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smoking cessation (I feel like I'm losing it)

JustLucky

Well-Known Member
Messages
61
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi everyone,

I decided to give up smoking 75 days ago, it is the first time I went past the first 3 days. When I was hospitalized for T1 I managed to get some tobacco on day 3 in the hospital...
Feeling quite good after first week went past, up until a few weeks ago when I just got horribly depressed...

Usually I'm not a depressed guy, maybe sometimes a bit as probably most people. Pretty active with a lot to do all day and enjoying. Work is cool, doing stuff with the kids at home, travelling + quite a few hobbies... I feel my dopamine levels have plummeted and I'm used to keeping them high, nicotine induced of course...

Now I enjoy nothing anymore... Just do stuff mechanically. I feel I might be missing some auto destruction too

I go running 3 times a week around 25km. Physically I never felt better. T1 is going ok, I got used to it, feels normal to have it...

Sorry for being negative, I just needed an (half)anonymous grump and maybe get some support or advice...
This needs to stop, it seems that nicotine is holding it's claws tighter than I thought it would... Crazy how powerful the thing is. If this persists for a substantial amount of time I'll just smoke and concede defeat...
 
Hi @JustLucky and welcome to the forums.

Not sure what to tell you as I am lucky to never started smoking (I saw how difficult it was for my T1 mum to give up and still think that she would have had another ten years (died at 78) if she hasn't waited till she was 70 to do so). I'm pretty sure that if I started I would find it just as difficult to stop as she did.

So, it's never too late to give up smoking, but you've gone 75 days (that's fantastic), why not try to make it 76...?

Sending you some moral support and virtual hugs.
 
Hi lovely, I’m a smoker… I know this is going to be the hardest step for me , to quit. I just want to congratulate you …that’s over 2 months!! Wow. I take my hat off to you. It’s inspiring. it’s bound to happen… call it an intrusive though and try not to dwell on it?? I’d think it were a miracle if I were to get through 24hous so i really do think you’re doing incredible keep fighting… I quit alcohol over a year ago now and it first it was alls I could think about… but now it’s diminished so I do know from an addiction experience we can and do recover.. keep up your winning streak … in time of anxiety/ pressure/ life we tend to slip back to the known as it feels safe… but its a trick…how much better and think of benefits since quitting? Remind yourself not to get stuck in same cycle. I probably sound like a major hypocrite rite now but I mean well x take a nice cold shower… reset your nerves x
 
Hi, I don’t have any advice on how to make things easier, but I do think there are groups that can provide support for those who are trying to quit or to stay off smoking. Also, there may be meds that can be prescribed. I might check with a doctor about it.

I’m not advocating for this med, but I saw a doctor on tv say that her patients that she had prescribed Ozempic for had reported being able to let go of things they had tried hard to quit before but never could do it, like drinking alcohol, smoking, food addiction, etc. She said more research is needed to see how this med could be used for more than diabetes and weight loss. I find that report fascinating. i wish you all the best.
 
Thanks for your support, I should be ok I guess. Summer is coming that should distract me.
 
Oh I do feel for you - I am an ex smoker (the worst)! Used to be a 60 plus a day, get the last backy out of the fags and roll the rest type of girl. Did that for 22 years and I lost count of how many times I gave up and started in those 22 years. My husband even bought me all the patches but they just went out of date. I wasn't ready. I eventually kicked the habit and occupied myself with exercise and went fanatical about health and fitness, stopped the health and fitness and ended up fat and diabetic! Forward to now and I am back to health and fitness again but when I sleep, I sometimes find I dream of cigarettes but that's as far as it goes. Whilst giving up I got very down and decided instead of going cold turkey I would go to the smoking clinic. Ended up with patches and fake cigarette things. The patches worked but I became really down again and angry, I had to to quit the small patches as mind and my body couldn't cope with it. I never smoked again after that and its 15 years on July the 27th. Guess what I am saying is, stick with it. Save the money you would have used for the fags you will be surprised how much it adds up. I went to the extreme of bagging up all the clothes and washing each bag of clothes over summer! I couldn't stand the smell of smoke after day 2. I spent the money on decorating each room in my house white as I hated magnolia! You can do it, sometimes it takes a person more than one attempt but you can do it, you have to want to do it if you know what I mean. My mantra was I didnt want to be a smoker in my 40s, and an asthmatic one too. If I can quit anyone can
 
Keep up the good work. Fellow ex-smoker here (30 a day). I'm an expert at giving up smoking (having done it and restarted in a moment of weakness so, so many times). What I eventually learned was that I couldn't have one - I wouldn't enjoy it, it always made me feel worse (not better), and it made the cravings for the next one much worse.
 
