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My dad quit smoking about 50 years ago. (2 weeks chopping wood in backyard, mostly not speaking to anyone.) When my brother-in-law decided to quit about 30 years ago, he asked my dad when the craving would quit - Dad told him, "It's not quite so bad after 2-3 years."

I think Mark Twain said it best, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times." Or something like that.

You are spot on mate. Now imagine how hard giving up heroin might be.

I think there are loads of decent approaches to giving up ciggies, from your dad's work out in the woods to my mental thingie. Getting out from fags is really hard - they are sooooo cool etc.

Mr Twain is correct for those that don't get it right.

Me and your dad did get out and it's really fucking hard. Really hard. Me and your dad have something in common - we are still alive and fucking kicking.

Most heroin addicts say that quitting smoking is more difficult than kicking opiates.

Both smokers and heroin addicts have significant levels of beta-carbolines in their systems.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00062...

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1530-0277....

(paywall, sorry)

Never did heroin, but my experience was that quitting drugs was way easier than quitting smoking. I’ve never had the urge to take drugs again even once, but I miss smoking all the time.

I used to be a heavy smoker, at the height of my habit I could smoke 2+ packs a day. It was bad. When I finally decided to quit, I went cold turkey. For a week or two I had strong but manageable cravings, however they started to fade away and eventually the smell of cigarette smoke started being really unpleasant. Years on and I feel no pull towards tobacco and the idea of smoking it is repulsive to me now.

This is of course anecdotal evidence, but you (you, a smoker reading this thinking about quitting) are not doomed to suffer cravings forever nor are predestined to fail, like the Mark Twain quote could make you believe. Perhaps there are people, who find it really difficult to quit, but it is also possible to completely move on. Just don't fixate on how hard it is and simply do it.

I for sure appreciate your points, but my anecdotal experience is I smoked for ~15 years and I really didn't want to quit. Eventually I got a family going and realized I needed to consider it and, boom, I tried a Juul - it replaced them 1:1. I am in the same boat in that cigarettes are repulsive to me now but this ruling would be like taking away my ability to buy a pack of Marlboro lights, suddenly overnight, back when I smoked. It is just frustrating that they want to suddenly take this product down from a convenience store, but the wall of actual cigarettes next to it seems to be ok?

Yeah, seems to be a sign that the old guard tobacco lobby has their talons sunk in a good deal deeper than the newcomer vaping lobby.

Yep, this just feels like something is afoot that we'll never be aware of. By some accounts in this very HN post, Juul was operating wildly until Altria (phillip morris) bought a stake. If this does happen, the next likely benefactor would be the Vuse vape that is operated by RJ Reynolds (the 2nd place big tobacco company). The entire thing is so frustrating.

Didn't Altria (parent company of Phillip Morris) buy a 35% stake in Juul? Juul is big tobacco.

I'm not/haven't been a smoker, but appreciate the anecdotal reassurance that the urge to smoke doesn't have to be something that lingers with people who quit.

I think you see similar things with alcohol addiction. As I understand, AlAnon has the philosophy that people are lifetime alcoholics, even if they haven't drank in years. Perhaps that is true for some, but the tendency to sensationalize that into a universal truism seems like it does more harm than good.

That said, negative habits and motivation are odd things. In support of those on the other end of the spectrum, where being told "You can just do it, use your grit and resolve and don't dwell," can lead to feelings of inadequacy and failure when it isn't so easy for them, well there's no one right path to growth and change. Just don't lose hope and keep looking for what works for you.

>I'm not/haven't been a smoker, but appreciate the anecdotal reassurance that the urge to smoke doesn't have to be something that lingers with people who quit.

Everyone is different. Some former smokers get to the point where they practically hate cigarette smoke.

For me, it's been five years since I quit. I still love it. If I'm in close proximity with the stuff, I get "satisfied" very quickly and the appeal wears off for hours or days. I'll have very weak cravings. None of those cravings are great enough that I have ever felt it's worth crossing that line. As much as I miss smoking — and I absolutely loved smoking — I prefer not being a smoker.

