messing around in the dunes; of going camping in the forest. Never again will I feel the beautiful soft skin of her belly against my face. There's a hole with a large plastic bag full of green stuff attached where my head used to lay. I'll never hear those little gurgles anymore because she has no intestines left. Where I used to kiss her neck there will be a valve where her bag of nutrient feed will be attached every night. ...

The-Operator 12.03.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

Like the title!? I remembered it from Grange Hill! Anyway, this review could be very short. I could simply say Smoking - DON'T DO IT. But why not do it? Well, there's a vast array of reasons not to and not a single one in favour of it. I was actually a late starter when it came to smoking. I started smoking when I was 21 - 3 years ago. I don't know how or why I came to start, I just know that the addiction came quickly and before I knew it, I couldn't ...
...as I can remember and they still do. I remember I hated the smell of smoke and constantly asked why they did it. I used to waft the smoke away with my hand if they smoked near me. I vowed that I would never smoke. During my teen years, I tried smoking once and turned green. I hated the feeling it gave me and whilst my other friends smoked, I had no wish to start. I was proud that I wasn't one of the many girls stood hiding behind the bike sheds, ...

jayandfoo 09.08.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

...I wanted to be a member of a gang, we were in the school playground standing in a circle, the cigarette was passed round and we had to take one puff and ‘take it down’ then everyone cheered. They soon moved on to the next girl as my mind was swimming and I felt dizzy. It was a rotten gang of girls anyway after that initial smoke. We were all chicken if we didn’t do what the gang leader wanted us to do. Peer pressure. This was during those teenage ...
...Luckily I moved and came to my senses! Or did I? With the smoking it seems it was too late! Both of my parents died of cancer. It is an addiction like alcohol can be for others. Do they have a smokers Anonymous? Sometimes I wonder is it in my genes? ...

teacherofhooch 03.07.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

...read a review of a member who has given up smoking and managing to breathe easy at last! But it brought something very disturbing to my mind, from a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago. I was round my friend's house for the afternoon and she had her sister from Kent, staying there for the week with her two sons. One was 17 the other 13. In the course of our conversation, the youngest boy went up to his mum and said something in her ear, to ...
...then watched in utter astonishment as he went and got a cigarette out, picked up her lighter, put it in his pocket and made his way out the back garden gate. She must have seen the look on my face, for she said 'Oh he's been smoking for ages'. She then went on to explain that she found out he'd been smoking and decided it was better for him to do it with her knowledge and be out in the open, then for him to pick up old ciggie butts off the floor ...

Sal4Mike 20.08.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

The worst thing you can do is talk about "giving up" smoking. This immediately smacks of some awful sacrifice and no wonder you feel deprived. Truly, you are "getting rid of" smoking, and this was, for me, the way I managed to succeed. My husband Sam had a heart attack in November 1996 and when he came out of hospital, he decided to stop smoking. I was 49 and had been a smoker since my twenties. I did not want to stop. In fact I was convinced that ...
...him to a hypnotherapist and we both enjoyed a whole day convinced that we would never smoke again. Wrong!! We were climbing up the wall by the same evening and both agreed to start smoking again. We then tried limiting the cigs to one per hour, which was a bad idea because after smoking one cigarette, you spend the next hour waiting for the next one-what a waste of a life! The following day we happened to visit a car boot sale and I picked up a ...

sylviesinc 13.07.2001 (07.01.2006) · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

...be a fully paid up member of the non-smoking society. I felt great the effects were immediate, I had a clean mouth just after 24 hours, after two days my chest felt much lighter, I didn't sound like a nuisance phone caller walking up the stairs, my hair felt better, my skin is still trying to get rid of all the impurities,(that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it)the doctor says my skin is ridding itself of all the nasties that's why I'm getting ...
...apparently takes at least 18 months for my body to return to its pre smoking state. While I'm waiting for that to happen I have to put up with the weight gain I think that has more to do with greed. I have only put on half a stone, I'm happy with the weight if not where it has been placed, but with the money I have saved I can buy a whole new wardrobe. I still don't play tig with my kids because I am too old and things creak when I run. It has ...

stitch1969 20.08.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

In January this year I decided that I’d give up my awful habit – smoking. I had been smoking since I was 12 years old and I only tried it as my friends were smoking and I wanted to be in with the ‘in’ crowd. I have tried in the past to kick the habit cold turkey and unfortunately I never had enough will power so I always failed every time. So after some research on the Niquitin CQ patches I thought I’d give them a go. ...
...patches on prescription – saving myself a few pounds, as they are not cheap buying them off a shelf! I think they are around the twenty pound mark – all depends where you buy them from as the price does vary. So the next morning the patch was on, it made my arm itch a bit but other than that I felt fine, I never had a craving at all that day. The first ‘craving’ I got was about 3 days into using the patches but it soon passed ...

genie-1803 21.04.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking

Are you thinking about your New Year resolutions? Maybe that it’s time to clean up your act and quit smoking? That’s what I was thinking 3 years ago, I’d had a few goes at it but without any long-term success. I knew I was fed up with being a smoker, but really lacked the resolve to make giving up stick. I hope what I tried, and learned, might interest some wheezy fellow Ciaoer to give it a go. I was about to start a new job, so ...
...be a good opportunity – to avoid the essential fag break culture that was so much a part of my life in the job I was leaving behind, I knew I would have to try not to get sucked in in the first place with the new job. But I decided to postpone the moment of quitting for a couple of weeks, whilst I tried to work out what had gone wrong in the past. I was discussing the problem with a new colleague (not over a fag! I was doing my best not to ...

Cazz 14.12.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Member Advice on Giving Up Smoking