Quit smoking and I feel terrible!!!

[aarona54]

Hey everyone,

I'm a 33 old male who just quit smoking after about 15 years at about a pack a day max. I'm at about 8 weeks now and I have cheated a couple times, I've about 10 cigs max since quitting. The last week or so I've felt awful. Chest pains, insomnia, anxiousness, etc. I'm just wondering if all of this is normal? I've done internet searches with my symptoms and they all seem to want to tell me the worst possible thing they can. I was hoping anybody else who has quit is able to tell me anything about there experiences with quitting smoking. I'm to the point I feel so terrible that I've gotten close to smoking again to feel better but I know its counter-productive. Any and all info will be helpful.

Thanks

[jennip74]

you do realize that each time you cheat you set yourself right back at the beginning of the cravings and chances are you'll never get fully over it until you stop. one cigarette delivers the full amount of what you used to get in a short period of time. think heroine. if you try to detox slowly by using heroine every so often it won't work. vaping will help you cut down the cravings while not giving you everything you used to get. if needed there is also something called WTA eliquid. it gives you more of what tobacco did but you can water it down and wean yourself off of it unlike smoking. detoxing can be pretty miserable. if you're ever concerned go to the doctor. cutting out as much caffeine as possible will help stop the anxiety and such. insomnia is also a normal part of coming off of it and will go away eventually. just realize whatever your body is doing now will never be helped by smoking again. it only delays the process you need to go through. just never allow yourself to be addicted again once you break this habit. it took me almost three weeks to stop the physical addiction.

[Sara_MHModerator]

Hi jennip74.  Thanks for your experience and thoughts. Good information to share.  It truly is a battle, isn't it? How many times have you stopped and started?  I also think that is excellent advice to cut down or eliminate caffeine as well but you are right, people will feel pretty lousy for a few weeks. Then they will feel much better after that.  Again, thanks for sharing.

[Don_2009]

Hi, I quit on the 10th of July 2018 and today it is the 10th day. I got a bad sinus infection immediately after and also a sharp stitching pain in my lung area of the right chest. I quite smoking effectively after 6 years of smoking (ranging from 10 to 20 cigarettes a day or more when I drank alcohol). I was desperate to quit smoking because when I tried cutting it down, it was not working out and I had my own stupid excuses to keep it going (stress, depression, etc. etc) However, at one point I grew very desperate to start a journey of sobriety as I was drinking heavily too. So first I quit drinking, with the help of the prescription drugs (to prevent craving withdrawal), which was given for a week. I reduced the dosage myself and tapered it across two-three weeks and never went back to the psychiatrist because I am not a big fan of using prescription medicine (especially allopathy) for "curing" anything and everything, especially when it comes to mental illness. However, I am not anti-vaccine. I decided to revamp my routine entirely and also one of my friends suggested me about this book by Alen Carr (which is the easy way to quit smoking). I did not want to use patches or vaping or any other replacement for this habit and I quit it cold turkey while reading the book. I applied the same principle to alcohol too. I enrolled for yoga classes (meditation, breathing exercises), cut down on fried, salty and sugary foods, ate mostly vegetarian food, got a hell lot of ayurvedic supplements and herbal teas and started following a new routine altogether. I started taking one step at a time. Say let me start with yoga. I started waking up before 5 am to feed the dogs, freshen up, drink a glass of lemon juice and honey in lukewarm water. Slowly i started adding one simple task every day to my routine and I must say 10 days later there is a huge difference from when I started. I have three dogs and two cats. I started reading and implementing advice mentally first from the self-help books. So, in short, is that you need to add a positive constructive activity that will keep you busy in the time that you used to smoke or when you had put that habit (say early morning first thing) . It will work! I still have the stitching chest pain on the right side and i also ventured to the wrong side of internet which made me feel that I have lung cancer, but nothing to worry - you lungs are clearing itself of the toxins. I also a bad sinus infection, which is reducing now. If by any means you can try breathing exercises and meditation (which comes under Yoga). It helps a lot! The first step to effectively quit smoking is to cut off the friends circle who are into it. If you cannot, avoid spending too much time, which once used to be your sessions to smoke or drink.