Stopped smoking cold turkey when my first daughter was born.

For the first year I wanted a cigarette every fucking day.

Years later, I still had dreams where I would light up…

20+ years on, a distant memory.

ivanvanderbyl 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My father did the same thing. He used to smoke a pack a day and the day that I was born he quit and never touched it again, and then when I was old enough to understand cigarettes, he taught me to never start smoking and I never have.

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tempestn 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Though it took my dad a bit longer, he managed to quit for good when I was a kid. Still died of lung disease at 80, but I have to think it would likely have been much sooner if he'd never quit. Anyway, watching him struggle with it when I was young definitely make me repulsed by cigarettes (and most other addictive substances) such that I've certainly never been tempted to try them.

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JKCalhoun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good for him.

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reilly3000 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Stay that way. Your first cigarette will never let you forget it.

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madwolf 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not necessarily. I’m over 40 now and had a total of 3 cigarettes in my life, all of them in my twenties, parties, hanging out with people smoking etc. Every time it was a terrible experience and I was amazed why people do this to themselves…

	▲	JKCalhoun 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah, same for me—the first dozen or so sucked. And then one day they were awesome and relaxing.
	▲	outime 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't think OP advice is wrong as a general advice though. I've also smoked very sporadically and never got really hooked (as opposed to my whole family), but plenty of regular smokers started with that first one. It's better to not take any chances.

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bluecheese452 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had maybe 10 cigarettes lifetime. Haven’t had one in a decade.

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Markoff 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No need to be drama queen. I am also 40+, had for sure 10-20 cigarettes in my teenage years to try it and on social ocassions with friends, never saw the appeal, found the taste disgusting (and remember being dizzy) and don't remember my 1st cigarette at all. For the record I dislike as well taste of beer or coffee, got used to wine, which I drink only when visiting father or him visiting me, so totally like twice a year (though it's then multiday affair). It's same with alcohol addiction, drank fairly enough during teenage years, then pretty much stopped completely during 20s (only rarely with colleagues), then around 30 while in China was drinking daily for lunch and dinner 40+ % spirit (baijiu) for months with colleagues, then completely stopped overnight after finding better (but less laid-back) job.

Now recreational marijuana (ideally through bong) is way way more appealing than dumb tobacco cigarettes which do nothing, had it during my teenage years and also during my 20s on different ocassions with colleagues/friends (one of them used it during cancer treatment) and I can see myself having some even now in 40s if I could buy it legally.

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drooopy 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Went cold turkey during the first covid lockdown. It was a combination of not being able to go out to buy cigarettes and also the fear of dying since I was a heavy chainsmoker.

Honestly, I didn't miss it once.

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SOLAR_FIELDS 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I finally quit because of COVID. I got long COVID so bad and my lungs were so messed up that every time I tried to smoke it was a horrible experience. 6 months later when I finally felt good enough to try again the desire was pretty much gone. I genuinely tried to re addict myself and couldn’t do it

	▲	bityard 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't know if that last line was meant to be funny, but it gave me a good laugh. We should all be so "lucky!"

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pc86 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't know the movie or show but there is a scene where someone asks a woman who quick smoking a long time ago (10 years maybe?) if she ever thinks about smoking and she says "every time someone lights up next to me at the bar I want to suck the smoke out of their lungs."

I smoked more than a pack a day for probably 7 or 8 years and quit a couple years after college, not quite cold turkey but basically just trying to wait a little longer between each cigarette. Eventually when the last half of the pack is stale and disgusting but you smoke them anyway because they're expensive, you just kind of stop one day. It was many, many years of no nicotine at all before I stopped thinking about it every day though.

	▲	JKCalhoun 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, sometimes the whiff of cigarette smoke from a passing stranger puts a small, guilty smile on my face.

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kakwa_ 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Having a motivation, even minor, helps a lot.

For me, it was the requirement to be nicotine free for a few months around a surgery.

I went the patch route and it was a somewhat difficult 3 months, but it has been a blessing not have to clear-out my through every morning or anxiously anticipating stuff like a long flight or train ride.

I also got the "oh shit, I relapsed" dreams for about a year after I quit.

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sick_of_slop 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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