So I'm trying to get some advice because I have no knowledge of smoking. Quick back ground piece. Reunited w/ 8th grade GF 29 years later via FB. We met one night and really hit it off 3 months ago. I could taste that she smoked and commented on it a few days later. We talked about seeing each other again and I asked if she smoked as I refuse to date a smoker. She told me she only did it on occasion and that she would quit.

She moves w/in a half an hour of me while leaving a messy divorce. She hasn't had any luck finding a job so she has a lot of stress in her life trying to keep her 3 boys lives straight, find work for an income and dealing w/ an abusive STBX husband. Last month she told me Dr's told her now isn't the time to quit smoking because of all the stress in her life. I have a hard time believing a Dr would say that.... I bought her nicoret gum & an E-Cig in hopes of that helping her quit. 2 weeks ago I caved a little and said go ahead and smoke, just don't get back fully into it and not around me. Fri on my Birthday she smoked on her way to meeting me for a movie and noticed it first thing from kissing but didn't say anything. On our way up to my place I drove up next to her and caught her lighting up again..

She told me her 3rd quit date was Feb 1st but then moved it up to Sunday because she was starting a new PT job but then smoked Mon & Tues. She told me in her mind Feb 1st was her quit date but to me she's lied twice already. I have 2 boys and she has 3 and we blend nicely but this is an issue I won't bend on. I don't want to get 6 months in and find out she can't quit because of what's going on. She has quit 4 times before but always started back up because ex smoked and it took stress away.

To me, you find other outlets to get rid of stress. When I was going through divorce I started hitting the gym, I didn't pick up smoking or drinking. Guess I'm just wondering if anyone ever had a Dr told them now wasn't the time to quit? I guess I needed to vent too...

I successfully quit many years ago and I can tell you that there's only one way that works. Cold turkey. All the nicotine gum, patches, and that crap just keep you addicted. You have to gut it out.

Be patient with her. A person has to be mentally prepared, ready, and willing to do it successfully. If she wakes up in the morning and doesn't feel ready, let it go. You have to want to quit.

When she's going to make the attempt, tell her to take a couple of days off at least, get some books she likes, and let her lay in bed all day doing nothing, just reading and taking it easy.

Stock up on good orange juice. I like Tropicana Pure Premium original. Tell her that every time the cravings get unbearable to drink a glass or two of orange juice. It kills the craving and helps clean the residual tobacco crud out of the system. It really works.

Be understanding and realize that when she gets irritable during the first week, it's not her talking, it's the addiction to nicotine talking. Be soothing. This is one of the toughest things a person can do. Non-smokers have no idea what the hellish withdrawal is like. It's an ordeal.

But if she can make it for seven days, she'll be successful. She'll still get cravings after that, but the first seven days are the tough stretch. You suffer from lycanthropy in those first seven days.

It's been many years since I smoked and I feel better and better all the time. She can do it, but she must realize, it's going to take grit.

Cold turkey is the only way that really works. I tried all the other stuff and never made it until I gritted my teeth and gutted it out, and I'm glad I did it.

Good luck. Be a saint, be her angel, be her cheerleader, be soothing, and help her through. Don't get irritable with her during that first week or she won't make it. Oh, and let her eat anything and everything for the first week. Junk food, whatever. It's better than lighting up.

Cheers!

Rick...

+1 to what Rick said. The first week is definitely the hardest as the nicotine leaves the body, and it gets progressively easier after that. I chewed a lot of gum the first few days when I quit, but then again, I was mentally prepared to quit and never pick up a cigarette ever again. It takes time, and she's going to need your patience and support when she's ready.

The biggest thing is that she is going to have to want to quit because no one else is going to force her. Most likely the more she feels forced into the decision the more likely she is to fight the idea of quitting.

It took me a year or slightly more of progressively weaning myself from them. I didn't use the gum and I didn't see a doctor but I had made up my mind I wanted to quit. I used a calendar and charted how many I smoked every day while I was weaning myself from them.

I was smoking a pack a day and I didn't quit cold turkey. I took out a calendar and charted how many cigarettes a day I was smoking for a week and I used that amount as a base point. My first goal was to see if I could get by with one less cigarette a day. I think I did that for a month. After that month I made another cut in my cigarette allotment per day. I kept reducing my allotment allowed per day until I had lowered it to 4 per day. After smoking my 4 per day allotment like a mad fiend for a while something clicked and inside and I decided if I couldn't quit smoking 4 cigarettes per day cold turkey there was something definitely wrong with me.

I quit in Feb 99 and only had one relapse on October 15, 1999 when I had to put my dog down because of cancer. Thankfully the cigrettes turned me green after 8 months and that made me sure I was done with them.


Wheels

Accept her smoking or move on.

She'll quit (or not) when she's ready.

