07-26-2013, 09:19 PM
(07-26-2013, 08:15 PM)shoju Wrote: My next "Lifestyle Change" is to quit smoking. That's going to be tough. I've been a smoker since I was 13, so.... 20 years. My dad owned a tire shop, and I worked there after school / summers, and would go over to the gas station to pick up stuff for the guys. The gas station knew where I was going, and never noticed when I started buying an extra pack of smokes along with it. Hell, Generic Smokes were 79 cents a pack. The guys didn't notice a buck less in change either. I "can" smoke at work (not at my desk), so that's tough. And I'm a Driving Smoker. If I'm driving, I smoke. and I drive ~1hr round trip to work every day. I'll get there, but it's going to be slow.
FWIW, I'm also a smoker. The longest I quit cold turkey was for one year, and I stupidly started up again.
However, for 8 months now, I have cut back severely. I still smoke occasionally when it's 'guys night out', but that's once in a month or 2 months or so. (Social smoking is one of the more difficult bad habit to break, but it is possible to change it.)
I no longer buy a pack, and have severely diminished the urge to light up when I'm by myself.
For myself, I pretty much admit I can not quit cold turkey. I -can- however, cut back drastically, to the point of smoking maybe 10 cigarettes, in one year. Very possibly, less. To perhaps one smoke, for one year.
I'll tell you though, if you can make it through the first month with a drastic reduction in nicotine, the hardest phase is usually over. Just prepare for that extra crankiness for the first 2 weeks.
Good luck, and from one (now occasional) smoker to another, I support you sir.