Another way to quit smoking,

January 20, 2002 10:45 AM

Another way to quit smoking, or is it just another ploy to make a quick buck? As a smoker, I think this could be a great way to quit, if it actualy works. Are there any other Mi-Fi'ers that are trying to quit smoking?

[Stolen from Fark.com]
posted by SweetJesus (39 comments total)

yuck! that looks disgusting!! i've been smoking for 6 years and i wouldn't drink that water. that's like "water joe," (caffienated bottled water) great idea but it tastes horrible. another issue is that a lot of people aren't just addicted to the nicotine. i know i crave the actual act of inhaling more than nicotine, sometimes.
i know one thing; if those All Smoke High and The Truth ads had been running when i was in high school, i probably wouldn't have started smoking to begin with.
posted by misscolleen at 11:01 AM on January 20, 2002

This is from a comment on Fark..

If you drank a bottle of that shiat, you'd probably die. When concentrated, the amount of nicotine in two cigarettes could kill a man easily. Nicotine also tastes like shiat...why anyone would want water w/ it in it is beyond me.
posted by Mark at 11:06 AM on January 20, 2002

I quit smoking 17 days ago (and 20 hours, but who's counting?) and the only thing that has helped me not smoke is not going out much. Knowing full well what my triggers are (beer, beer, laughing, talking, beer) I've chained myself inside, going out only to do boring daily things that have nothing to do with smoking (and/or beer). The one night that I went out and had BEER, I actually stole a cigarette from a friend of mine, and tucked it in my sleeve until my husband and I got out to the car. When I mischieviously showed him my contraband, I got the look: "Well, you can do whatever you want, but I will be very, very sad when you're going through chemo. *sniff*" I didn't smoke it.

This crap looks like stuff to bilk the addict without really doing anything at all for you. And truly, the best part about smoking IS SMOKING! I think the only way to deal with quitting is to deal with how much the act of smoking becomes intertwined with one's life. Drinking water that had poison in it is defeating the whole thing, and it isn't regulated like a patch either.

I quit cold turkey, so what do I know? I just know that beer in bars is the kiss of death to me right now, so I sit home and read MeFi a lot.
posted by readymade at 11:38 AM on January 20, 2002

I don't see why this couldn't sell like hotcakes at the airport or onboard a non-smoking plane. Mix it with Kool Aid or something, better yet brew coffee with it.
posted by skallas at 11:49 AM on January 20, 2002

i stopped smoking 189 days ago. the only thing that has helped me not smoke is to not smoke. it sucks, but when you get right down to it, that's all there is...
posted by quonsar at 12:08 PM on January 20, 2002

oh - the best part is i stopped counting days a while back - i actually had to do some quick math before posting :-)
posted by quonsar at 12:09 PM on January 20, 2002

Starting smoking was the biggest single mistake (there are plenty of more complex ones) that I ever made.

I have "successfully" quit several times in my life. Sometimes for as long as five years. But I miss it every day when I don't. Every single day. The patches, gum and now water only helps in one way: it supresses the homicidal rages during nicotine withdrawl.
posted by victors at 12:15 PM on January 20, 2002

Ugh, I've quit twice, and now I'm stuck. Despite that, however, I'd sooner eat my cigarettes than chug-down a bottle of that viscous, wretched-looking water. Oh lord, that stuff looks like watered-down chocolate milk. I'm sure its taste is comparable to actually pureeing cigarettes and adding a little water to help 'em go down. Yeech!
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:26 PM on January 20, 2002

nicotine water? that just.. it just... sounds so wrong.

::baby nature cries::

so.. another one of my out of curiosity questions.. what motivated the people here to first start smoking?
posted by lotsofno at 12:48 PM on January 20, 2002

Stupidity.
posted by websavvy at 12:57 PM on January 20, 2002

lotsofno:

I am the only person I know of who actually started smoking as an adult. I picked it up when I was working at a place where almost everyone else smoked, and I was feeling stressed-out one day and asked to bum one, hoping it would relieve a little of the stress. It did.

I quit once for about a year, but picked it up again one night after a delicious salmon dinner. On the way home from the dinner my friend and I simultaneously said "Wouldn't a cigarette be good right now?", so we stopped and bought a pack. Man, that was a good smoke.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:00 PM on January 20, 2002

Screw the water, then. But a non-condescending 'bravo' to all of you who are trying to quit one way or the other.
posted by Hildago at 1:10 PM on January 20, 2002

Bravo, as well.
Also, only perpendicular to the point, but ...
I'm a coffee person in the same sort of way that James Brown is a black person, and I once tried to make an espresso with that Water Joe crap...

Don't, okay?
Just don't.
posted by dong_resin at 1:24 PM on January 20, 2002

After smoking a pack a day for 13 years, I quit on August 8 and haven't looked back... I tired the patch, and the gum, and finally the pill, which worked. Whatever it takes to quit, you gotta do.

That said, this Nicotine Water seems pretty fishy. I can't imagine how awful it would be to force a bottle of that down.
posted by emptyage at 1:34 PM on January 20, 2002

Cold turkey, baby. The fiendish headaches and violent rages stop soon enough.
posted by muckster at 1:42 PM on January 20, 2002

so.. another one of my out of curiosity questions.. what motivated the people here to first start smoking?


