Siegmund Freud would recommend picking up cocaine to replace smoking.

(Ok, he actually used it as a substitute for alcoholics and continued doing so after his first client died of a cocain overdose, but close enough.)

I used Wellbutrin about 7 months ago to quit. And was only on it for about a month or two. I have since gone through the death of my best friend for over 30 years, and recently the loss of a beloved pet of 15 years. Neither of these events triggered my urge to smoke again, so there’s at least a testimony to it’s effectiveness.

More on the process:

So I went to my GP and asked for help in quitting, (habit was a pack or more a day for 40 years) was prescribed Wellbutrin and just went with it. I was smoking while on the medication for probably two weeks or so, and then gradually lost the taste for it along with the urge to smoke. It got to the point where I would forget to smoke at times when I normally would, such as- after waking up/eating, etc.

Having dealt with some extreme grief/sorrow/stress/anxiety over the course of this shitshow of a year and still not smoking as a result of it has been one of the very few things I have to be happy about.

Helping someone achieve this and paying it forward would certainly help make it more worthwhile, so I wish you the best of luck in whatever works for you.

Hang in there.

I’ve been using a Dynavap with CBD (hemp) and it’s worked great: Very similar to smoking a cigarette but it’s a dry herb vaporizer. The main downside is, there’s a decent learning curve to using it well.

For me, I started thinking about the cost and the smell every time I had one. I quit cold turkey a few weeks later and felt grossed out every time I had one after that. I quit in 2009 and haven’t had a cigarette since 2010.

Cigarettes smell really disgusting to me now.

Reduce first but have attainable goals. Go easy and steady.

For some folks cold Turkey works best but it might not be for you.

Most importantly, find a reason that’s really important to you.

Maybe try sports - something measurable. It easier to tell yourself no after a cardio as you realise how it ruins what you just achieved.

Got a lot of really good tips, thanks to everyone for chiming in. I was a serious alcoholic for decades, and haven’t had a drink in 5 years. So I will be able to quit smoking. Thanks again!

I suggested to a friend years ago that he keep all of hit used butts in a jar beside his bed. He came up with this idea that he should add some water to the jar.

The reminder every time he got up or went to bed that the black goop shit was the same stuff he was putting into his lungs every day eventually got him to stop. He couldn’t even look at the jar anymore — and certainly didn’t want to add to it. That thing was nasty.

Excessive masturbation, exhibitionism far from children, and maybe some bubble gum. I think that covers all the bases.

If you’re not opposed to medications, bupropion (brand name zyban) helped me. My cravings lessened almost immediately. Nicotine also feels like it has little to no effect since I started, which was honestly kind of a bummer to find out when I fell off the wagon.

I get medication isn’t for everyone, but just putting what worked for me out there. Funny enough, I didn’t even start taking it for smoking cessation. That’s just one thing Bupropion can be used to treat. It was a two birds one stone kinda situation.

Not sure if it’s atypical, but you could try reading “Alan Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking” and “The Freedom Model of Addictions”. The basic premise of the books is, that if you really want to quit, you will quit easily, and that in order to really want to quit you need to reevaluate the reward value of your habit instead of focusing on the negatives. You smoke because you find it pleasurable. The books guide you to better understand what part of your habit you find pleasurable exactly. Is it the nicotine rush? Or maybe the you like the social aspect of it? After finding out what exactly you find pleasurable about your habit, the books will give you pointers on how to reevaluate if the pleasure you derive from it is really all that great compared to other activities or whether it really solves the problem that you set out to solve with your habit.

Quit specific cigarettes. One at a time.

No more “after meal” cigarettes. Ooh, that’s rough man.

Okay, now, no more “after work” cigarette.

No more “responding to frustration” cigarette.

No more coffee cigarette.

No more drunk cigarette.

You’re probably more addicted to smoking in the scenes/scenarios/circumstances you find yourself in the most frequently than you are to smoking cigarettes. So quit one at a time rather than “smoking” all at once.

There is a lot of solid research behind this method. If you’re a mid 30s American, you might remember the ad from the mid 2000s where the woman carjacks someone so that she can smoke. Narrator comes on “you don’t drive every time you smoke… …but you smoke every time you drive 🤔”

That campaign, iirc, was called “think of a new way to quit”

Sunflower seeds helped me. Watch the sodium intake.

There is no way you could reproduce this now, but when I quit smoking, I worked in a place where everyone smoked, so I got it second-hand for quite a while after that.

Cut both your hands off.

Sunflower seeds