Basically I’ve been going through a lot the last year and a half; divorce, mental health etc and I unfortunately started smoking (tobacco) again even though I’d been quit for 5 years. I’m just finding it really difficult to quit again this time.
I’ve gotten into a habit of doing it after every dungeon, battleground, etc and traditional quit smoking advice really isn’t working for me. “Go take a walk, craft something, go for a drive” doesn’t really work when you work full time at a full-on manual labour job and just want to relax and sit down at the end of a hard day.
So I guess I’m just looking more for advice on quitting that will help that’s more tailored to gaming and habitual smoking, bonus points if it worked for you.
Focus on the game with both hands on the keyboard and chew chewing gum never smoked but I think this would help. also smokers do smell like nicotine (bad in my opinion), all in them smells like nicotine, from their clothes to their skin and hair. and their homes: walls, furnitures, bed sheets, curtains, everything… not a pleasure to be near a smoker that smells like an ashtray…
I just quit cold turkey and never looked back, but not everyone has the mental fortitude to do that.
Smoking is really about breaking habits/patterns like having a cig after a meal, work breaks, lunch breaks, clearing trash during raids, etc.
I would try buying nicotine gum if you can’t do cold turkey and reduce withdrawals. Slowly reduce the amount of gum you chew. This way you at least break-up the hand gestures and the whole routine that one creates around smoking.
Have you tried vaping instead?
I’m not into it personally but it’s better than cigarettes’.
Sounds like you’re smoking to kill time in-between instances. So if I was you, i’d take up a second game to play while you’re waiting .
POE
Diablo
Lost Ark
Binding of Isaac
Dead Cells
Hades
These are great games to boot up for a quick session.
Other than that all I can tell you is that you’re literally burning money that you could be spending on building a new PC / buying games.
Take it easy though, don’t put too much on your plate. My wife was divorced prior to us getting together and I saw the effects it had on her, so don’t over work yourself. It’ll all work out.
Please do not substitute smoking for vaping! Vaping can be even worse than smoking. How did you quit last time? Maybe do something similar like that again? I quit after years of trying by identifying routines when I would smoke and then slowly phasing them out. (Like if I had a smoke with a coffee, I would do it with every other coffee, then to not having one with coffee at all). I just broke the routine while cutting down and that helped me heaps. All the best. Hopefully your future is a bit kinder to you!
Never been a smoker myself, so this advice isn’t coming from a place of experience.
But if smoking is a ritual you have, try and replace it with another ritual? Buy Rubiks Cube or a Grip Strength Trainer or any other sort of thing that you do with your hands and fidget with that when you’d otherwise want a smoke?
You could always vape instead and use that to sorta taper from smoking entirely.
Sure vaping is still smoking but you’re not getting a LOT of the gross stuff that’s in tobacco. My mom went from smoking cigs to vapes and after awhile her smoker cough went away.
Wish i could help, but i never picked up a cigarette in my life. Seeing what it did to my mother’s lungs was a pretty good deterrent. Like others said perhaps vaping? Or the good ol’ nicotine patches and gum?
The saying “once an addict always an addict” has a bit of truth to it. Usually one replaces a habit with another habit. It’s just best to find a safer alternative
Example: I have Trichotillomania. I had to develop new habits just to do that instead of plucking at my eyelashes til they were all gone. Now I just have the habit of clipping my fingernails a lot. If they’re short, I can’t pluck.
Just keep on doing what works. Keep smoking and when things get better then ween yourself off it, or find someone who can help you get weened off it (significant other). Or just enjoy it.
Quitting is accepting that things will be different. If you have accepted mentally that you want to quit then all you have to do is distract yourself when you have a craving, allow yourself to be distracted instead of focusing on the craving.
Hardest is day 1, then 3 days days, then a week, for me after a month there was no longer any temptation, it was no longer a struggle.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. I do really appreciate it.
Yeah the habit breaking is the hardest part honestly. I’m trying to find things that are suitable for my lifestyle to break the habit of smoking. Things like chewing gum does help but I’m just trying to find some other suggestions to add to my arsenal.