> AlAnon has the philosophy that people are lifetime alcoholics, even if they haven't drank in years

Yes, because addiction and addictive tendencies don't magically go away with sobriety.

It's easy to justify 'one time won't hurt' that becomes a slippery slope back to old habits. I've quit smoking several times now, but it wasn't until this last time that I realized that I absolutely cannot allow myself to smoke or vape because it will put me back on the path of addiction. My personal experience with porn and cannabis addiction behaves the same way.

I'm very fortunate I was able to quit drinking and now 3 years later I can have a healthy relationship with alcohol, but I've had multiple friends in the past where one drink during sobriety will turn into spending nights at the bar.

I started when I was 12, and quit around 21. I still get cravings, and I’m in my mid 30’s now. If I walk by someone smoking on the street, I take a loooong breath in as I go past them, and I can feel my body immediately releasing all sorts of feel-goods. It’s wild.

I tried to use a vape when I quit smoking, didn’t work well. Turns out cold Turkey is the way to go, it helps I don’t live in China anymore where it is so easy and accepted.

The dreams are the worst. I still have them occasionally, I still miss it and it’s been 5+ years now. I didn’t even smoke that long (basically 8 years when I was living in Beijing).

Try my mantras! Basically, whenever you even think of smoking you condition yourself to repeat the following to yourself mentally:

"I don't want to die" "I don't want to smell"

I picked those two because they are pretty nasty and represent what fags do to you.

Whenever you fancy a smoke, you say those phrases to yourself.

My method is mine and perhaps another method will work for you. Have a think about what might work for you.

Cheers Jon

I haven't smoked in more than 5 years now, so I think I'm good. The cravings never really go away completely, and I'm probably one crisis away from starting again, but my life has been fairly crisis free for a long time now.

Keep the faith mate. As you say - the cravings never go away but I managed to do a mental job on myself. I find that if I repeat (mentally) a couple of phrases - "I don't want to die and I don't want to smell" then that kills off the cravings.

You've managed longer than I have - what's your strategy?

Hey, emotional algebra doesn't have negation (it does have fear though), may want to try "I want to live" "I want to smell nice". It can also help to visualize ie. headache pain when inhaling etc.

I picked the negative version by accident and it worked for me. I needed to, figuratively, kick myself - repeatedly.

Whenever I had a craving, I mentally repeated my mantra and it really did knock it on the head.

I'm not sure what emotional algebra even means! I studied maths to degree level and I'm quite sure that the Arab bloke what gave his name to algebra (and his mate for algorithms) didn't manage to include a formal evaluation of human emotion within their deliberations.

I'll grant you that we can use terms like positive and negative in relation to emotions but al-jabr?

OK, I'll stand corrected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra - al-jabr means "reunion of broken parts" so that fits your usage of the term. That creaking sound you can hear is my neck being wound back in.

sigh you live and learn.

Anyway, I needed to kick myself and it worked (despite myself!) Do you have any idea how hard it is to try to outsmart yourself, without going a bit mad (whatever that means). With hindsight, I picked a strategy that worked, first time. It was a fluke but I'm rather glad that it did and does work.

Just invented it so don't put too much weight to this name! But the phenomenon is real in the sense that emotional interpretation doesn't have/understand "don't"s and "not"s. It creates feeling or it doesn't (when not mentioned). It's a bit similar to saying "try to not think about yellow elephant" - well, you did and "not" part didn't really contributed to not thinking about it. Ie. "I don't want to smoke" would be very bad mantra. But you used "Don't want to die" which is emotionally read as "Death.", which evaluates to "fear", which is ok - "fear", "pain" any feeling of discomfort or in general negative feeling is ok/equivalent to usage of "don't"s. Hope it makes sense.

> I came up with two mantras that I repeated to myself in my head whenever I really wanted to smoke: they were - "I don't want to smell" and "I don't want to die".

This is another part of what makes vaporizers so insidious. When you go to quit, there's a vague notion that it could be seriously harmful. Perhaps there's an equally vague notion of regaining lost discipline. But without that existential dread ("I am going to die if I continue") or social pressure ("I smell all the time and colleagues wrinkle their noses"), it can be trickier than cigarettes.

