giving up a very bad habit

Just wondering if anyone else out there is trying to quit smoking, as I feel very alone in my quest to do so.

I feel alone because we haven't told anyone that I am pregnant and won't be until we reach the first safe level. Most of my family smoke and all of my friends smoke. I am finding it soooo hard.

I feel depressed at the moment because i don't want to go anywhere because every where I go, people are smoking. IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!! I really want to give up smoking for the sake of my baby, but it is soooo hard... i have had once ciggie today and every drag i took i felt so guilty.

I know it sounds like it is easy, but it really isn't easy to give up smoking. I am not strong enough to do it!

Anyone out there feel the same?:wall:

i have watched my dp try and give up smoking many times and i can see its no easy feat... try not to feel guilty because one cigarette is better then more then one.. do your best and reward yourself for the small steps you make towards your goal.. just remind yourself that you are trying your very best to do whats best for your baby and don't get down on yourself when u slip up because its going to make u depressed and make it harder.. i know i am not in the same boat and i can't fully understand but i am here if u needa vent andi hope my post has been somewhat helpful rather than just preg brain babble

i quit smoking just b4 i fell pregnant. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that I did it before being pregnant as I just *knew* how hard it would be to quit once I was pregnant.

I dont really have any advice, but you really need to quit for the sake of your baby. Cut down as much as possible.

When you want a smoke, just have a drag and put it out. hopefully weaning like this will help you chuck em out soon :hug:

Hi,
Congrats!
I admire that you are willing to give up smoking for the health of you and your baby!!
Good luck with it!!
I am not a smoker, but my father smoked non stop since he was 12, and in the last few years has given it up completely!!
I think he went cold turkey and although he had the bad mood swings etc, it was the best thing he has ever done!
Good luck with it all!
If you fall off the rails one day and succumb to having a 'fag' dont give up!!!
Just get straight back into it!
Just wanted to let you know you have my support;)
Best wishes!
Nicky

I just typed a long post about what I did, and I lost it grrrrr!

I quit by 7 weeks pregnant, I found out at 6 weeks pregnant. I was highly addicted to smoking, very very addicted and never thought I would quit. If I could do it, so can you, I promise! I relied on in heavily for stress levels and I had gone through alot in my life by that stage including a mental breakdown and smoking was a massive crutch for me, a really big addiction.

I found every webpage I could find about nasty effects on the baby, especially reading the still birth risks was horrible. It causes physical deformities too like club foot, things you don't think of. Also it hampers the baby's brain development and they often have small brains. I read somewhere quitting by 7 weeks is best as more can get to the baby after that, which is why I had my 7 week goal. I did these thigngs:

- called the quit line and got advice, also got advice on nicotine replacements that are a no no in pregnancy

- cut down 2 a day for one week to be quit by 7 weeks pregnant

- Read nasty information I saved in favourites everytime I wanted to smoke. I knew that each time I'd read that, that by lighting up I was agreeing to harm my baby.

- bought heaps of lollie pops, icey poles, sherberts and chocolate. Everytime I craved smokes, I ate sugar. I didn't give a stuff about diet at that stage, about worrying about my sugar intake as smoking was far more dangerous to the baby and I was going to do what it took. The sugar supplementing for smoke really really worked.

- Asked my partner to quit, which he did at the same time as me. That was very important.

- Made sure I had no access to any cigarrettes or money for that week so that I wasn't tempted at all. Threw out all lighters and matches and ripped up smokes. There were times that I was begging DP to drive me to the shop, that I couldn't take it anymore and he was great with that and said NO WAY which was exactly what I needed.

- Allowed myself to sleep, cry and scream as much as I needed to in that time. Told everyone around me that I was going to be awful for a few weeks and why, and to ignore me. DP and I had some whopper fights in that time as well LOL. Kids were explained to as well and they were really happy I was quitting and it helped they knew why mum was very snappy.

Most importnant thing is to set a goal right now. Say, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and smoke nothing, or smoke a few. I don't recommened cutting down slowly for longer than a week (quitline's recommendation as well) as it draws it out and makes it harder. If you are going the cutdown method, make sure you are actually cutting down.

Also, don't get caught in the trap of saying you'll just continue with one or two a day, or even a couple of drags a day. Quitline and my dr told me that by doing that you are actually taking in the same nicotine because you are taking a bigger more lasting puff and studies have shown it doesn't lessen the risk of bad things to baby at all. It does nothing to stop the addiction too which is what you need to end more than anything. Doing that you still remain addicted and often will go back to having more smokes on a bad day anyway.