Another ex-smoker here, 33 years! For at least 10 years I still regarded myself as a smoker, just that it was quite a long time since I had a smoke.

Look at it this way, you have done 75 days once, so you can do 75 days again and that would be 150 days! If you do give in to cravings, that isn't the end of giving up, it's just one lapse, a little mistake to be put down to experience. Believe me, there will come a day when you find smoking smelly and unpleasant.
Sally
 
I have just joined, I am sorry wit's happening to you, I understand how you are feeling as veteran with PDSD I can go onto dark places, can I help ask you to try this when you feeling down slowly breath in through your mouth and exhale slowly through your nose will doing that pick something square and start at one corner and breath in at the next corner breath out doing that you should find that while you are doing that ground rule you will start feeling better as your working the brain the problem end's back in the brain drawer, I hope this will help you
 
My dad was a lifelong smoker. He had to have his bit of pleasure, as he called it, even taking the last money from my mum's purse so he could have cigarettes to share with the neighbours whilst she sat crying because that was the money for food.
In his last years Dad had health problems and he would experience 'brown outs' which frightened him, as he slowly became unconscious, and he stopped smoking.
He mourned for the money he'd spent on cigarettes, for the things he could have given his family, the holidays, clothes, little luxuries, that my mum never had a fridge in the kitchen. All far too late.
I can only urge that you don't go back to smoking - they do say that if you can go 90 days any habit can be broken
 
I quit smoking on the 13th of August, 2004. When I dream, I still light up, because it was my go-to for social anxiety. Having kicked that, and a few medication addictions, I'd say, give yourself 3 months. When you're hooked on something, it ends up everywhere, down to your bone marrow. And it takes about three months for your body to kick a habit properly.

It won't last forever. But it does help to replace one addiction with another. Alice Cooper went from booze and drugs to hitting the golf court daily at 6 a.m., I went from lighting one sigarette with the other by putting a camera in my hand instead. I photograph everything and everything, and it has now become my coping mechanism for my anxiety, as smoking was before. Just find something to keep your fingers and mouth busy until the worst cravings pass. The mental aspect'll get better as time goes by, I promise. Right now you're not getting instant gratification and your brain is basically pouting. Let it throw its tantrum and move on.
 
I feel your pain my story is slightly different from the others My husband and I decided to stop smoking together ,he had stopped before but started again each time but I had never tried I cheated when he wasn't in but the time came when I had no cigarettes left and the kids were in bed so I couldn't go out for any I searched the house in desperation ! Then a found half an ancient cigar in the back of a drawer so I ran a bath and settled down with my cigar Needless to say it was vile .I was so disgusted by my lack of will power .I thought how could I be beaten by nicotine I am better than that and I have never smoked since ,it was not easy but when I was tempted I made a mental picture of a woman crying her eyes out in a bath !
Carol
 
For a smoker, the prospect of years and decades of miserable, joyless life without lovely cigarettes can look very bleak, as I well remember. It is depressing and makes a person wonder what is the point. Please believe that it does get better because it does. It won’t have its cruel claws in you forever, and it is truly a wonderful feeling when you suddenly know that you’re free.
 
'Kids at home...' There's your incentive to keep at it.
I haven't smoked for about 9 years but ciggies initiated the condition that will ultimately take my life.
 
Young person I know, stopped smoking age 41. Three years later, mortage paid off, 12 years early. Able to work half the hours used to. Healthier, and lots more leisure time to enjoy.
Seems an incentive. Put money away that would be spent on cigarettes. Then treat yourself to something expensive you couldn’t afford before.
 
Thanks for the support, I love this community. I get so much help here every time. Happy to have you...

Unfortunately I have conceded a week ago. This attempt turned out to be a beta version. Next one will come soon, hopefully a stable one...
 
So you made the decision to quit! Sometimes we don't pass first time - but trying again isn't a crime. I gave up smoking in October 22 and moved to vaping. The other day I smoked a cigarette - mainly out of curiosity and I couldn't smoke it, it was disgusting. After 30 years of smoking I never thought I could do it, If it wasn't for vapes I wouldn't have. I think the longer you go each time the less you will enjoy the cigarette. The nicotine withdrawal can be dealt with if you substitute with either nicotine replacement - or something else as a distraction. A friend of min drank a pint of water everytime she wanted a cigarette - she soon stopped wanting one - she became sick of the water! Keep trying and don't let the nicotine monster carve you up!
 
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