I was very similar to you. I used to smoke maybe 1-2 packs a week, but on a night out would easily smoke a pack, sometimes even half a second on a particularly big night. Decided I needed to cut it down a bit, so was able to go cold turkey, but kept smoking while out drinking.
After about 6 months of that, I had a particularly bad trip on the smokes at a Welly away match in 2012. With 3-4 days of solid drinking, I must have gone through 4-5 packs. At the airport on the way back I just decided that was it and never had another since. Was pretty tough when out drinking the first 3 months, especially as a lot of friends smoked, they would always be going out the front of the pub to smoke whilst I sat inside by myself watching their beers, so that would be shit.
After 3 months I fucking hated the things and couldn’t stand being around them.
Bloke in the flat above us chain smokes inside his place. We share a common stairwell and every time he opens his door it causes the stairwell to reek of it, can even smell it in our flat sometimes.
Giving up smoking was the most difficult thing I did in my life.
I suffered badly for about 6 months. Depression, being impossible to live with and generally being an arsehole.
From my experience the only advice I can give is that it is up to the addict to decide to give up and then for you, not to make a big thing about it.
As the support act, be tolerant and put up with the shit, do not give advice just be tolerant and wear the shit. It can be a very rough road for both of you…
It is worth it all because nicotine is nastier than Daleks, poker machines and any amount of online betting adverts.
Cigarette companies are the most evil thing in the universe.
One thing that did help me long term was a mate who gave up after me without any issues (bastard) would always say when we saw someone smoking was, “Look at that idiot, that used to be me”.
Thanks mate. I will definitely keep this idea in mind. My girlfriend thought of really good ideas to replace the habit with healthy activities, so she seems quite keen to make changes. She also has bipolar so it will make it extra challenging for her, especially on the harder days, but I believe she can do it.
Thanks. I expect it will be difficult, but I also think it helps she is driving the ideas of how she’s going to go about it, and they objectively sound like really good ideas. It allows me to just support her and not have direct input in how she handles this. I don’t think me meddling in that stuff would be helpful.
Soooo like a fuck head after years of only having an occasional trashed ciggy, in a burnt out, stressed out, going through post viral fatigue and not being able to exercise head space I managed to get addicted to vaping just over 18 months ago and it quickly went from a nice little head spin to just fucking the damn thing looking for a state change. Scary how quickly it opens your headspace and you’re looking for opportunities to get more into you.
I managed to kick it about two months ago. My heart was a big motivator as nicotine is awful for it, and also it got to the point that it wasn’t actually having any pleasant affect on me except the first of the day.
To get off I used the Vaping ban to decide not to buy any more and not learn where they sell them and got on the Champix equivalent. It made me pretty sick so I generally only took half a dose, but it really helped as it binds to the nicotine receptors so you don’t gel the effects.
I also got given nicotine patches but I didn’t use them. The Dr also gave me a weird nicotine sucker thing where you could inhale some nicotine but it was basically sucking it from a sponge so pretty gross, bit I read ok with that as I didn’t want to associate that action with pleasure. They tell you to keep smoking for the first week or two then but your last one intentionally then see it through.
I seem to be well past the nicotine now but did manage to track down some non nicotine ones in the short term to just satisfy the stimming effect. It’s not great and I’ll taper that down too but yeah the last vape I bought was in July the week after the ban so although I’m having a fucked up week right now and I really want to go buy one but I know I won’t.
What do you mean by champix equivalent?
I started a course of champix around ten years ago and didnt sleep for 96 hours then when i finally did, I had the most horrific, realistic nightmares. I woke up in a panic attack thinking I had murdered my family. I went back to the doctor and he said that was one of the side effects and left the decision up to me if I wanted to continue. I continued and so did the nightmares. I had to stop a week into the script.
I think Champix is not currently available in oz due to a shortage and manufacturing issue, so that’s a Canadian generic.
My dreams weren’t great, but I feel my sleep has been worst since being off it, but I started some other meds recently so it could be those. But yeah, lots of people report having an awful time with sleep and dreams.