Read read read is a great thing too, if you read things about the effects of smoking on baby it really helps. Everytime you crave one, read the horrible truth.

I felt rotten for a few weeks, then much better. The guilt factor alone is a huge thing, and once you've succeeded it feels great. Reward yourself after a certain period of time for giving up too, I got a facial and massage which costed what 3 weeks of cigarrettes would cost, so you can see the other benefits.

I promise you you can do it. I was the most hopeless case there was and I could, so you definately can.

Good luck hun and keep us posted!

Sorry this is a bit grammar and spelling bad, I typed in quickly because I lost the other post I made.

I have been a pack a day girl up until feb this year, nearly over a pack a day but DH and i were smoking and it was soo hard to stop!
I had surgery and was advised not to smoke, i felt like crap when i got out and would have killed for a ciggie but thankfully as i was staying at mums FOR A FEW DAYS, she stopped me.
Its been 7 weeks now and i wont lie, i still crave them but by the time i actually got in the car to buy some, the cravings gone. The habit was more so a problem for me, wake up, make coffee have a smoke....go shopping, get out to car have a smoke...i know i was a heavy smoker and thankfully as i was ill for those days i stopped. Hubby went bush for 3 days with mates who didnt smoke and they were too far from a shop to buy any so he stopped.
We still crave but we support each other, we haved saved approx $1000 in this time too, i am astounded we were spending so much!!
Honestly i have tried for 5 years to give up, using patches, gum, etc and nothing worked for me except going cold turkey.
Try find something as a hobby to take up that engrosses you so you forget about having a ciggie it will help i am sure! Walking helps me too and i feel alive, i am glowing, i can taste food (everything smells off lol as its so strong) i am saving a fortune and i can breathe...

Good luck, its damn hard to give up, but if i can stop ANYONE CAN!!

The day i found out I was pregnant with maddison I threw away my pkt of cigarettes & have never ever had a drag since!
I dont miss it, I find it repulsive nowadays..

I died twice as a baby from Bronchial Pneumonia, both my parents smoked heavily & would have been those parents with 3 kids in the back of the Kingswood with windows up & smoking like chimney...

I decided I didnt wnat that for my baby/ies... So I just threw them away 7 never looked back...

I know it's hard i have watched my Mum deal with quitting over & over, it's been a good 3-4 yrs now since hse has had 1. My Dad refuses to quit as its' his only enjoyment in life (he is wheelchair bound from MS).

I wish you luck, but to even cut down to a smoke a day is a huge achievement....

I dont want anyone to take this badly or personally but my friend smokes & has thru all of her preg's with her DD#1 they asked her after the placenta was delivered if she smoked, she said yes & they showed her about an inch square of her placenta where it was dry & grey & holey, then with DD#2 it was about as big as her hand all spread out, she is now preg with #3 & trying to quit, she is down from 15 odd smokes a day to about 7, so far so good....

Best of luck!!!

I have no advise for you, but just good luck. My DH is trying to quit (for 3months now), and whilst i dont know exact how hard it is, it must be even harder when you are preg as you cant use patchs gums etc.
Perhaps try hypnotherapy.
Also, Tara has some good sggestions. Read all about all the nastys, and what it can do to you, and your baby might help. Every puff you take, tell yourself what its doing to baby.
But, i have never had to do it, just good luck, and it is possible.

I just want to say good on you for what you are doing. You had one ciggie today - buthow many would you have had otherwise? Don't beat yourself up. Quitting is HARD!!! And you have all the added strain on your body of being pg too. So I don't really have any advice, I just want to say, don't beat yourself up. And don't feel alone, you aren't. You should feel very proud to have cut down so dramatically & trying to quit completely - well done! :clap:

You actually can use the lozenges and gums while pregnant but only do so under strict medical guidance. My friend was a pack a day smoker, fell pregnant and had trouble quitting, she cut down to 10 a day, but was found it hard to stop those last 10. The doc told her to try NRT as it was better to do that than smoke. He went through it all with her step by step to make sure she didn't OD on nicotine and she managed to quit altogether.

Sirenz, I'm not a smoker but I have seen my sister and a friend go through this battle many times. I just wanted to say how much I admire you as I know how hard this is. One thing my sister found useful was to do some counselling as when she stopped smoking all the emotions that she had suppressed each time she had a ciggie started to come out - that was the hardest part for her, dealing with all those emotions she had ignored. I hope you are able to get some wholistic support like that too.

Good luck - I also had a thought - perhaps you could ask the mods for a quitting smoking thread - I'm sure there are many who are going thru the same thing as you.