As a non-smoker, you'll have trouble understanding this, but smoking is your best friend for a long-termer. People smoke after they've been operated on for lung or throat cancer, this is not like getting someone to stop leaving empty milk cartons in the fridge.

It might be worthwhile introducing her to the gym in the meantime, because if she does quit, she's going to get waaaaaay fat.

..not only because she might become fat, but exercise can help to quit smoking, or at least to reduce! after exercise i don't have any desire to smoke, at least for a couple of hours
could be a good start..

Good luck

Cheers

Pretty much what has been said above.You cant force a smoker too stop.Just going to make them smoke..weird but true.I still dabble in the evil thing on friday nights if i have a couple of drinks, but get by with knowing i am smoking at least 80 percent less than i used too so atm i am happy with that.

I quit for 8 months one time and 12 months again not long after that.Cold turkey was the only way and like Rick said, once you get past that first week, for me it was the first three or four days that were the killer then it just..got easy.I was happy as a pig in the proverbial when i didn't feel like i needed one anymore and i started to understand how nonsmokers hate the smell of smokers, that being said i did not turn into one of those horrible 'reformed smokers' and start dishing it out to smokers.Smoke if you want just dont blow it in my face was about all.

Once you know you can conquer it , it becomes easy, its a whole mind trip as well, and being a smoker i know you get scared that you will not have your 'friend ' the ciggie whenever you want it, stress, a good part in a book, after food, with tea, coffee, after sex..damn when your a smoker they just go hand in hand with everything.

When you dont smoke you wonder what the f/k where you thinking!

But yeah, try and help where you can , main thing is to try and take her mind of it because when your a smoker and not smoking..every couple of minutes you think about lighting up. Some pretty big mind battles go on upstairs in the first week, and you really do feel not yourself as you are adjusting.

You need to take away a lot of the things you used to do with smoking in the first few weeks, tea and ciggies? Dont have any tea for until you know you have given up, really given up.Alchohol? Give it up for a while too.Get rid of the easy stuff that you really associate with ciggies.I used to take a big bag of mixed lollies to work and twice the amount of food i would usually eat.Drank lots of water and no fizzy drinks because every coke i had came with a cigarette.I switched to a nice grain bread and was making big yummy salad sandwiches , taking lots of fruit, in short i became an eating demon for a while but that tapered off pretty quickly, still ate healthy, just not as much as i did in the first few weeks.

Replaced smoking mainly with being more productive at work and home, used to saddle up the kids and we would all go push bike riding to the park and fly kites every day after work.I did similar as Wheels did too.Made my start date a monday..fresh week..then the Monday the week before i started cutting back from 7 a day so i was at 1 by the sunday, ticked em off on the calendar..saved that last sucker till just before bed then smoked it by myself outside, sort of a goodbye. First day, every time i thought about a ciggy i ate or went and found something to do , only took a few minutes to get it out of mind and once you have done your first full day, well you just realise that you can do another and then string em together.Pretty sure i had no nails in about three days though

Good luck man

I concur with Sauron...cold turkey. I've tried patches, (which work but i break out in a rash where the patch was.) switching to cigars in the hope of smoking less and eventually quitting. Nothing works.

I'll quit one day...one way or the other.


edit....or come to Florida and watch the non-smoking campaign commercials on tv lately....gets you thinking whether you want to or not.

Every smoker has three kinds of cigarettes:

Cigarettes they need.
Cigarettes they want.
Cigarettes they smoke just because.

If one gets in the habit of asking one's self which it is before lighting up, smoking will be greatly reduced, as the latter is the bulk of what gets burned.

The best example is a circle of people who smoke. One lights up and the others dutifully do so as well reflexively. Or out of rote (I always smoke a cigarette on the way to work, for example). Or boredom.

The first two are go-aheads. On my days off I usually smoke two to four cigarettes a day. About ten o'clock I can feel my hair (or what's left of it) start standing on end, which is a good sign of withdrawl.

The same about six.

The other two are because I want to smoke - it's pleasureable.

Anyhow, if she will ask herself which cigarette she's smoking and put down the ones she neither needs or wants chances are she'll reduce smoking by two thirds.

I won't accept something I preach to my kids that is bad for them. I made choices not to smoke, sure I tried it as a kid but never got hooked. She's told me she'll quit, I know she can't quit for me, after being engaged to an anorexic person I've come to realize I can't make a person do anything. If she can't quit or chooses not to I will move on because it's something I don't want in my life and after loosing my Dad to Cancer just last November I'm even more upset about. Even she thought she had cancer because Dr's read her cat scan wrong and they thought a cist was a tumor.

We plan on hitting the gym this weekend as I don't have my kids. I go at lunch so during the week we don't have the chance to work out together.

I really appreciate everyone's comments here, I know I need to be more supporting but I'm finding it very difficult at times which is MY issue.