This is just a polite reminder that you'll have to do this soon.
I smoked for approx 23 years. In the final month there was at least one day where I completed the third pack. That wasn't a party night where I was handing them out. That was all me. I quit cold turkey 2,258 days ago (That's 2018). I dont actually keep track anymore, but I was just going through old emails from my boss while looking for something and found a reply that marked this date for me, so now I know.
Here are the 5 best tips I can give:
1) Get the nicotine gum ahead of time. Try it before the day you plan to quit.
2) On day 1, take the day off from work. Tell your boss if you have one, or whomever in your life you want to bolster respect with and interact with frequently... and you tell them why you are taking the day off. You will make yourself liable to someone besides yourself now and it will make day 1 just slightly easier if you dont have to do anything.
3) Take pride in your steak of the # of days without smoking. Breaking the streak is a sin. To get started... there was a lot of saying to myself "If I had only just quit Sunday, I would already be at 2 days and that is the hard part!" Saying that to myself over and over again is something that took place in the 1-2 months before I was able to get up the guts and finally name my real cold turkey day. This is what got me to the point where I could do this. The streak is important even before it begins.
4) No running. It won't be sustainable for your body during the quitting period and it won't take up enough of your time. Lots and lots and lots of walking instead. I walked several times each day for 1-3 hours each time. Sometimes I would get home, start to go crazy again immediately, and just go back out and walk again. I suggest fight music in the headphones because it will be tough sometimes and you will need to make it dramatic if you want to win the fight. I had this on repeat much of the time when it got hard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp74eazjsJo. Get yourself a nice portable charger to charge your phone from your pocket as you are walking.
5) Read the directions, all of them including dosage and risk of too much gum, but especially for gum use reduction over time. I followed the reduction schedule exactly as I recall. You dont really chew the gum. You put it in your lip like chewing tobacco and chew it only when it needs to sort of be reactivated. If you keep chewing it, you won't get as much nicotine into your system.
Assuming 2 packs per day @ $7.50 each, I have saved about $33,870.
Tell me when you are on day 1. Tell also when you fail. Failure is OK as long as you say something such as "I have failed, but I am not giving up and I have already started my streak again".
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