I smoked when I was pregnant with both James and Madeleine.... I hated it, and wanted to quit soooooo bad, I just couldn't do it.
I cut down on the milligrams, and how many I had per day... I smoked around 2-3 per day, and made sure I only smoked when I was desperate. Some days I didn't smoke at all.
When I fell pregnant with Noah, I gave up smoking... I stopped on the day after my wedding... I was 7 weeks pregnant.
I smoked again for a month after losing Noah... I decided that it made me feel gross, and it was best for me to stop so I could give my body the best chances for TTC.
I haven't smoked now since March 2006... just over a year.

I wish you all the best... quitting is hard... and I think you definitely need to have a supportive partner... My DH doesn't smoke, but never pestered me to stop... he encouraged me when I did. Also, don't beat yourself up if you do have a smoke, it is hard and you don't need to be hard on yourself too.

My biggest thing was being able to say how many days I haven't smoked for... If I had gone a whole day, then I could say I haven't smoked for a day, or a week or whatever... if I had one, then I had to start that all over again.

Sirenz, when I fell pregnant for the first time I was a 20 a day smoker. I cut down heaps but was still smoking maybe 3 ciggies a day? Feeling shockingly guilty but figured I'd cut down slowly so I wouldn't slip up and fall; just wean myself off them.

One morning I woke up and just didn't feel like a coffee or a cigarette. My hubby made me a cup of coffee and I just couldn't drink it; nor could I have the ciggie that usually went with it. This was at about 8 weeks pregnant I think; my body just suddenly took matters into its own hands and made quitting easy for me.

I had an argument with my parents a few weeks later and straight away lit up a ciggie; old habit - stress ciggie! But I couldn't finish it and then went to the bathroom and was sick. Body was completely over it.

I won't lie and say that I never felt like ciggies again; but I kept that feeling in my head always - the feeling of how horrible ciggies are when you haven't had one for a while and how the taste lingers and smell lingers and makes you feel a bit dizzy and vomitous.

Hope you can do it whichever way works for you.

x

Thank you all for your support!!

I haven't had a ciggie today so thats something good! I haven't bought a packet since i posted my first thread about smoking, but i have had a few of dh ciggies.

He is supportive and letting me do this in my own time. The "all day sickness" i have at the moment is also helping me to quit and cut down.. I can't even eat anything with flavour let alone have a ciggie, but that also makes it hard cause if i have like a lollipop or something to compensate for the ciggie i feel like crap :cry:

anyway, thanks once again, i will keep soldering on and i will read through all your posts when i feel like a ciggie to remind me i don't need them.

Another thing you could try is to talk to your baby (this is what I did) and promise that you will do your best to stop...not promise that you will cos if you slip up at times you will feel ten times worse. Every time I felt like one I would think of my promise to do my best and also find something to do for at least 5 mins and your mind will forget about the ciggie. Best of luck and don't be too harsh on yourself, it's not easy for most people to stop and break this habit.

Just wanted to say good luck with quitting...i know it's very hard, but believe me it is so very worth it.

I smoked when i was pregnant with my DD :doh: ...admittedly i cut right down to about 1 a day, but i felt so incredibly guilty about it...i ended up quitting at about 30 weeks...i just couldn't do it to my baby.

Stupidly, i took it up again when DD was about 8 months old (very stressed out with work, etc), but the day i found out i was pregnant again, i quit straight away.

It as now been about 8 weeks since i've had a somke...and it has actually been quite easy. It actually repulses me now to think about having a cigarette...i really hope i can stay a non-smoker for good now!

Good luck...i really hope you find the strength to give up, you will feel so much better about it.

Dannii :)

I just wanted to wish you the best, I hope you can quit, If I was a smoker I would be too terrified to smoke while pregnant, not everyone knows how bad it really is, just remember that every time you smoke the baby is breathing that smoke directly into their tiny lungs and it suffucates the air air out of their lungs.
I hope everything turns out well for you and your baby, good luck, well done on quiting :clap:

As soon as I found out I was preg I put the ciggies in a draw, closed it and havent opened it since

Now the smell of ciggies makes me want to puke, cold turkey all the way!

I was a pack a day smoker for 10 years and quit quite a few months before i became pregnant - I read Allan Carrs The easy way to quit smoking, i highly recommend it! I tried lots of things that didnt work and after reading it i put out the last smoke, and never looked back, i had a few cravings but nothing so bad that i couldnt deal with and the book dealt with all the stuff smokers tell themselves in their head about smoking liek you wont have fun,wont cope with stress etc. Well worth it even when not pg and 100 times more so with your little bubby!
Good luck!! You can do it!

I wish you good luck, but I know what you really want is that magic wand, I know coz I have been there.

