Damn, sounds like my ex.   Sorry dude.  

Firstly, let me say that I smoked for 32 years, 3 packs a day at the end.... Your success is directly related to how much you WANT to quit. I mean really want to. If you don't really want to quit, you will fail. Chantix completely obliterates the cravings, and the PHYSICAL withdrawals. It is up to you to beat the PSYCHOLOGICAL cravings, or for lack of a better term, the HABIT. When I was taking Chantix, I found myself thinking I wanted a smoke. I would go buy a pack, smoke maybe a half of a cig, and get nauseated, and throw the rest of the full pack in the trash. I did this several times, until I realized that it was only the mind telling me that I was missing something in my routine. It was psychological, not physical. A pill can't fix that part, and that is why you really have to want to quit, or you won't.

Absolutely correct.

I tried the pill. Both. I like my Vicodin better.

Way to go Jim.  I used the Chantix, but a week in the hospital finished it for me.  It's incredible how friggin' bad your clothes, your car and your house smell when you've been away for a week.

Po'. a couple of things to try.  Let an ashtray get really full and then leave it out over night to get real damp, then in the morning when you want to light up, grab that ashtray and inhale real deep.  By the time your done barfing the craving is over.  The other more drastic method involve a heavy duty rubber band and your boys.  You guessed it.  Every craving....snap.  How long could you keep going?

You know I'm just funnin' with ya.  I smoked 4 packs a day for 45 years.  I've had lung cancer, and have advanced COPD.  I'm on oxygen 24/7.  Let me tell ya man, suffocating is the scariest thing you can imagine.  No living on a vent for me though, I just got a temporary job at the local gun range as a bullet catcher.

Cry about it, laugh about, but damn it get mad about it and quit before it's too late.  For your family, your friends, but most of all for yourself YOUNG man.  From a friend.

You been taking lessons from Wizard1956?  Man that is funny as hell!!!  

Sure it can...there's no real difference between "psychological" (habit related behaviors...LEARNED) and "Physical". The behaviors have to be "unlearned" and the link between them and the cigarette (remember Pavlov's dogs?) has to be broken.

Well...to each his own addiction....and they didn't want to biopsy that lung "growth"? I sure as hell wish you'd quit. A 45 is quicker, cleaner and smells better...well, unless they take too long finding you...but to be frank, that won't be your problem.

not a one since January 1.......

fantastic teddy!!....looking forward to January 1st for John, now 15th for you too....

great going Angus...keep it up....good to come back here and check in....

   need to somehow get on top of this Po'.....

v...after 26 years with not one day without a smoke..and 3+ packs a day...did it with the aid of patches....but, I suppose, the primary thing is the 'will'...and you are being given lots of reasons for that by the sound of things......

if there is anything we can do to help...let us know....checking back in here weekly....talk about progress...difficulties...report successes....have a vent......there's plenty of experience here to be tapped.....and people who care about you succeeding.....you are being given some serious reasons to succeed.....

Who do you think came up with the rubber band idea and the rubber band?

Last year around this time someone told me that the best way to stop smoking was to quit cold turkey, although I made sure to reheat my Thanksgiving left-overs thoroughly, I still wasn't able to stop, I did learn however, that it's just about as hard to reheat turkey without drying it out, as it is to quit smoking! I'm not sure if I did anything wrong, maybe this year I'll try the oven instead of the microwave! 

He literally just wants to keep an eye on it. There's no way short of that to tell if it's a scar or growth or whatever. I go back for another CT in 6 months. If it gets bigger, I guess they'll go from there.

I don't mean to make light of all this. It's waht I do. I have so many health issues right now and I'm in pain all the time. All I know to do is laugh at it. If I don't, I'm afraid I'll just crumble away. I can't explain how hard it is for me. I come from a family of alcoholics and addicts.  Some were abusive in ways.It's amazing I'm not hooked on booze or drugs. I don't even drink. (there goes my whole image) and I worry about what I might replace cigarettes with. The odds are against me with an addictive personality and I don't want to be in a position where I find some other addiction. As lame as it sounds, it's the truth.

Not a day or hour goes by that quitting isn't on my mind. I get so stressed if I think too much about it, I smoke more.

So the truth is out. I'm pathetic. I know I have probably reached a point where quitting would have minimal effects on me. A lot of the damage is done or in place.  I stood by my mom's hopital bed the day she passed from emphasema (like my grandfather..and my other 3 grandparents who died from cancer and complications from emphasema) and had to step outside to have a smoke. Two years ago, my uncle who quit smoking 40 years before passed away from fibrosis (spelling?). It was diagnosed and over in a few months.

I look at my daughter. 

I don't know how to stop. I really don't. I just don't seem to want to or have it in me. The thought of leaving my daughter and family alone...

I'm staring and wanting to delete all this. I am so pathetic. I'll let it stand. I got some of it off my chest. Sorry to be such a downer. Good luck to the rest of you. My thoughts are with you.

 @BK13GM: now that was just plain funny!  <=== On me!

ps: Make sure you take the cigarette out before putting the head in....

My father quit after smoking since he was 18.

He's 50 now.

Know how he did it?

Lol, he went to the hospital for pneumonia.

They admitted him for about 3 days, he wasn't allowed to smoke, they gave him a patch.

When he got home, he said well, why start again?

Hasn't smoked since.

It's been a year.

