I quit smoking on the immediately previous January 1st (that is, Jan 1, 06). I have been smoke free since. Woo hoo.
I did not use the patch, or any other quit-smoking-now accoutrements... But I didn't exactly quite cold-turkey, either. I quite smoking vie the plague. Here's my story...
At around the end of 2005, I was planning to buy a shiney new house. So, "I'll quit smoking before I buy the house," I told myself, as I didn't want to smoke up the place. Of course, anyone who has attempted to quit smoking before knows that when a smoker tells himself such a thing, he doesn't really mean it. He tells himself that he'll quit smoking so he can feel better about himself, or whatever... Whether or not I actually meant that I was going to quit smoking before I bought my house, I'll never know. I'm just not that introspective.
Then comes New Years Eve. The perfect opportunity to quit smoking, in the form of a new Year's Resolution (was this holiday made for smokers, or what?) 12:00am came and went, and I was still a smoker. Little did I know that the very next day (still that same day, technically, but just after having gotten some sleep), I would, in fact, be embarking on that long road to non-smoking-dom.
I awoke that afternoon feeling a bit queasy and light headed (this was to be expected, I guess, after this particular holiday) and with a little bit of a tickle in my throat. Assuming that these were merely the well-deserved aftereffects of a night of excesses, I went on about my usual routine.
As the day went on, however, instead of feeling gradually feeling better as the effects of the various toxins I had ingested slowly wore off, I began feeling worse and worse. I became more nauseas, and my head span more and more, and my throat became very very raw and sore. Lo, I had caught some sort of plague, and a terrible one it was. At around 6 o'clock that evening, I had had enough. I put out my final cigarette (it was, in fact, to be my final cigarette, but I was unaware of that at the time), less than half smoked. I took some NyQuil and hit the sack.
The next three days are all a little bit hazy. I spent them alternately in a fevered daze and in a NyQuil coma. When I finally felt myself again, it'd been around 74 hours or so since I had last smoked a cigarette. At that point, I decided that I had quit.
Fortunately, I spent the next few days being extremely busy at work (the New Year is right in the middle of a 'rush' where I work) so I spent 18 to 20 hours a day keeping myself occupied, so that I did not notice so much that I wanted a cigarette. I did realize that I would need some sort of coping mechanism to deal with the inevitable urges. That is when I came upon the cursing method.
Whenever you have the urge to do something, but that thing is something that you shouldn't be doing. The best way to counteract that urge is to do something else (theoretically the something else should be less desctructive than the something you are trying to avoid doing). So, whenever I got (get, really) the urge to smoke a cigarette, I decided that I would curse, instead. Its something that I can do anytime (though I have to do so very quietly in some circumstances), doesn't cost me any money, and gives me a release that distracts me from my previous urge.
Since then, I have gotten to experience many firsts, again, which is kind of cool. For instance, I had a first long drive since I quit smoking, during which a stream of profanities spewed from my mouth that would give Eric's Grandma a stroke. Just this past New Year's, I did my first drinking since I quit smoking. It wasn't bad at all, though there were a few well-placed curse words, I must admit.
So... Anyway. As a fellow quitter. Congrats on the quitting and good luck. Try the cursing method. It really works.
Later
silver