Insecurity. Smoking doesn't make you cool, but it makes you think you're cool, which is most of the way there.

When I quit (3 years ago), I found cooking to be a decent substitute for smoking, since it combines oral gratification with playing with fire. Also, one the great pleasures of giving up smoking is being able to smell again. Smokers think they can smell, but they really can't.

Good luck to all of you ex- (or would-be-ex-) smokers.
posted by electro at 1:57 PM on January 20, 2002

The fiendish headaches and violent rages stop soon enough

soon enough for who? I live with three other people I normally am charged with protecting from harm.
posted by victors at 1:58 PM on January 20, 2002

As others have said, the best thing about smoking is the smoking. I used to be a heavy smoker and then used the patch to get off the addiction. However, for the past few years I've been a social smoker -- able to not smoke for weeks at a time but get me out for a pint or hanging out with my friends and it's ten cigarettes in an evening.

The only thing that has really helped is to find something to do with my hands. When I would go to a friend's house who smoked I tried to bring a deck of cards. I like poker and was more than willing to play but mostly I would shuffle the cards or do something with them when I *really* wanted to bum a smoke. I've been trying to think of what I could bring to a bar that wouldn't look weird. I guess I'll just have to shred napkins.

I also think that what non-smokers don't know is what a huge bonding/social experience smoking is. Go to a bar and ask for a light or head outside to huddle with the smokers and you've got instant companionship and a connection. It's great for getting to know coworkers. That is what I miss most when not smoking.

So, nic-water? Yuck. So not what it's about.
posted by amanda at 2:03 PM on January 20, 2002

If you actually look past the front page, they show another bottle of nicotene water that looks clear. The front page image looks like it was taken with a digital camera someone got out of a Cracker Jack box, and the water looks brown because of poor editing.
posted by Danelope at 2:10 PM on January 20, 2002

I like the list for potential vendors of nicotine water including: "gyms, spas, coffee houses" (What, no high school cafeterias? Oh, I guess you have to be 18 to purchase...)

Started smoking because I felt alienated and weird as a teenager. Kept smoking because I began to really enjoy it for smoking's sake. Am trying to quit because of visions of iron lungs and oxygen tanks on wheels trailing behind me.

When they make smokes that are GOOD for you, I'll be there.
posted by readymade at 2:58 PM on January 20, 2002

I started smoking because I was such an obvious non-smoker type that it seemed like a good joke. Also a forbidden thrill, although I wouldn't have admitted it.

I quit smoking by not smoking. There is no other way. Yes, your mind goes through some strange distortions and offers you some bizarre but (to your desperate self) plausible reasons why you ought to smoke. Just look them in the eye and see them as ridiculous. Do NOT ignore them, or the urge the smoke. Just study it.
posted by argybarg at 4:14 PM on January 20, 2002

that stuff is horrible, plus it makes you pooty pooterson
posted by noodler at 4:33 PM on January 20, 2002

I started smoking because a bit of tobacco helps bind a reefer together. Then I started more habitually when a girlfriend smoked. I decided to smoke too. It was only about five years ago that I became heavy smoker.

I 'gave up' a few months ago because I knew it was damaging my health. In that time I've had maybe 10 smokes. Always at parties or after a traumatic experience.

I don't look at the 10 as 10 failures. I move on. The way I see it, I'm not smoking a packet a day any more. I don't let my weakness drag me down. Otherwise, I'll just give in to the demon and go buy a carton!

If I had of quit and said, NO MORE EVER! It would have been a lie.

And believe it or not, those nicotine patch ads on the TV make me want to smoke!
posted by skinsuit at 4:34 PM on January 20, 2002

I finally quit smoking a year and half ago, after ten years of addiction. I'd tried to quit before and always failed miserably.
It's all about proper motivation.
I finally told my girlfriend/roommate at the time that I would give her $500 if I ever smoked a cigarette again. She wrote up a contract and had me sign in it in front of a witness. I know that she would hold me to it.
Suddenly, that 20 cent cigarette would cost me 500 dollars.
I haven't smoked since, even though I haven't see her in almost a year.
I think that I'd rather pay $500 than drink the nicotine water.
posted by thebenny at 5:26 PM on January 20, 2002

We've done this before, but I'll dive in again. It'll be two years ago on Feb 4 that I quit, after about 18 years smoking.

It was surprisingly easy, thanks in very large part to Nicorette Inhalers. I don't know if they are available in North America (I lived in Australia at the time), but they're plastic cigarette-analogues into which you put a little plastic cartridge containing a little sponge soaked in menthol and the equivalent of about 1 full-strength cigarette's worth of nicotine. In Oz you can get them without a prescription at pharmacies.

I sucked on these like there was no tomorrow, and still have some stashed away for emergencies. But they totally quelled the cravings, and when I was out drinking, the very action of holding and puffing on the plastic thing was enough to fulfil that desire too.

