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Barbe-quit: being an online support/discussion thang for Barbeloids trying to shed bad habits

  
  

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ONLY NICE THINGS
08:49 / 15.01.03
This was vaguely mooted at the last UK Barbemeet I went to, as many Barbeloids were thinking of shedding bad habits and could do with a central area to talk about the teeth-gnawing hell of giving up whatever.

So, first up, I smoked last night. Not a spectacular amount - about 5 - but I woke up today after a fortnight of non-smoking with my throat almost completely closed and hurty. OUchy. However, I think I have at least identified a pattern here - avoid drinking too much in the company of people with whom you have habitually smoked, in pubs, at least for the moment. Whether I can *apply* that maxim is a more difficult question...

So, is anyone else following through, with whatever success, on their quitting plans?
 
 
illmatic
09:13 / 15.01.03
See the new name.

Funny, I was thinking about starting a thread on this very subject last night, now that my NY resolve has crumpled like a used packet of Malboro lights. I'd quite like to canvass the opinions of anyone here who has actually quit smoking - how and why did you do it?

To judge from friends who've stopped, either they've been lucky enough and have been able to treat giving up as a throwaway gesture, thereby not becoming engaged with all the frustrating circular mental gynamstics that go alongside quitting/starting - or they've had something pretty vital and life changing happen, like having kids and not wanting to subject them to passive smoking etc. I persoanlly think that bringing a new life into this world just so I can cut out the snouts is perhaps a little extreme - perhaps we could rent a smalll baby for barb meets? We could called her Nicolas or Nicorette depending on gender.

I wonder why smoking is so compulsive anyway? Perhaps it's soemthing to do with allying the addictive properties of nicotine with the breath, breath being so vital, such a cental part of our metabolism? Any thoughts?

Intersting article on giving up here
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
09:42 / 15.01.03
I quit smoking, but I was never more than a 3-ciggies-a-day smoker. I stopped smoking because, well, I knew I wanted to. I also noticed that I could feel it the next day when I went to the gym. It only worked when I replaced a bad habit with a good one. Just saying "er, I won't smoke" didn't do it for me. As soon as I was around my smoking friends, I would light up.

Mind, I've lapsed a few times - usually once every couple of months I have a cigarette (always when under the influence of something else), and I'm always reminded what a yucky thing smoking is. Also, my mum is about to go through chemotherapy and my grandmother was just diagnosed with cancer this week, so I've decided I'm never touching a birth control pill or cigarette again in my life.
 
 
Sax
10:01 / 15.01.03
I tried to quit smoking when Mrs Sax "fell pregnant" as they used to say, but I've been creeping back up to about 15 or more a day, unfortunately.

The problem is, I actually enjoy the act of putting a tube of lit paper into my mouth. Go figure.
 
 
The Natural Way
10:13 / 15.01.03
Smoking it is:

I've smoked for 13 years, but less and less over the course of the last 3. Basically, I realised I was a social smoker and a dope addict, which meant, in the end, I was only really interested in a chuff down the pub or when I had some gear (but considering that was ALL THE TIME, I was still smoking quite a lot). Anyway, I stopped smoking so much gear and reigned in my social life and slowly, slowly I managed to whittle myself down to about 2 fags a day.... Until 7 weeks ago, when I decided to give up altogether. Various stuff contributed to the decision: the steady decline of my tobacco intake, a desire to live beyond 40, a fucking painful stomach ulcer (the pleasures of which I'm still enjoying) and the fact that I JUST DON'T LIKE SMOKING AND NEVER REALLY DID. So, anyway, I think I've done pretty well up till now, but I have shared a couple of joints and that's bad and not givey uppy, so that shit's got to stop! I'll buy a pipe. It's easy most of the time, but sometimes, at the partay, it's so hard! Smoking's like armour - everyone lights up at the same time.... This tiny thing becomes so important, it protects and shields you and lubricates conversation and without it...God, sometimes I feel so adrift. And that's why it's got to stop, 'cause occassionaly I just make this breakthrough, when, instead of dampening my social skills, the lack of fag allows me to get concentrate more acutely on them. A couple of times recently, I've found myself really engaged with someone else, with the interaction, far more deeply than I would have been had I been holding a fag. I know this stuff must sound weird to non-smokers (and possibly some smokers), but there must be some peeps out there who know what I'm talking about. Something about smoking distances the smoker from other people, locks us into our little smoking bubble and it can be difficult to emerge.

