blonde poker forum

For all the ex smokers, what did you use to stop? Has any1 used the medication think its called champax. Or did any1 just go cold turkey

I decided to challenge a friend to see if we could both stop smoking for a year.

So I got the Allen Carr book.

Despite the fact I had smoked for 55 years, having read that book, quitting the cigs was the easiest, most painless thing ever. No stress, no withdrawal symptoms, nothing. Easy peasy. The other person also succeeded just as easily.

(http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0140277633.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)


Exactly one year later, to the day, having not missed smoking one little bit, I decided to start smoking again. It was (almost) the dumbest thing I ever done.

Get the book, you'll not regret it. Unless you are as dumb as me.

I'll get a copy, his books are all subliminal messages?

Not sure I'd put it that way, but that's part of it, yes.

What it does is show us the stupidity of the addiction - that we are enslaved to something. It owns us, it dictates our whole life. And so it suggests we might not WANT to have our lives controlled by an outside agency.

It certainly used clever messaging to help us picture smokers outside a shop, pub, or factory gate, often in the rain, having their little gasper in their silly little smoking shelter.

It did that so effectively, that within days, when I saw these sad groups huddled outside because of their addiction, I felt contempt for their sheer stupidity. The idiots.


When they leave home in the  morning, they have to remember their fags & lighter, too, & find some way to carry them around without making their pockets bulge. Not me, I quit that shit. I'm FREE.

Almost the only hard thing I found was not being rude, dismissive & most of all superior to those still smoking. I thought it though. You bloody stupid idiots, all enslaved to your stupid drug.

Makes you wonder how, exactly a year later, I decided to start again. How do these things happen?  

Fancy  a stop smoking bet:)

I went cold turkey. the first week was pretty tough but it got a lot easier after that. I stopped for 5 years but managed to start again a couple of years ago. Need to knock it on the head again soon, at £10 a pack near enough it's getting silly! Kerry gave up using champ nix which worked but she was really really moody and irrational (even more than usual😀) it was no fun .

Champix

If you are going down the Champix route do some research first.
It has a huge success rate for those that don't get side effects, and the side effect rate was the highest ever for any "approved" medicine when it was originally licenced I believe.

Smoked for about 15 years ~30 a day, and just went cold turkey.

Helped that the first week I was plotted up in hospital. If you want to stop, you will.

That.

I'd be up for that.

Would rely on extreme honesty though.

Had one with Alex Martin a few years back, easiest £200 I ever made. I bought lots of gags with the money to celebrate, because I'm an idiot.

Move to the TMI thread, please.

Oh my, that's good.

It's actually scarily easy to imagine celtic wearing one of those gags, like they had in Pulp Fiction.

It worries me though. How would he eat?

 ::)

Oh my days... thread needs to go!

I was the worst smoker in the world. I started with the odd stolen Woodbine when I was about 11, moved on to Players No 6 when I started buying my own. Graduated to Benson and Hedges when I wanted to impress girls and moved to roll ups when I had a wife and five kids because I could no longer afford my 60 a day habit.

Getting used to Old Holborn, especially the cheap stuff from abroad, was the worst thing I could ever do. The cost of fags was now negligible and I don't think I ever spent more than 5 waking minutes without lighting up.

You know how they categorise smokers into different groups, we'll I was in all of them. I smoked when I was happy and when I was sad. When I was hungry and when I was full, before everything and after everything, and usually during everything. I sneaked fags in hospitals and on aeroplanes I used to go the a cinema where you could go to the loo, wedge the toilet door open a little bit by jamming it with a 2p and be able to watch the film through the crack. I once rolled a fag and smoked it while I was in the swimming pool.

That being said, I haven't had a cigarette this century.

haha ugh better not bet then, if I lose might get spent on gags...


What a post! Blonde post of the year right there :) And motivation, you have given me motivation right there.

If you don't mind i'll pay Ugotnuts your 5% for the hippodrome game if there's any winnings he can just send the 5% directly to you.

Haha. No need for that, but I do hope you give stopping a try.

I once knew a bloke who worked in a scrap yard who used to take a swig of brake fluid five or six time a day. I told him he was addicted but he said he could stop any time he liked. That's how I was with cigarettes, even though I couldn't sleep if I only had one or two left and would drive around deserted towns at 2am looking for somewhere open, I still kidded myself that I could stop any time I liked.

Of course I couldn't, so I used to bury my head in the sand and ignore all the evidence that pointed towards a poor quality of life and an early death.

I went in to hospital once to have my appendix out, and I met a one legged guy in a wheelchair. We had a chat and then I wheeled him outside so that we could light up. While we smoked I asked him what had happened to his leg and he told me he had to have it amputated years ago because of a blood clot caused by smoking. I asked what he was in for this time and he said he was having his other leg removed for the same reason.

"Of course," He said with total conviction, "I can stop any time I like."

"Stupid old bastard" I thought, as I sucked in another lung full. 

And so I wen on, year after year lying to myself. Kidding myself that I wouldn't get sick and that I could stop if I wanted to. When I got to the stage when I did want to it was always going to be next week or next month or sometime when I wasn't under so much stress. In fact it was anytime rather than now.

When I did try, I made it easy for myself to fail. Fun isn't fun without a fag. A meal isn't a meal without a cigarette afterwards. I can't concentrate without a smoke, it's costing me money because I'm not on the ball. I want one so badly all the time, it will never go away. I might as well be dead...