I've smoked a couple of cigars over the intervening two years, but have no desire to go back to ciggies. I'm lucky, perhaps, but I am definitely an inhaler evangelist now.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:40 PM on January 20, 2002

I quit smoking 17 days ago. Smoked a pack a day since I was 13, quit twice before, once for 6 months and once for 4 months. This time I mean it. Cold turkey everytime, just try not to think about it and don't buy them under any circumstances!!

I started when my best friend started stealing them from his Dad. Winston straights. I'm starting to get antsy, so I'm going to another thread.
posted by David Dark at 6:52 PM on January 20, 2002

I started smoking at the age of twenty, because my girlfriend at the time found it less objectionable than my previous habit of dipping Copenhagen.

Yes, I know. I'm a goober.
posted by Optamystic at 7:14 PM on January 20, 2002

Two years on valentine's day. I didn't see any reason to try the patch. There are (were) only four necessary ciggies anyway: when you get up, after sex, after a meal, and before bed.
posted by adampsyche at 7:22 PM on January 20, 2002

I stopped smoking about a month ago (don't even keep track..) when I started on Anti-depressants. The happiest coincidence of my life. (Wellbutrin is Zyban or whatever which is the anti-smoking drug.) Simply put, I knew I wanted to smoke, but it didn't bother me not to. And now it's no longer a habit, as I've changed my routine.
posted by fnirt at 7:27 PM on January 20, 2002

victors: you missed smoking every day for as long as five years? Holy cow, you poor guy.

For anyone else trying to quit, this is a very atypical experience. I quit in 1976, cold turkey. I had been a 2-3 pack-a-day smoker. I had a physical craving and irritability for a couple of weeks, mild psychological desire (especially after meals) for as long as a year, but since then, I've been fine. Most people do get over it in a reasonable period of time.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 8:05 PM on January 20, 2002

The Truth ads had been running when i was in high school, i probably wouldn't have started smoking to begin with.

Thanks to TheTruth adds, I want to smoke, and have tried it several times, but it does not seem like a habit worth picking up. I guess I did it just to spite them in my own, private, contrarian way, along with the sense of supreme irony I would get while smoking and watching/reading their ads. (Which are a result of the government settlement against the tobacco industry).
posted by insomnyuk at 10:04 PM on January 20, 2002

Again, whenever this topic comes up: I am a smoker (sometimes a little militant, but alot of that has to do with strangers teling me how disgusting i am for it).

I have tried to quit a few times but it really is a matter of motivation and mindset. I've had one of them each time I've tried to quit, but never both. The longest I've quit is a month, and the shortest was 8 hours (I woke up the next day, had a half pack of smokes on my nightstand and lit up without thinking about it)
posted by tj at 10:55 PM on January 20, 2002

I'm giving up smoking tomorrow, as part of a new year resolution. I'll be using the patches again, which worked for me last time, although I'll start on the lower strength ones. Last time I was getting more nicotine from the big patches than my cigarettes!
posted by viama at 12:54 AM on January 21, 2002

however, for the past few years I've been a social smoker

That's a slippery slope, and unfortunately I like skiing!

I gave up four years ago, for three and a half years. Then I succumbed and shared a joint at a party about six months ago, with tobacco in it, and then I slipped back into the occasional "social smoke" with a beer, which has turned slowly into me buying and smoking about a half an ounce of tobacco a week again (which admittedly isn't much).

I'm giving it up again next weekend. It's just a case of mustering the mental energy. I've had success with cold turkey in the past, but having observed friends efforts to give up, I've concluded that alternative nicotene sources don't seem to work. Staying quit is more about getting the right mind set than overcoming the physical symptoms, which are over in any case inside a week or two.
posted by walrus at 6:14 AM on January 21, 2002

quonsar has the best advice yet : just don't smoke, and that's the way I quit in June after 10 years of a pack a day.

I fail to see the merits of nicotine supplements. Quit for 3 days, and the nic monkey is essentially off of your back - from there it's breaking the HABIT. And THAT, my friends, is the hard part.

If they could put warm, smooth smoke into that bottle maybe I'd believe it could help. better yet, if they could fit the smokey contents of my hypothetical bottle into a slender paper container that could be held betwixt my fingers then....
posted by glenwood at 7:01 AM on January 21, 2002

I'm great at quitting smoking, I average about twice a year.
posted by vbfg at 7:28 AM on January 21, 2002

David Dark:

Take this for what it is, just advice. But I believe it's important: If you go into this process determined to ignore your wish to smoke, to pretend your urges aren't there, and to not think about your thinking about cigarettes, you're doomed. You have to look at your urges squarely and experience them fully and still not be mastered. Recognize what you're experiencing and experience it fully. Otherwise, you emerge from your experience with your emotions all pinched and puckered over the spot where you're not smoking.
posted by argybarg at 7:47 AM on January 21, 2002

I'm down to one a day and a burst of 3-4 a day every other week... purely due to will power. thats one cigerrette and not one pack.
posted by adnanbwp at 11:44 AM on January 21, 2002

I'm down to one a day and a burst of 3-4 a day every other week... purely due to will power. thats one cigerrette and not one pack.
posted by adnanbwp at 11:44 AM on January 21, 2002