God, I'm so oral.
 
 
illmatic
11:05 / 15.01.03
yeah, I totally know what you mean - covers up little social embarassments, doesn't it?

I'm a social smoker as well - rest of the time I'm fine without nicotine but the moment a pint touches my hand I try and singlehandly consume the entire output of the Tobacco industry. Terrible stuff. And the more ya booze, the more your inhibitions go down...resistance is futile. Someone told me that I will find giving harder than the average smoker because I don't really see myself as having a problem, and aren't likely to fuck myself up with it as much as hardcore smokers.
 
 
The Natural Way
11:07 / 15.01.03
Oh yeah, bozze 'n' fags is Eeeevil and sooooo tempting.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:34 / 15.01.03
Smoking - ah me. I've managed to cut down considerably over the last couple of years - I was probably getting through twenty/thirty a day during much of my last year at university, but I decided at one point that I was fed up with living in a miasma of stinky fag smoke and now only really smoke in the pub (story of everyone's life, it appears). I wouldn't mind so much if I only had two or three, and I did actually manage to spend an hour and a half in the pub on Monday without having a fag (probably because that pub doesn't have a fag machine) - BUT I am a hardcore social smoker and will get through a full packet over an evening in the pub, which is... not good.

In fact there's a thread somewhere in this forum which is full of lovely Barbeloids giving me advice on how to stop it - advice which hasn't had the required effect, but perhaps I should revisit it with a bit more oomph. I actually am fairly convinced that I've already managed to fuck myself up a wee bit with it, but... somehow it doesn't seem to have any effect on my actual behaviour. I think this is partly because it's such a social prop, and partly because I learned the behaviour of smoking and drinking in a social context and can't dissociate the two, especially given that lots of my friends are either social smokers or the real deal.

I must say, though, that given the choice between struggling to chuck it and seeing my friends, or not having such a hard time with giving up but not being able to go out for fear of lapsing, I'd definitely pick the former. In fact, not seeing people would be likely to make me so miserable that I'd be in more danger of picking up bad habits.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:59 / 15.01.03
... any tips on breaking an addiction to Barbelith, anyone?
 
 
Ethan Hawke
12:03 / 15.01.03
I've been officially a "non-smoker" for about...hmmm.... 3 years now, but I have pretty flexible rules in order to place myself in this category. I still enjoy smoking, particularly when drinking (like everyone, it seems- although with the ban on smoking in bars in NYC to take effect in March, I may actually be forced to break the association), and to categorically deny myself this pleasure, forever, seems a bit silly. I enjoy smoking pot as well, but I haven't done so in probably two years, but that doesn't mean I will never indulge myself again.

Being flexible - Every month or so, I'll end up buying a pack and smoking it over the course of a week. While that may dent my self-esteem a bit, there's no medical evidence that "chippers" or infrequent smokers have any greater risk of heart disease, lung cancer, etc. (perhaps because there's been no studies on "casual" smokers). Having a smoke (or 2, or 3, or 4) once in a while is probably like having some extra-large French Fries or a big greasy slice of Pepperoni pizza - an indulgence, a luxury. It's even more of a luxury in New York City, given that cigarettes hover on $7 for a pack of 20.

