Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Quit smoking

Yes - but Doctors don't make the Laws, politicians do. And once the Politcians realise the money to be made from taxing it, we'd get the same situation that we have always had...

There seems to have been a slew of us stopping cold turkey in 2003! I'm another one. :SWMBO: and I quit together: she had read Allen Carr's book, I got a dozen or so pages into it but decided it was time to stop before bothering with the rest of it. We each put a fiver in a jam jar on top of the fridge every day we didn't buy a pack of smokes (I guess it'd be a bit more than a five quid a pack these days...) and it was a very sobering realization how good a holiday we could book with the proceeds, just a few months into the exercise!

I stopped about 25 years ago after getting breathless kicking a ball around a park with a nephew.

Having a reason to stop and being positive about it, stopping rather than quitting, seemed to do it for me.

I never intended smoking to be a permanent habit and would never buy a lighter for example. Matches were a daily reminder. I used filters that gradually reduced the crud entering my lungs and then one day in 1981 the Chancellor ramped up the tax on tobacco significantly. I decided to quit cold turkey.
I smoked every cigarette I had that night -- slightly too many -- and woke up with none in my flat. I haven't touched any tobacco product since. Instead I took up marathon running!

Heinz, what is your status on smoking?

Did you have your last cigarette?

An additional argument against smoking;

A good friend is in hospital right now and maybe a leg has to be amputated because he has smoked too much for too long.

The insight to want to stop is coming and going. I have (unfortunately) not (yet) internalized such a lasting urgency. I had only smoked one cigarette for three days, and then it crept back up again. But not as many as before. I am not a brave hero. On the other hand, my basic attitude towards smoking is changing. I see it less as a positive pleasure. This develops slowly but irresistibly, which is good.
Hannes, you're right, it's always the next cigarette I shouldn't smoke.
Your story about your good friend is shocking. I believe only on basis of this reality I really stop. It's very tragic that this has to happen before anyone changes their own behavior. In this sense your sad story will help. Thank you for thinking of my plan.

Heinz, if you are on a cigarette within 3 days, I would keep the level and enjoy life.
The problems of my friend are based on genetic disposition in combination with nicotine consumption.

4 points. It is possible that none of these are helpful.

1) I stopped 40 years ago. It was difficult but student poverty made it essential. Petrol and beer were a much higher priority.

2) My lovely Uncle had a number of heart attacks and died at 70. After his first heart attack, the consultant threatened him by saying that if he was admitted again and was still smoking then he wouldn’t treat my Uncle. The threat worked but 40 a day for many years had already done the damage. 2 further heart attacks followed by vascular dementia.

3) A horsey friend of ours bought a second horse on the strength of packing up smoking.

4) We bought our first horse when we calculated that it cost the same to keep a horse in DIY livery as it does to smoke 40 a day. At the time, we new lots of people who smoked 40 a day.

I do not think I would stop smoking to get a horse into my system. That would rather push me to buy some cigarettes, just to be sure not to take care for a horse. (NEVER tell a girl she might get a horse because papa saves money from not smoking)