I gave up smoking (the first time :redface: ) as soon as I fell pregnant with my first as I was really sick with M/S, so in all honesty it was very easy. I wasn't smoking when I fell pregnant with my second.

Stupidly I took the habit back up when my second was about 2 and was smoking right up until just before I found out I was pregnant again. I took a totally different approach and I had been dreading giving up but so desperately wanted to give up for good, not just for my future pregnancy, but for myself. I found that as I was getting older, I could tell the effect it was having on my body (wheezing, shortness of breath etc) and that scared me as I believe the habit will catch up with you at some point. Some are luckier than others, but I wasn't planning on finding out where I would sit in the ranks of being a smoking survivor.

Anyhow, this is how I did it this time with no morning sickness to help me along. It may sound weird, but I can honestly say, despite being only a "non-smoker" for only about 9 weeks, I have done it considerably easy and without too much trouble. I know that this time I won't ever take it back up too!

1. I got it in my head that if I didn't give up I would be effected health wise somehow and I wasn't about to find out if it was going to be life threatening or just a hinderance. I started to think about all the different types of assistance and I knew whether or not it would be a "help" for me, not many appealed....... so

2. I found a CD which is a subliminal message CD targeted for giving up smoking. I played it on repeat all night, every night. It wasn't a problem as it is just beach sounds, and my husband and I quite liked it, you don't hear any words but it worked wonders with me. Apparently it is a bit like hypnotisim. It is recommended that you listen to it for 30mins for 30 days, I decided 8 hours every night while I slept would be better. After the first night I already felt different about smoking and thought to my self the next time I went to light up "I don't want this". I was shocked it was so simple. I still had the adiction cravings so I still continued to smoke but in the following way.

3. I started to cut back the "mg" I bought. Each week I went down to the next strength. I didn't get too hard on myself, bit like I didn't want to say "no" to myself incase I rebelled! I also didn't acknowledge that I was smoking when I was, and I told others not to say "smoke" around me. I don't know why, but it helped not to "hear" about it. I also told everyone who bugged about smoking to leave me alone as I was on "a program", little did they know it was "my program", but it meant they left me alone or asked me how I was going!

4. I found I was smoking less without trying (all down to the subliminal CD) and as I was going down in strength I was finding I wasn't physcially addicted as much as before. I continued until I was down to 1mg in strength (and this was simplier than I thought it would be), still listening to CD all night on repeat.

5. Then I had to take the final plunge of giveing up altogether. I will tell you right now, I just did it, and I didn't miss or crave smoking. I believe it is because of the way I gave up, in my own way. I think "my program" can be adapted to everyone's needs, and I say that with having passed on "my program" to others with success. There is no cost involved except the CD, and if you do a google on subliminal CD's you should find one, if not let me know and, I will have a look at the name of mine (I purchased it in a new age type store) the rest is down to you WANTING to give up.

I am doing really well, I drink more water, I didn't substitute food for smoking (I think that is down to the CD also) and although I sometimes think "I am meant to be doing something" I realise it WAS smoking and I am not a smoker so I forget about it.

I hope that you find some help with everyone. If you want to ask me anything please do, I know it is really hard especially with others around you (I didn't go near them and eventually they just didn't smoke near me) that smoke, and it seems like a huge feat to overcome, but it really can be done. Remember so many people have given up and when you do it (which you can) you will be so proud of yourself, you will be amazed at how much money is in the bank and that you get so much more time to do things. Not to forget a healthier baby!!!!!!
Best of Luck
Elle

I wish you the best of luck in you endeavour with giving up the ciggies.
I smoked through my first pregnancy. My OB said to keep it under 10 per day as he said it could cause me more stress to try to give up at that point and that is what I did until it came close to the end and my relationship was falling apart. My DS doesn't seem to have suffered from it but I will always feel a little guilty for not having given up then.
Since then I met my new, wonderful DH who doesn't smoke and after being with him for 18 months we got engaged and I decided I wanted to give up before we tried to have children. I tried patches but too soon discovered that you could just take them off to have a smoke.....
Zyban was my saviour, I don't even remember it being difficult to give up. I still feel the odd urge but I know too many who have given in to that and are now full time smokers again and there is no way I ever want to go back to it.
The biggest mind shift was realising that not having the cigarette was not going to kill me - having it probably would eventually.
Best wishes to you.

:

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The biggest mind shift was realising that not having the cigarette was not going to kill me - having it probably would eventually.

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hey i never thought of it that way before.. i think thats great..

and also Elle i will think about your story, as I think that doing it in your own time is about the only way i can do it.

thanks everyone for your support.