So my advice to you, and anyone who wants to quite smoking (unless ze's doing it because of a chronic or acute health problem directly related to smoking), is to broaden your definition of "quitting." The heavy feeling you get in your lungs and the soreness of your throat the morning after smoking heavily for the first time in weeks is a reminder that you are a non-smoker, and perhaps why you are a non-smoker. One is not likely to go out and buy a pack to resume habit-smoking while feeling like that, so perhaps treat the event as negative reinforcement. And don't, if you were planning to, beat yourself up over it.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
12:12 / 15.01.03
Good old fags, eh? Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. And other cliches.

I think my main problem is that I have always been in love with the idea and subconscious statements of smoking - when I was 16 I was so fascinated by the act that I bought this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330340166/qid=1042638671/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/026-0340663-4976427
Especially now we know that cigarettes are bad for you, anyone who smokes dices with death in a tiny waty, each time they light up. Smokers tend to have a slightly more risk-taking attitude to life and therefore tend to be more fun (unless they're depressive-type addicts). Don't hit me, non-smokers - I am well aware that there are plenty of exceptions to this extremely general rule of thumb.

As for tips on giving up - well, I've never wanted to, so I've never tried. But when I am working a full day I will only have 1 cigarette at lunchtime, or maybe even none, meaning that I can go at least 8 hours sans ciggies. At parties, of course, I can plough through 30 or more. If you are not given the opportunity to smoke it negates having to use willpower, so if you're serious about giving up or cutting down:

Get a non-smoking workplace
Get a non-smoking partner
Get non-smoking friends
Only see your smoking friends when you've covered yourself with nicotine patches
Don't drink so much if you tend to fold and smoke when drunk
Don't have a spliff - they contain tobacco
Ban yourself from smoking at home - or at least confine it to only one room, preferably the coldest or nastiest in the house

Doesn't sound much fun, does it? No wonder people try and fail.
 
 
Saveloy
13:32 / 15.01.03
Whisky Priestess:
"Especially now we know that cigarettes are bad for you, anyone who smokes dices with death in a tiny way, each time they light up. Smokers tend to have a slightly more risk-taking attitude to life and therefore tend to be more fun."

Hmmmm, I reckon there's got to be a more immediate element of "will it or won't it?" for it to be the exciting sort of risk that "dicing with death" suggests. If 1 in every 1000 ciggies was packed with explosives, that'd be dicing and exciting. But with ordinary, non-exploding fags, the risk is slow and boring. It's not "will I keel over straight after this fag", but "will I eventually get cancer?" Deferred suffering is very easy to ignore for the same reason deferred pleasure is intolerable - most people couldn't give a toss about what happens to them 10 minutes from now.
I suppose if you smoked an ordinary cig the size of a zeppelin, that would be dicey.

My weakness is sugary, stodgy food. I decided before Christmas, when I realised my weight was creeping up to 13 stone, that I would stop stuffing my face with all the cakes and chocolates that keep turning up at work, but I've just shoved a f..king mince pie down my throat. Any tips?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:35 / 15.01.03
rest of the time I'm fine without nicotine but the moment a pint touches my hand I try and singlehandly consume the entire output of the Tobacco industry

That's my man. Me too. Or rather, me and everybody else here, it seems. I have little to add to what KCC said about the choice between seeing friends and thus smoking & drinking, and staying in and being miserable - however, this month so far I have been trying to at least cut down on the midweek boozefests, with some success - haven't gone into work hungover for about three weeks. Pathetic, but a small victory. It's worth remembering also that if you'e a social smoker now, but *used* to smoke all the time, this is again a step in the right direction... Except that I'm sure I didn't smoke as much in an average night down the pub back when I also smoked over tea, after meals, standing outside the college library... Hmmm.
 
 
Bill Posters
16:32 / 15.01.03
Hmm... I'm feeling a bit behind here because I've given up Bob Hope and beer, and hence am still getting through cigarettes like their going out of fashion. Considering it was lung trouble which made me give up dope, it's ironic. I'll get there though, one step at a time. (Cough.)
 