Then one morning in 1999 I was lying in bed and feeling as rough as only we smokers do, and I had an epiphany. Suddenly I knew absolutely and beyond doubt that if I didn't give up, I would never live to see the kids grow up and get married.

That was the first time I really wanted to stop.

I used all the aids I could get my hands on, which at the time consisted of patches, gum and inhalators, all of which were restricted to a certain amount per week and required a Doctor's prescription.

I stopped drinking tea, because tea made me want a fag. I stopped reading the paper for the same reason. In fact I stopped doing almost everything pleasurable. Some things I gave up through choice, and some things were withheld because, according to Mrs Red "you're such a miserable, moody old bastard".

One of the biggest surprises, and a little boost to my determination came about three weeks in, when I stopped feeling crap all the time. I thought crap was normal and that's how everyone felt.

I'd smoked for so long didn't know how bad it made me feel until I started to feel better

I'm not going to tell you that it was easy because for me at least, it was bloody murder. I'm sure I almost went cross eyed with the effort. I used to sit there quivering and straining, people would ask what I was doing and I would reply, "I'm not smoking".

And I didn't. I never smoked again. I can't tell you how glad I am to be free of the knowledge that I'm actually killing myself.

Good luck.

Not bad, not bad at all, but not quite as good as Celtic's gag.

Celtic's gag.

(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NjAyWDgwMA==/z/hp0AAOSw7NNT5nZ9/$_35.JPG)

This is a fitting thread for me as I STOPPED SMOKING last night. I've been a smoker for close to 30 years with a small break of 2 years about 10 years ago. When I did originally stop it was off the back of a heavy stag weekend in Marbella where a smoked over 200 in the space of a short weekend. By the time I got back to the UK, with a carton of 400, I was truly sick of smoking. I decided then that I would smoke the 400 and pack in. I did just that with no aids whatsoever. I can honestly say in those 2 years of not smoking I never felt any different nor did my food tasted better, however I did put on over 2 stone in weight.

Anyway recently I've been working away in Germany and my smoking got out of hand to the point I was sick of smoking again so I decided that I would keep smoking until I go on holiday. I actually leave tomorrow but yesterday as I pulled in to the petrol station I only bought 10 Silk Cut instead of my usual 40. I smoked the last at 1am this morning and decided that's I'm done!

My only advice I can give is - you will only succeed if you want to. As for me I am a non smoker :)

Did you actually keep any in your mouth long enough to taste it?

 ;busted;

I think the key to stopping is that you need to want to stop , so glad I did 15 years ago

You didn't give up at all Tikay, you just had a year between ciggies.

I started smoking on my 18th Birthday. Stupid really as there wasn't anything stopping me smoking when I was 16, they only upped the age for buying fags about 2 months prior anyway.

Did make healthy money as a school kid doing ciggy runs for the 13 year olds. 10 Richmond for £1.95, charged them £3. Was pulling in about £50 a week at least. Old Scottish fellow who ran the newsagents didn't care that I was supplying the youth of Cornwall with cheap cigarettes. He got most of it back seeing as I spent almost all the profits from my tobacco empire on fancy ice cream and Max Power magazines from his shop. Didn't even have an interest in cars, they just used to give away LED lights and fancy dustcaps in the foil bag so I had the coolest looking mountain bike in the village.

I remember I bought 20 Camel Lights on my 18th Birthday. No idea why I chose them, I just figured that Richmond were for the school kids, Marlboro were for cowboys and Silk Cut were for girls because the purple and white box made me think of the Milk Tray my mother used to keep in the cupboard for when she had someone around for coffee.

Used to chuff on them in the kitchen in the middle of the night with the back door open so my mother wouldn't know. I remember they made me feel sick for ages, but I pushed on with them as I wanted to get my £5 worth. Moved on to Marlboro Menthols as they tasted slightly better, and then onto rolling my own after I got the hang of it after a fortnight of making really thin, flat cigarettes.

Smoked like a train until I was 22, and then bought an electric cigarette on a whim and have been on it ever since (barring the odd few fags when I am out and about). I can still be seen having a sly one in the smoking area of a casino, but for the most part I am cigarette free. The electric cigs have been a huge help in getting me off the regular fags, and I'm back to feeling a bit sick when I have a normal one now. I don't think I've finished a whole one in a long time, half of a Marlboro Menthol is enough.

The one I have now looks a bit like a shoebox with a spout on it, but it goes everywhere with me and keeps me sane. I know I've just traded one vice for another, but I highly recommend getting a starter kit for anyone who wants to ditch the fags. £15-£20 for a basic one, and if it doesn't work out for you, it'll at least save you the cost of two packs of cigs anyway for the time you use it. 

My Mum & Dad have both moved on to the Vaping thing in the last few months.  Both have been smoking for about 45-50 years I guess and they switched pretty easily.  Dad did it first and it wasn't an issue for him, he actually enjoys it.  It took Mum a bit longer as she wasn't convinced at first but she's getting on fine now.  I think buying a decent "Vaper" thing has helped, certainly for my Dad.

I know it's still smoking of sorts but it's probably better for them, it doesn't cost a fortune and everywhere doesn't stink of fags anymore.

I smoked for 20 years

I gave up 5 and half years ago, i tried champix , inhaler, gum, patches ,none of which worked.

In the end it was a conversation i had with my eldest daughter that made me stop.

i said Jade you really need to eat fruit and veg
she said you really need to stop smoking so we agreed i give up the fags she starts eating better ....never smoked a fag after that day.