Poor smokers trying to quit

[Fortan]

I have a few colleagues who are trying to stop smoking. I was just talking to one downstairs this morning and wondering why he was standing outside having a cigarette - I haven't seen him smoke for a long time.

I asked him why he started smoking again and he told me that all pharmacies in Singapore have run out of Nicotine chewing gum. He started chewing the 4mg stuff some months back, then went down to 2mg and was about to reduce that down to 1mg and eventually stop completely. However for some reason unknown to him, there was no pharmacies that had any nicotine gum left. They couldn't tell him when it would be back in stock either, so he started smoking again.

Anyone else heard about this problem? It must hit a lot of people here using it....

[sundaymorningstaple]

Don't know. Went from being a inhaling pipe smoker at the age of 21 and upwards of 4 packs of Cigarettes for a while at 35 and when I quit at the age of 57 I was still smoking a pack a day (20's). So after a 37 year habit, I laid them down and stopped smoking around 8.5 years ago. Didn't use anything to quit. Just QUIT!

I reckon one can only be successful if one want to quit personally. If you stop smoking because it bad for you (so you've been told). The gahmen wants you to, your wife/kids want you to, etc., you will not be successful. This I can tell you for fact. You have to quit and you cannot do that until you, in your own mind, are ready to quit.

Stopping is like pulling up to an intersection where there is a stop sign or traffic signal. You will eventually start again. (stopped for somebody else's reasons/traffic light)

Quitting is like taking the keys out of the ignition and throwing them away. Doesn't matter if the light turns green or not. You have walked away from them voluntarily because you want to.

Worked for me. The only side effect I had was I went on a seefood diet for could of months and gained about 5 kg in the process. (seefood diets are bad for you. You see food and you eat it!

[Maask]

I have a few colleagues who are trying to stop smoking. I was just talking to one downstairs this morning and wondering why he was standing outside having a cigarette - I haven't seen him smoke for a long time.

I asked him why he started smoking again and he told me that all pharmacies in Singapore have run out of Nicotine chewing gum. He started chewing the 4mg stuff some months back, then went down to 2mg and was about to reduce that down to 1mg and eventually stop completely. However for some reason unknown to him, there was no pharmacies that had any nicotine gum left. They couldn't tell him when it would be back in stock either, so he started smoking again.

Anyone else heard about this problem? It must hit a lot of people here using it....

Have you heard about an electronic cigarette? This has helped many people I know, including my husband. It's as safe as a Nicolette patch or gum as it still has nicotine, but the rest are just food flavouring.

Look it up online, there are many companies selling various mods and there are hundreds of flavours to choose from.

Best of luck!

M

[Wd40]

My wife was telling me the other day that she spotted primary school girls at GongShang Primary School in tampines, smoking. When they saw her arriving they quickly hid the ciggies.

I wonder girls smoking, is it a good thing because that means gender equality which we dont find in developing countries like India or is it a bad thing because smoking after all is bad.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I told my niece that every time I see her light up, she looks like a "working" girl. Sadly, it hasn't stopped her from smoking though. My daughter quit about 1.5 years ago. But I don't think she's quit, but just stopped as she still "wants" one now and then. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[kookaburrah]

Please beware - a couple of years back I was trying to stop smoking and tried getting some electronic cigarettes. Back then they were forbidden items in Singapore and could not be imported. I found this the hard way when an order I made was seized by customs. They may have changed the rules now, but find out about it before you spend any money.

I was a fairly heavy smoker on about 30 a day and I quit about two years ago. I tried a bit of everything without much success until I did the alan carr easy way to stop smoking thingy. It worked really well for me - I stopped after an afternoon session, and haven't really craved a cigarette since then.

Hopefully the moderators will let this through. I'm not getting commissions from them - trying to quit is hard, and good tips should be shared!

[nutnut]

e-cigs are illegal in Singapore (so are cigarette shaped sweets!), you will probably have them caught on the way in to the country by customs. HSA are clamping down on them recently, who knows why, maybe they just want more revenue from taxing cigarettes. Read More...

I am sure there are ways to get them in from JB, they are legal there, but, be very careful if you consider this route.

Recent study shows that they are actually pretty safe, so it seems it's just a revenue generation reason that many countries are making them illegal!

[Edroche]

Try 'Easyway to stop smoking' book by carr. I can only speak for myself but it worked. Once there are no more cravings and you don't have to deal with being on the fence about lighting up - that's when it is 'easy'. The question is how to get to that point (i.e. how is that possible?): The book basically reframed smoking and put it in the context where it belongs and as a result I didn't want to smoke anymore (some psychology). I had tried many times with all good intentions to give up but it didn't work. People use the wrong tools to give up, like will power. What did help is that I wanted to give up before reading the book and was a heavy smoker.

The book altered my belief about smoking. A part of the process is to continue smoking while reading the book. When you get to the end, that is when you stop smoking. Definitely worth a go if they are struggling with giving up. Good luck to them.

[ecureilx]

and then about e-Cigs, I read a news article that Ryanair is pushing Cabin Crew to promote E-Cigs .. !!!