 
000
16:50 / 15.01.03
I'm trying to leave behind my physical slackness -- sure, you won't ever find me overweight but the work I had before, had made my body unfit. As I type now, I am sore all over and love it, the ideal being Tyler Durden's physique in the movie (a month or two should take it there).
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
17:29 / 15.01.03
Wow. So many familiar faces. *Waves*

I've cut down on smoking rather than deciding to give it up (or as Allen Carr would tell you 'stop smoking') because for now I think it's more realistic. Spent the last couple of months before xmas smoking more (fags) than I'd ever smoked, was getting up to about 15 a day, having been a much more sporadic smoker (except when drinking, yet again) my whole smoking life. Ditto with spliffs, smoking more than I had done in years. Ditto drinking in fact. God, what a mess

So, stopped dead just before xmas, easy, as I was going to my parents place and I've never smoked there so even when drinking I had no desire to do so. Lasted two weeks. Grr. but have cut down considerably without hugely trying. Down to about 2 a day now. Except in pubs, pubs are difficult.

And know what you mean about that social thing, Runce. Noticed am much more happy to wait in a pub on my own if I'm smoking than if not.

And have only had the odd puff on a spliff in the last month. And yeah, Runce, yr dead right about pipes being the way forward. Spliffs are what wrecked my only serious attempt at giving up fags.

And have realised that my problem with booze isn't drinking continuously, I'll easily go weeks without drinking and have started drinking juice in pubs sometimes, so much as the odd big binge.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
17:31 / 15.01.03
oh, and with fags I definitely have 'smoking buddies', people I find hard to be with,without smoking. So being aware of that, or seeing them less, might help. Tho, as this includes some of my best friends, am loathe to see them less...hmm
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
18:52 / 15.01.03
Having given up for precisely three full days so far, I am in quitting hell as we speak.

Second glass of wine of the evening, full belly, online listening to Mercury Rev... fuckfuckfuckityfuck SHIT. And yet the most difficult part is persuading spooky (who has also given up for three full days, and who this whole abysmally poorly-conceived 'cunning plan' is for - she has asthma and it's getting worse, and living with a pack-a-day man could make her commit Jackicide) that she shouldn't buy "just a ten-pack for the both of us." When she looks at me like all of this is my fault, conveniently becoming amnesiac for a few minutes.

And I haven't even attempted drugs without cigarettes yet. Fuuuuck. What's the point? I know I'm not going to quit. Why not buy myself some now? No! Stop thinking that way! If you have a fag now, spooks will cave in too, and smugly blame you! Be strong! Your moral high ground in this argument is hanging in the balance!

Sucks to be me today.
 
 
rakehell
23:45 / 15.01.03
I smoked for 12 years then stopped "cold turkey". Haven't had a cigarette for 2 years. I do have the occasional cigar - no inhaling. I loved smoking and still do. I have very strong associations with certain friends and situations - so that 3am in the morning talking to X with a cup of coffee in my hand while he has a cigarette, becomes one of the most frustrating things I can experience. Yet another time it doesn't bother me.

I quit along with my brother, so I had a quit buddy, which is what this is in a way. We used to ask each other quite often if we'd had a cigarette and there was an understanding that if one starts, the other will too. I'm quite happy to kill myself by degrees, but I don't want the same to happen to him, I'd wager he feels the same, so that worked.

As for why... I think mainly I got sick of giving money to a huge corporation to basically kill me. It's also harder to talk about the evils of the world when you're filling the coffers of Phillip Morris. It's complicated, I still really liked smoking, I just didn't want to do it anymore.

Replacing them is a good idea. I tried/am trying to get fit. Never been in shape and thought it would be worth trying. I got some inline skates, started riding a bike again, things like that.

One thing that makes staying stopped easier is that smokers stink. I used to think that it was non-smoker bullshit propaganda, but I remember smelling a smoker a couple of months after I quit. It really is disgusting and anytime I feel my willpower weaken, I just sidle up next to one of the stinkies in the pub. Keeps me on track for a couple of weeks at least.

Also, it's a willpower thing. I really hate the amount of control they had over me. Knowing that the agitation I feel isn't real, but caused by a nicotine deficiency.