I have tried vaping twice, but for some reason the vape smoke burns my throat more than regular cigarettes do. Also you now need a prescription in Australia just to buy e-liquid with nicotine in it and you can still get your stuff captured and delayed in customs until you can show them your prescription.
I might give the secondary game idea a go though, thanks for that suggestion
Thank you! I do have some hard candy next to me at my desk, a variety of US import candies my BFF sent me and also some gum, and coffee flavoured hard candies with a soft centre. They’re pretty good!
Last time was when I was with said ex that I am going through the divorce with, we both smoked and we quit together. She’s also the reason I took up smoking again because she purposely bought cigarettes and smoked them in front of me while we were going through the rough patch before separation. She also encouraged me to drink and get drunk while she was cheating on me even though she is familiar with my past binge drinking problems.
Let’s just say she was a toxic, evil person who was emotionally and psychologically abusive. I am trying to heal from it all though.
That’s probably a good idea honestly. I’ve heard some smokers have also had success quitting just by buying a dummy cigarette that they can hold and put in their mouth. Apparently some people also buy sticks of cinammon? Maybe I’ll give that a go too.
I quit smoking cold turkey but I confess that I do still enjoy the smell, and remember the company and interaction part of it.
(My dad and my neighbours smoked so it’s kinda like a childhood smell)
What was effective in me quitting is creating a mental image of me in 10 years being much sicker and poorer.
As I’d smoke by my balcony I put a 5kg dumbbell (next to where I’d normally keep my pack) and I’d flex that instead as a hobby. Patches DEFINITELY helped and after a while I swapped the dumbbells with a 7.5 and then 10. I know it might not necessarily be doing much for my health but I know now I’m doing a net positive than a negative.
Lollipops is the more common substitute that I’ve heard.
But yeah, the physical act of smoking is a large part of the addiction. Having something to do with your hands and mouth would probably be really helpful.
That’s an understatement and a half. Jesus christ.
I’d suggest Slay the Spire. Card based roguelike with a pretty solid amount of replayability and turn based so you don’t really stand a chance of dying if you need to immediately alt-tab cause your queue popped.
I quit smoking last year. I was having a stressful morning and just finished a cigarette at work when I started to feel sick. I tried to drive home and started vomiting all over myself as I was driving I95…I decided to try to make it home. I started to feel dizzy and thought I was having a stroke. I kept vomiting and/or dry heaving while driving. I pulled over to one of those weigh stations and a state police officer called an ambulance. I couldn’t stand up straight and needed help onto the gurney when transferring from my work truck. I could not stop the dry heaving…while in the ambulance nor during the first 30 minutes at the hospital. They had to give me two doses of anti-nausea meds. Well, the doctor said that it was not a stroke, but vertigo. I’d never experienced it before. Ever since then, cigarettes have made me feel ill. I don’t even crave the smell anymore.
So, my suggestion is to have an episode of vertigo. That should do the trick.
Vaping is still relatively new and I’m by no means an expert… there was an article published about how vaping has not been linked to a reduction of smoking.
However if anybody out there finds that it is helpful that’s awesome
A 2019 study found that 19 percent of participants who used e-cigs to quit smoking were no longer smoking a year later, while those who used nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches and gum, quit smoking at a rate of 9 percent.
However, among the e-cigarette smokers, 80 percent were still vaping a year later, compared to only 9 percent of people in the nicotine replacement group.
As someone who’s in the process of quitting for the 2nd time ( Started when I was 23, quit when I was 27 and started again last spring, age 30.) the hardest part is the craving. That’s why I chew a lot of gum, drink water, exercise, walk, brush teeth, anything that can get my mind off of it.
never smoked but I think this would help. also smokers do smell like nicotine (bad in my opinion), all in them smells like nicotine, from their clothes to their skin and hair. and their homes: walls, furnitures, bed sheets, curtains, everything… not a pleasure to be near a smoker that smells like an ashtray…