any piece of advice is welcome

P.S. Thanks to all the people that have taken their time to help me (and not just me, but others as well). It is much appreciated, and, from what I‘ve read, the „cold turkey“ method seems the most appealing to me. I‘ll quit smoking today, on the 7th of November 2024.

  • @kamad
    link
    12 months ago

    I had tried multiple times previously, but when I stopped using snus (tobacco in pouches you put under your lip) for good these are things that helped me succeed:

    1. I actually wanted to quit (this is the most important one. If you just feel like you should quit and don’t actually want to. It’s gonna be really rough).

    2. I set a deadline for myself. For me, that deadline was during a family vacation so I planned for myself to get through the last box of snus before the vacation was over. I had a single box of snus that was already opened and a week long vacation (a single box used to last me maybe 2 days normally). This made me ration it out so I had a natural decrease in amounts used before I quit.

    3. I distracted myself from things that would normally make me want to grab a snus. Some were harder to avoid like when having morning coffee or when I had just eaten a large meal, but those could be substituted with chewing gum, breath mints, etc. I had also just recently started dating again at the time, so my daily routine was almost always different from the norm, which made ignoring the cravings a lot simpler.

    And honestly, from there it was just staying true to my goal and making sure to be proud of every milestone. Even now, 5 years later, I made sure to be proud of being 5 years clean.

    And you will think about it every now and then. Especially in situations where you normally go for a smoke, your brain will occasionally go back to “ahh, shit, a smoke would be nice now”. I still have those moments when I have stressful situations, have been out drinking, or just randomly from time to time.

    If you really want to quit, you can do it! I believe in you!