As dumb as it may sound, you can't quit unless you want to. All the "you should"s and "why don't you"s in the world won't make you. You have to make a pretty significant shift to "I don't smoke anymore".

Much like an alcoholic, it helps to take it one cigarette at a time. With each one you resist, it becomes easier and easier. I can't tell you how happy I felt when I came home from a club one night and lying in bed thought "I didn't even think about having a cigarette all night! Not once!"

It sucks though because like I said, I really like cigarettes. It's something that no non-smoker can ever understand. The stress relief, the time filler, the think aid. Plus I believe that smoking is one of the few cool things left. There is a stupid part of me that thinks that people who smoke are just cooler than everyone else, maybe because all my friends smoke or used to and I think my friends are cool.

(Luckily I think that one of the other cool things is riding a motorbike, so I've decided to get one. Helps with the "killing yourself" aspect too.)

I don't know if anything above constitites a hint or a tip, but the only such thing I can offer is: Don't smoke. When you want to have a cigarette, just don't. Repeat as necessary. It's simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing in the world.
 
 
Ariadne
00:11 / 16.01.03
I would love to have a cigarette. God, yes. I agree that if you've never smoked you can never know how lovely it is. I sometimes find myself wishing for nuclear war to be announced, just so I'd have an excuse to think, fuck it, and go and buy some fags. Mmmmmm.... war.

I gave up nearly five years ago, but that was after lots of shorter giving-ups, so i try not to get too smug about this one in case it doesn't last. I'm doing okay, other than the disaster-imaginings.

I finally gave up - or gave up this time, if you want - partly because I'd tried lots and failed but was determined, and partly because I was turning thirty, on the pill, and it was all just looking a bit stoopidly foolhardy. Plus I couldn't breathe, and had an inhaler, and really - it was daft.

I went cold turkey, just stopped one day and somehow managed to stay stopped. I'd been smoking at least 20 a day, the first one before breakfast and a continual stream thereafter. So it was bloody hard. But I'm glad I did it. I've got fitter and healthier and ... and sometimes that all seems quite disgustingly dull and I want a cigarette. I don't think it ever goes away and your mind plays some weird tricks on you, persuading you that such-and-such and event means you *need* a cigarette, even years later.

Wonder if the corner shop's still open?
 
 
FrootBroot
00:13 / 16.01.03
I'm redoubling my efforts to control my calorie intake.
I find the big grand decisions to change a habit are quite easy to make- "I'm going to commit to a healthy lifestyle in 2003".
The hard ones are moment to moment- " I'm not going to eat this whole pizza"
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:41 / 16.01.03
So, last night I spent a mere two hours in the pub, can't possibly have smoked more than a dozen cigarettes - and this morning I am hacking like a lungless gas attack victim. The irony being that if I was a more regular smoker, I'd feel much better, I'm sure. Mind you, I tell myself that if you sit in the pub you're going to end up inhaling smoke anyway, so you may as well have a few...

But I swore long ago that I'd never pay more than a fiver for a pack of twenty, and that's when I intend to give up - or possibly after the celebrations for my 25th birthday have died down, in April. I don't expect to suffer quite as much as Jack (although I feel yr pain, son). It's going out and drinking that's going to be hell - especially over the summer. Aiieee.

Tying in Jack with bengali's point about smoking buddies - there can be this terrible thing if you're not quitting and one of yr buddies is, where you find yourself becoming the devil on their shoulder... "you can have one of mine if you like... I won't tell..." The guilt!

What I'm hoping is that when I do quit, I can get all the other semi-regular smoking friends I have to finally bite the bullet as well, so that temptation is removed from the grasping hands and gasping mouths of us all in one fell swoop. It's a crazy plan. but it just... might... work...
 