Good luck. ;D

I know 3 folks that quit that way this past year...only it was heart attacks. Now they lecture me.

I was hoping when I had my spinal fusion done they would keep in for a few days. They esnt me home after one day. My insisting they wheel me outside to smoke probably didn't help. I get very ugly. My wife ...she had to nudge me to get me to finish chewing my food because all the vicodin I was on. She made them take me back up when I started passing out with the cigarette in my hand.

Actually,I just hold the targets.I used to be a cannon cleaner......but I was FIRED!

1. Using Vicodin or any other pain med at a fixed and dose and interval is not addiction. It is the EXACT reason the med was created.

2. If the pain control is inadequate, the med should be adjusted upwards in dosage/frequency, or another added...there are many ways to do this, Po.

3."I worry about what I might replace cigarettes with. The odds are against me with an addictive personality and I don't want to be in a position where I find some other addiction. As lame as it sounds, it's the truth."

You and only you are in control of that. You DON'T have to "replace" anything with anything else. Awareness is the biggest thing (besides your talent) you've got going for you.

4. "Not a day or hour goes by that quitting isn't on my mind. I get so stressed if I think too much about it, I smoke more."

If Anxiety and Depression are underlying, or have come about as a result of Chronic Pain, then they should be treated if only to reduce those problems which are increasing your perception of the pain. It's a vicious cycle, Po', and you really shoud call your MD or go to a pain specialist (a really good one) and ask him/her to set aside time to talk with you. The meds commonly used (and if possible Effexor because of it's mechanism of action) will really help.

"I'm staring and wanting to delete all this. I am so pathetic." Po', this sounds like Depression. Anxiety is a feature and at times the most prominent feature of it.

I'm really trying to be your friend, and I wish you'd accept my advice and act on it.

BTW, you spelled Fibrosis correctly, but Emphysema is spelled this way.

Doc

I don't know why it's so easy for some and hard for others.

My grandmother couldn't and died from it. My mother still smokes and can't quite. She is 50 and looks like shes 70.

My brother in other hand quit as soon as his new girlfriend asked him to. He now is married to her and has 4 children, and never smoked again.

As of myself I never started smoking at all and never will. Good thing because it would probably be very hard for me to quit smoking.

Sound advice!

/me thinks good thoughts at Po' and suggests he read AND RESPOND to PMs. 

You're preacin to the choir.

I have. Three 'pain management' specialists. They ALL wanted to treat me for depression. The first I had to beg for an MRI. That was when they found my spinal cord was squashed and I had to have a spinal fusion the next day.

The second said I also had stinosis (which the MRI found in my neck was squashing my spinal cord) in my 'lower' back now. But still wanted to put me on anti-depressants. I told him if he got rid of the pain I wouldn't be depressed. I demanded a third opinion. He sent me to...are you ready for this...his twin brother/doctor. You know what he thought? I begged for a mylogram which he insisted would show nothing was wrong and it was ALL in my head. When I went back a week later, he hid his face behind the file as he said there was a lot of problems and didn't bother to apologize for telling me the test would only confirm it was ll in my head.

I have had to make some decisions. After the spinal fusion, my wife broke down in tears and apologized to me. The dotor had gone to her after the surgery and told her he had never seen it so bad in someone my age and couldn't undertsnad how I was tolerating the pain at all. She said she was sorry because she thought I had been exagerating. She said the doctor told her he couldn't remeber ever having to file so much bone down on one person. I go for nerve blocks every three months for my lower back. I've had bone burned out of my right shoulder and need to do the left..and probably the right again.

One thing I heard from my doc and the neuro guy was that sometimes you have to decide how much pain you can live with. My neck was pretty bad..but that took years..so I built up a tolerance for it. I'm learning to do it with what I have left. I take the vicodin VERY sparingly..maybe 3 times a week if I can do without it and only before bed so I can sleep. Without it, the pain wakes me after 2 to 3 hours of sleep and I end up making some wierd wallpaper or another skinhit/photoshop pic at 3 in the morning.

The past 6 months I have hit an entire new level in what I can live with. I just keep adapting. I'm tired of doctors and drugs and surgery and tests. There is not one inch...not ONE that hasn't been examined, poked, scraped, CT, xrayed, or had something done to it on my body. At this point...depending on the pain..smoking is almost theraputic.

I appreciate the advice and that you care. I haven't given up on trying to quit. I just have so many other things stressing me out, I can't handle the stress of quittting. At least not right now.

Just a couple of things...don't wanna tax you (as the IRS says). Having the physical problem doesn't prevent the depression. It isn't an either/or. The opposite is true...it's more likely. I'm sorry you ran into MDs like them. What can I say? I'm sorry we never met when I was at MUSC. There are meds and other treatments, Po'. If you lose hope and give up, who loses? Only you.

You could discuss Duragesic skin patches...I used them with great success in my pain practice...in fact in one young woman with a crushed nerve to her left leg and withering of that limb. She was in terrible pain. I also treated her depression with great success. I really wish you'd talk with your MD about a trandermal duragesic skin patch. You  can start at 25 microgram/hr. The patch is changed every 3 days. You cover it with tegoderm so it won't fall off if you sweat.

If you don't pursue it, or give up hope, no one will do it for you....that's for sure.

 Like everyone here doesn't know what great friends you are.

Good luck, Po'. From the heart.

DrJ

I don't understand why you or anyone is under this misconception that I am friends with..HIM. It's really frustrating.