How to Quit Smoking:How to Break Your Addiction Forever
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What You Need to Know
- How to Quit Smoking Without Drugs
- 5 Proven Tricks to Help You Quit for Good
- The Pros and Cons of Quitting Smoking Cold Turkey
- How to Beat 10 Common Smoking Triggers
- An Addiction Specialist Explains Nicotine's Powerful Hold
- Managing the Cost of Quitting
- Don't Go It Alone: Quitting Smoking in Support Groups
- Make Quitting Easier With One-on-One Counseling
- When Smoking Tastes Good, It's Harder to Quit
- Why Men and Women Smoke Differently
- How to Quit Without Gaining (Much) Weight
- Alternative Methods for Quitting Smoking: Hypnosis, Acupuncture, Meditation
- 9 Web Sites That Will Help You—Finally—Kick the Habit
- Slideshow: 10 Smokers Who Kicked Butt
- Visualization Knocked Out Claire's Smoking Habit
- Liz Overcame Her Smoking Addiction With Exercise
- Counseling and a Nicotine Patch Helped Natasha Quit Smoking
- Tiffany Quit Smoking With Anti-Anxiety Meds
- "Support From Ex-Smokers Helped Me Kick My 10-Year Habit"
- "Smoking Damaged the Most Important People in My Life"
- "My Sobbing Daughter Kept Me From Lighting Up Again"
- "I Quit My Pack-a-Day Habit Cold Turkey"
- Book Excerpt: Nuala O’Faolain Struggled to Quit
SLIDESHOW
Quitting Cigarettes: 10 Smokers Who Kicked Butt (or Are Trying To)
We invited readers of Essence and All You magazines to send in their stories about quitting smoking—some successful, some not. Here are some of the responses that came in... Read More
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
An Addiction Specialist Explains Nicotine's Powerful Hold Over Cigarette Smokers
Dr. Michael M. Miller
Addiction medicine specialist
Q: Why is it so hard to quit smoking?
A: The hardest part about quitting drugs is the physical withdrawal symptoms—and it's especially hard to “establish abstinence” when the symptoms hit right away. Nicotine's withdrawal symptoms are powerful and hit the fastest of all drugs. People experience agitation, insomnia, irritability, and strong cravings within two to four hours of their last cigarette. Read More
A: The hardest part about quitting drugs is the physical withdrawal symptoms—and it's especially hard to “establish abstinence” when the symptoms hit right away. Nicotine's withdrawal symptoms are powerful and hit the fastest of all drugs. People experience agitation, insomnia, irritability, and strong cravings within two to four hours of their last cigarette. Read More
SMOKING BLOG: HELP LIBBY QUIT!
Breathing Fire, Not Smoke
Libby breathes fire, not smoke
It’s been a month and a day since I abandoned my binge-smoking ways, but only yesterday did I truly kill my desire to smoke... Read More
SMOKING BLOG: KATHERINE QUITS
I Made It
Katherine really quit
Becoming a nonsmoker reminds me of what it’s like to start a new job. You spend the first few days just figuring out the coffeemaker and putting your mistakes in the shredder. You end the week wishing you could just go back to your old job, where people understood you. Read More
PROFILE
Anti-Anxiety Medication Helped Tiffany Beat a Smoking Addiction
Before she got help, her mood swings were out of control
Four years ago, Tiffany Hudak of Bishop, Ga., lost her mother, a lifelong smoker, to lung cancer. Pregnant at the time, Hudak knew she couldn’t smoke. But after her son was born, she started smoking again. “It’s what I used to cope,” she says... Read More
MY STORY
"When Smoking Became a Pack-a-Day Habit, I Put My Mind to It and Quit Cold Turkey"
Peter worried that his social life would suffer
I always liked smoking but never loved it. It just seemed like a good thing to do whenever I had a drink in my hand, and that's more or less how it all started. My dad is a passionate smoker, still, in his early sixties.I knew that wasn't me; I rarely had the experience of the pure joy of smoking, nor did I ever think, "I can't imagine this not in my life." Read More