 
Bill Posters
09:50 / 16.01.03
Well I've still quat all the hard stuff, but have been rather shouty and bad tempered in the course of this morning and have already had two cig's today, but hey, they were Silk Cut, so they don't really count, do they?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
09:55 / 16.01.03
Dunno... I smoke about 30 Silk Cut a day... surely it'd be cheaper and no more/less damaging for me to smoke a smaller amount of stronger fags?

Other than that piece of bullshit wisdom, I'me leaving this thread alone, because even all your good intentions that aren't fulfilled are making me feel like a weak-willed buffoon. (I never even get to the "intention" stage. It's too scary.)

  
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:46 / 16.01.03
Yeah, smoke rollies, love. Much cheaper. Money is another factor for me, I have little enough of it without wasting some by setting fire to it for a slow death.

Wish I didn't though (roll), as I enjoy them much more than filters and for years resisted learning how to roll as I suspected it'd make it loads harder to give up. I was right.

Gah. well, after *five* fags yesterday, just sitting around the house doing bugger all, and falling asleep finally at 4am ( this sleeping pattern going on for about 3 weeks now) and a 9am trapeze class, my throat feels noticeably crappy, and I'm struck with how much better I'd be on the trapeze if I quit.

I haven't experienced it, but I know this for a *fact*. And am hoping it will be a major motivator/replacement, as there should be loads of it going on now and it is a rush all of its own.

But, sadly, the girl in my class who I was hoping to get inspiration from, a 20-a-dayer who gave up cold turkey 5 months ago started the other day. She made it through xmas and new year as well and is pissed off w/ herself now.

 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:48 / 16.01.03
But this thing of actually counting and admitting feels useful/shaming. Cheers Haus!

And half of those fags I started, realised I wasn't actually enjoying, and killed.

but I'm not giving up sex with simulated animals for no-one.

Oh, and given that about 75% of this thread is populated by london-barbe-meet people ,could we attempt a non-smoking meet?

Barbe-meets being one of my worst environments for resisting the evil weed. at sfd's thing, hadn't brought fags, hadn't smoked for a couple of weeks, was doing well. Lasted 1/2 a hour into it before running to the offy.
 
 
illmatic
12:05 / 16.01.03
Yeah but BiP that means we'd have a Barb-meet without being blind drunk.

And that's no Barb-meet, that's just .... sitting around.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:08 / 16.01.03
... any tips on breaking an addiction to Barbelith, anyone?

You're asking us??



  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:08 / 16.01.03
That's a very good idea - I finished off the half-packet (i.e. 8 fags) yesterday with Flyboy that I started on tuesday at my flatmate's birthday party, then nicked a couple from him; the weakness of barbelithicity.... Where can we find a non-smoking place to go? A cafe, maybe, or a bar with a non-smoking area, so if we *do* crack we will have to stand up and walk away from the party in order to smoke then come back...
 
 
The Natural Way
12:26 / 16.01.03
If we do crack?

Ho. Ho.
 
 
Bill Posters
12:26 / 16.01.03
if we *do* crack we will have to stand up and walk away from the party in order to smoke then come back...

But I don't want to do crack; I'm trying to quit tobacco. Try and keep on topic old boy, there's a good chap.
 
 
Bill Posters
12:27 / 16.01.03
Pah, I knew some bastard would beat me to it. Runce, I hate you.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:20 / 16.01.03
The thing is, a non-smoking meet would be even harder than a non-alcoholic one, because fags go well with caffeinated drinks as well...

Some kind of workshop? Those are the only non-smok/drinking meets I've been too, and even then we hit the pub afterwards...
 
 
Bill Posters
13:23 / 16.01.03
Why don't we just bite the bullet and hit an NA meeting en masse?
 
 
Bill Posters
14:02 / 16.01.03
If we do crack?

Ho. Ho.

Anyway that's a ridiculous comment. Makes you sound like some sort of drugfucked Santa Claus. Wretched, wretched boy, spoiling my gag like that. But then, I guess getting pipped at the post is an occupational hazard round here. Pipped at the post, geddit?

* baboom, tish *

I thank you.
 
  

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