Are you having a laugh?

"This is another part of what makes vaporizers so insidious. When you go to quit, there's a vague notion that it could be seriously harmful"

Vapes may work for some - an atomized <whatevs> is probably better for you than tobacco smoke.

I have quite a lot of experience of both.

I had a similar experience to you. You must come to the understanding that you will never smoke a cigarette again. You must accept that. You can't quit without that being true (modulo the social cigarette here and there).

And yea, I remember sleeping for 20 hours on day two.

I look at it as time wasted. ie I would berate myself that I'd managed say six months and I could not lose six months progress.

You have to be so hard on yourself. It is worth it though.

Good skills sumy23 I think you have won at life in some way.

Wife and I would smoke a cig every time we walked the dog. Neither of us became addicted. I liked the smoke though, so I started vaping. Constant all-day vaping with 5% nicotine for several months.

At some point I decided to attempt to quit, curios if I could do it. I quit the next day for 2 months. I never got an urge - other than "hey I liked that feeling", but nothing strong - and had no withdrawal.

Apparently there's a gene that helps combat nicotine addiction. I don't know if I have it, but it seems like it. Not trying to brag here, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.

Be careful mate. I'm an expat with a lot of French friends, so I smoked socially for ten years. Could never imagine how someone could smoke all day, as it felt disgusting, but a few cigarettes on a night out once a week was nice. Like I said, did that for ten years. So did my girlfriend. Then she tried vaping and I tried snus. Both addicted. 2 years in, on and off. The amount of wasted time and effort spent on, and irritability from, trying to quit, has been such a waste.

Addictions are weird. Nicotine is hell to quit, but it's mostly mental. I build it up in my head to be some impossible thing, but it's really not. Cigarettes seem to have a grip on people far more insidious than snus or vaping, though.

The real reason it's hard to stay off is the modern world we choose to live in. Full of stressors and always just a minute or click away from relapsing.

Sometimes I think about how bad it would be to be an alcoholic. You wouldn't even be able to turn on the TV and relax without a beer commercial ruining your mindset. You leave your house and see a billboard. You get fed up, strength depleted, and walk in the woods to get away from all the reminders to drink. You see a spent can...

I'm going to have to downvote you despite experiencing a similar resistance to tobacco.

Why did you smoke a cigarette every time you walked the dog? You liked to smoke? Why didn't you quit instead of switching to vaping? You quit for ONLY two months?

> I managed to give up fags over four years ago after 30 odd years of smoking around 20+ a day.

Off topic, but this sentence reminded me of an amusing Urban Dictionary entry[0]

[0]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smoke%20a%20...

Not to question your vernacular but in some circles I think using the f word instead of cigarette could be.. misleading

Nope: fags are ciggies and that's that.

I'm a Brit and you are probably a Yank - we both know exactly what is going on.

I am absolutely fucking furious at the moment (nothing to do with this) 8)

If some circles are offended then I suggest that's not too bad a thing 8)

>over four years ago after 30 odd years of smoking around 20+ a day.

This guy is clearly older (lets say he started smoking at 15, we would be pushing 45 as a lower bound), and he's not American where that word was common slang. I think there's a place to consider intent and realize that this is the internet, and not everyone is an American 20-something.

Cheers me old fruit!

I'm 52 and I have some American relos. I'm well aware of many en_GB: en_US: en_AU: en_NZ and other language/slang ... discontinuities. A daughter in law from FL once explained to me how to pronounce Maryland.

I deliberately go in with the "fags" thing on a US based website for the obvious reason - it will almost certainly winkle out a daftie, who even now doesn't realise that a Brit burning a faggot isn't our version of horrific racism. To be fair, we haven't used the term faggot for a chunk of wood for some decades.

I absolutely adore our differences and have collected them quite obsessively. I love to watch and hear english being used in all sorts of strange ways!

sigh

Yes, because we must all speak like 'merkins.

On a serious note, if you are that sensitive, maybe the internet isn't the place for you?